Things you were shockingly old when you learned

it's ok, i'm sure he was using his turn signal

I had no idea the guy who wrote "The Queen's Gambit" was the same guy that wrote "The Hustler," "The Color of Money" and (!) "The Man Who Fell to Earth." Apparently the Beth Harmon character was partly inspired by his own time spent in a children's school, where he was given phenobarbital, and his later life as an alcoholic. Not a bad run of books adapted into movies. Looked at the description of another of his books, "Mockingbird", and it seems like it would be greenlit today, too, since we're already living it: "Mockingbird is set in a grim and decaying New York City in the 25th century. The population is declining, no one can read, and robots rule over the drugged, illiterate humans. With the birth rate dropping, the end of the species seems a possibility."

TIL Czechia is another name for the Czech Republic.

They've only been using it since 2016 but they haven't had much success in persuading people outside, er, Czechia, to do likewise.

Depends on the language. Cehia is more common than Republica Cehă in Romanian. See also: Tchéquie (nearly 50/50 ime), Tschechien.

Either way, it's not as bad as calling the Netherlands 'Holland' like everyone does in French and Romanian. Or using 'England' to refer to the UK in its entirety (sorry, Tom and others).

Czechia has the highest Covid-19 rate of any country in the world, which is how I learned it (a story about how Arizona is the highest "entity" anywhere, with Czechia being the highest country).

Deaths per 100,000 are the only indicator that really matters imo and Czechia is up there but not all the way:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

I figured it had more to do with who gets tested. It was a story from an Arizona TV station that a friend posted on fb, so I knew it wasn't definitive.

should've gone with iCzech

Woss so bad about using holland

It’s actually Holland’s monster

No thats just a small town outside den haag iirc

denhaagiirc darraghmac

No such thing as an innocent synecdoche.

basically:

Holland is a region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. The name Holland is also frequently used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. This usage is commonly accepted in other countries and is also commonly employed by the Dutch themselves. However, some in the Netherlands, particularly those from regions outside Holland, may find it undesirable, even offensive or misrepresentative to use the term for the whole country.

Is Dutch itself problematic. I thought it derived from deutsche and therefore a complete misnomer. Looks like it dervish from an earlier term that ghats itself derives from. But looks like at least officially it's not liked because of connotations in English which are normally negative.

xp In addition to that: people outside of the Randstad/the region of Holland, use Holland as a derogatory term for said region.

I mean, Dutch is the funniest language I can think of.

Czechia and The Czech Republic are both very much like Holland in that they are names for the largest part of the country, excluding the rest. The problem is that that there is no common term like "The Netherlands" which also includes Moravia without including Slovakia.

in the NL case it’s not even the largest part but the historically dominant part

well largest by population anyway

not that it’s even the point, but no, it contains 40 to 45% of the total population, depending on your definition.

Dutch looks like a halfway point between English and german doesn't it?
I mean from what i've seen of it.

whgat do they call themselves ad tehir language Nederlander?

xp which makes it the largest single part by population, I didn't say "the majority part" but yes, it's not the point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_language xp

This is interesting on the word Dutch:

It derived from the Old Germanic word theudisk, which literally means "popular" or "belonging to the populace". In Western Europe this term was used for the language of the local Germanic populace as opposed to Latin, the non-native language of writing and the Catholic Church.[14] In the first text in which it is found, dating from 784, theodisce refers to Anglo-Saxon, the West Germanic dialects of Britain.[15][16] Although in Britain the name Englisc replaced theodisce early on, speakers of West Germanic in other parts of Europe continued to use theodisce to refer to their local speech.

Czechia and The Czech Republic are both very much like Holland in that they are names for the largest part of the country, excluding the rest. The problem is that that there is no common term like "The Netherlands" which also includes Moravia without including Slovakia

idgi, the Czech Republic includes Moravia?

It's Bohemia and Moravia basically?

České Budějovice is a Bohemian-wrapped city

Czech = Bohemia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemia

Sure, but politically, as opposed to historically, the name "Czech Republic" includes the lands of Moravia and Bohemia in the same way as the name "the Netherlands" includes all of its lands.

No, it's different, everyone knows it just means Bohemia really, it's literally "Bohemian Republic" vs "Bohemia-land" - it's like when people used to casually refer to Scotland and Wales as "England" a century ago, only there's no real separatist movement in Moravia and nobody seems to make much of a fuss about it really.

...and no good alternative name being used

Maybe "shockingly old" is a bit of a stretch, but I had no idea until today that artist Ken Kelly, of Conan and Tarzan and metal album cover fame, is the nephew of artist Frank Franzetta.

I mean I must've heard 'Major Tom (Coming Home)' dozens of times in my life but I'm somehow only just now hearing the accent and discovering that Peter Schilling is German.

there's a German-language version, worth checking out if you only know the English one! i would suggest we poll it against the German versions of "99 Red Balloons" and "Der Kommissar," but i'm pretty sure Nena would take it in a walk (even if Falco has the best video).

Cool, will check out! This grave oversight is all the more inexcusable because I'm at least passingly familiar with Neue Deutsche Welle in general. It really should've come to my attention sooner.

Doc, that is an interesting idea but I would be physically unable to rank those three. All three are essential.

Due to only slight interest in the band via classic rock radio I didn't realize that Benjamin Orr sang lots of the Cars' hits. I always assumed it was just Ric Ocasek, the only guy in the band I could recognize by sight. Relatedly, I discovered extremely late what a major fox Orr was.

I think this is a pretty common one because Ocasek was so visible in the MTV era and there's some similarity in their voices.

Okay, I knew about 'Drive' but didn't know he was also lead vocalist 'Just What I Needed' and 'Let's Go' as well. So count me among the shockingly old.

that's not ric ocasek on just what i needed??? 🤯

Wowza:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsPh-EgH65M

Also Moving In Stereo and Candy-O

Yeah, I started to wonder about those two, as well, given the similarity of pronunciation. 'let's gao' and 'moving in stere-ao' and 'Candy-ao'. Orr, you sneaky sonofagun.

The easiest way to tell Ocasek's vocals from Orr's on any given Cars song is to ask yourself "do I want to add 'garsh!' to the end of this vocal line?"

If the answer is yes, it's an Ocasek vocal

Orr's voice is chesty and Ocasek's is throaty. Same range though, and since they're Rik's melodies, that adds to the similarity.

Excellent topic

Orr's an overlooked giant, 'tis true.

Of course if you'd watched the video back in the day, you'd know both that Ocasek was not singing lead AND that Orr was a lovely man and a fine musician