The further we go back in time, the stupider people get, because the
human race has been getting cleverer and cleverer until WE appeared! The cleverest of the lot!
Can’t recall the source of story that USA’s fondness for gambling dates to French prisoners being shipped to California Goldfields where they survived by running gambling houses. Makes sense as terms are in their language. (@Barb_Drummond. Gambling boats on the Mississippi?)
All bird species are the one that mates for life.
Playground bullies do prosper – and go on to earn more in middle age. (Observer headline, March 2024)
Apparently you can tell the skill of an artist in the way they represent hands… (@InDamnatio)
Did the whole “garlic repels vampires" thing come about because garlic is an anticoagulant? (@jailedamanda)
Virtually all ethnic food was created in the last century and popularized by ad agencies. (@memeticsisyphus)
On half-timbered buildings, the more timber on display, the richer you were. (@Grizzlegutweed1)
Romania’s Palace of Parliament is the heaviest building in the world. (@WorldScholar)
Invading another country and telling its people what to do is a western thing. (@faust0karla1re)
Bevis Marks Synagogue is the oldest Synagogue in the UK, completed in 1701. Queen Anne presented an oak beam from one of the Royal navy’s ships to be incorporated in the roof of the building. (Reuven Goldstein @curatorWH)
One of several elongated owls carved by notable local wood carver, HP Jackson, to adorn the frontage of the Old Ship Inn, Brighouse (1927). The Tudor-style faux-framing is a rare instance of the reuse of ship timbers in building, from the HMS Donegal (1858). (@todbooklady)
I was drawn to this little window fashioned within the timber framing of the Talbot Inn in Much Wenlock. Maybe it’s the bull nose glass – the cut-off from the glass blower’s blow pipe.
(@fotofacade. More usually “bull’s eye”, or "bullion glass". Perhaps a
way of creating panes of glass that let in the light but protected your
privacy.)
Along the way in my research, people say there are journals found after men's deaths where they describe successfully turning metals into gold, and then mostly using the money to lay low, live comfortably, and give to charity. This has probably happened independently several times. (@owenbroadcast)
In alchemy, turning lead into gold was a metaphor for spiritual development.
Only the Brits have a
dry sense of humour? I met a woman once who said "They didn't understand my Brazilian sense of humour". Back home, she claimed an English sense of humour. I've also heard "my Dutch sense of humour." (All countries think they’re the one with the dry sense of humour. This may translate as “no sense of humour”.)
In Japan, some people believe that blood type influences one's personality. Specifically, some people think that those with type B blood are more likely to be (among other things) selfish. This new working paper argues that this bias against people with type B blood reduces their marriage rates. (@JohnHolbein1)
Beulah Bondy changed the spelling of her last name to Bondi so the letters would all fit on one line for top billing on movie marquees. The "y" in Bondy would fall below the other letters and cause spacing issues. It was reported that the name change was due to AO Bondy's (her father) ill feelings towards Beulah's acting career. Quite the contrary. AO Bondy was manager of the Memorial Opera House at the time Beulah got her big break as Little Lord Fauntleroy. (Cinema Shorthand Society group on Facebook)
210 reasons for the decline of the Roman Empire suggested by
various scholars include individualism, communism, intellectualism,
degeneration of the intellect, militarism, pacifism and ‘useless
eaters’. (@qikipedia)
Founding Father Thomas Jefferson believed that
reading novels caused "a bloated imagination, sickly judgement, and disgust towards all the real businesses of life". He went on: "A great obstacle to good education is the inordinate passion prevalent
for novels... ...when this poison infects the mind, it destroys its
tone, and revolts it against wholesome reading, reason and fact." (Just like smartphones, jazz, the waltz, rock’n’roll etc.)
Dancer Anne Miller relates that her stockings needed to be sewn to her costumes. “One day she suggested to the man supplying the stockings that he add a top to the stockings so they could be worn as one piece... and
that’s how panty hose was born.” (Tights had been known from the 18th century. Called “fleshings”, they were knitted out of fine silk. This is from imdb, but the writer states Miller said it in a TV interview.)
Frobisher brought back tons of black rock that turned out to be rubble despite endless promises that it contained gold. Apparently, you can still see the stone in walls around Dartford... Park repeats an old Spanish anecdote, that Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula got its name when the Maya were asked what it was called and responded, “Uic athan,” supposedly meaning “We don’t understand.” Nice story, but the etymology is dodgy. (James McConnachie reviews
Wreckers: Disaster in the Age of Discovery by Simon Park Martin. See manna, kangaroo etc.)
India promoted tea to its citizens by introducing chai wallahs at railway stations. Tea was very expensive back then so they made it cheaper by adding milk and sugar. (Rick Stein on the BBC. Tea was hardly expensive in the country where it was grown and produced. Indians already drank tea and presumably liked it with milk and sugar. Tea was expensive in the UK when it was scarce in the 18th century.)
Rock used as doorstop for years found to be worth more than a million (geologyin.com. Unrecognisesd priceless objects are always “used as a doorstop” when not “unearthed from a dusty museum store”.)
Local legend has it that the towns of Bradninch and Cullompton built their churches at the same time. Bradninch’s architect was so proud of his tower he travelled to Cullompton to brag, but saw their tower was much taller and finer. Devastated, he threw himself in the River Culm. (@InDamnatio. Like all those architects whose hotels were built back to front with the entrance in a side street. Their ghosts still stalk these corridors.)
The church tower at Soberton, Hants is not exceptional. Local lore says that
it was built by the butler and a dairy maid from the nearby Manor House
in 1552. The couple are commemorated on the western face of the tower
either side of a skull, she with a bucket and he with a key. Maybe. (@Portaspeciosa)
Various English churches claim that their medieval doors were once covered in the skin of a conquered Viking (or a wolf). These stories became popular in the 1700s, apparently.
I was just stood waiting in line behind an older lady at my local chemist. She’s in a great deal of pain with throat and mouth problems and I overheard her telling the pharmacist that she can’t get a hospital appointment for 18 months. If she came over in a dinghy she’d get seen that day. (@caroldecker. The American language suggests the story has been partly re-used. "I was stood", "in line".)
Others added: What non-existent chemist's branch were your imagination and non-existent old lady not in? (@thefraudguy_uk) Out of all the things that didn't happen, this didn't happen the most. (@ReEdYmAnn)
Trad CofE church in 1980s: 'We need to change our liturgy and music because people don't want to listen to a choir.' Congregation: 'Actually, we do'. CofE: 'Not you. Other people. Who don't come to church'. Trad CofE church now: 'Where is everyone?'. (@choralwork)
A man’s insistence on Objective Truth is a sign of a domineering instinct. It privileges Authority over involvement. (@sivori. Long Latinate words will get you so far...)
Today I learned that the Grampian Mountains in Scotland are so-called because of a typo. Tacitus, writing c. AD 100, referred to a battle in Caledonia at a place called Mons Graupius, but in a printed edition of 1476 this was mistakenly spelt 'Grampius' and the name stuck. (@Longshanks1307. Letter Us, Is, Ms and Ns are easily scrambled in Gothic script.)
The ‘h’ in ‘ghost’ was randomly added by a single hand. A typesetter from Flanders, working for William Caxton, didn’t like the look of the English ‘gost’ and lobbed in an ‘h’ to make it look more Flemish. (@susie_dent. Printers get blamed for a lot.)
Why are ghost and ghastly spelled with an H? The h was introduced by Flemish typesetters brought over from Bruges by Caxton. Before moveable type, the words were spelled gost, gastly etc. “David Crystal writes, in his history of English spelling, that 'in Bruges they would have been used to reading manuscripts in Flemish spelling. So if a word reminded them of its Flemish counterpart, why not spell it that way? The boss wouldn’t mind, as long as the words were intelligible. He had more to worry about than spelling.'” (Mentalfloss.com. Highly speculative.)
A friend had so much hassle from the eventual purchaser of his house that before moving out he spelt out a rude message on the lawn in the form of crocuses, which would bloom not long after the new owner moved in... (GH. Or was he a Friend of a Friend?)
Why don’t the Abrahamic religions join up? They all worship the same God. Likewise, the people of Northern Ireland are all Christians, why do they fight? (How long have you got?)
To some, the Irish were regarded as filthy. Even the nickname ‘Mick’ is derived from the Gaelic for pig, ‘muc’, so my father tells me. (@LexiluMaximoo. Many Irish men are called Michael.)
Someone recently told me there is no value in living in a place only because it is beautiful. After six months, you will just stop noticing the view. (@cottageinwood)
The best etymology I've read recently has to be that Swiss mercenaries exclaiming 'by God!' in the 15th century gave Spanish its word for 'moustache', bigote. (@DannyBate4)
One etymology of the term ‘bog standard’ is that it was originally laudatory and stood for ‘British or German’ – the best standards of design and manufacture. (@ArmandDAngour. Others say it was "box standard".)
Every Uni outside the Russell Group should be shut down. They are all crap and churn out unemployable people with a 2:2 in media studies. (@LeoMars75)
When Gustav Mahler conducted in Prague, he rented accommodation but was not allowed to play the piano there because of noise disturbance. So, he played in a local brothel, which is now a bar. The brothel Madam called him crazy because he showed no interest in the women! (@Mahler18601911. Johannes Brahms was said to have started his career playing piano in a brothel, aged 13, to support his poverty-stricken family. Evidence suggests that his parents were respectably lower middle-class, and Brahms started his career playing concerts. Thank you, Ian Pace.)
There are actually no examples at all of the Church doing anything to restrict the study and examination of the physical world in the medieval period. On the contrary, the medieval period saw a remarkable flowering of proto-scientific inquiry and research. (@doofgeek4011. Protestants like to make out that the RCC suppressed scientific enquiry, while Enlightenment writers blamed lack of progress on Christianity, says Quora, paraphrased.)
One of the funniest things I encounter on social media is when a person thinks they'd have their current, enculturated, status quo opinions if they lived X years ago. (@bradkelly)
Those little papers on turkey legs were at one time full bloomers because we might see turkey legs and think sexy thoughts about human legs. (@shaindelr. See also tablecloths and table legs.)
A source from 1875 says they're to keep fingers clean while carving, before the introduction of the carving fork. (@Chirurgic)
Bait and switch: If you redefine happiness as "permanent state of ecstasy", it's easy to say that nobody has got it or should try to attain it. But "happiness" also means ordinary happiness: partner, children, security. So why do we use this equivocation to discourage people from trying to attain ordinary human happiness? Because we might have to help them? And Heaven forbid we should raise a finger...
Mothering Sunday is an ancient Christian moving feast that follows the Easter calendar. On that day we honour our... Mother Church, that means the Church into which we were baptised and hence became "a child of the Church". It NOT to be confused with the commercial American Mother’s Day. It is held on the fourth Sunday in Lent. (@thames_pilgrim)
What’s the difference between Conservative and Labour? Conservatives “can be trusted with the economy”, says Jeremy Hunt, whereas Labour will give my tax dollars to the wrong people.
Artists sit down in front of a canvas and paint whatever they see in their minds. Likewise fiction writers sit in front of a sheet of blank paper and start writing as inspiration directs their pen. (Both professions involve training, and planning.)
In the 19th century, ageing beauties had their faces “enamelled”. Once the paint was applied, they had to sit by the fire for six hours while the application hardened. (And all theatrical makeup "takes six hours to apply".)
When I was at uni in Durban a sociology lecturer said there was enough food in the world to feed everyone and hunger was a distribution problem. Grain was dumped in the sea to keep prices up, for example. It’s the same with wealth. There is enough for all of us if we share. (@TheHoogie)
Flint-faced walls on East Anglian houses are made from the waste from gun-flint knapping. (There's a lot of flint in East Anglia.)
You are aware of the pejorative use of the term "wog" in British culture, and there has been much discussion over years, here in the UK, about the origins of the expression. My father told me that when he was in Egypt in 1942 the British Army employed thousands of Egyptians at docks in Suez and elsewhere to unload supplies and ammunition from ships arriving from the UK and USA, in the build up to the offensive that was to take place at El Alamein. These workers were issued with security passes to enter the docks for work as well as armbands bearing the words WOGS. In fact, so my father said, this was an acronym for Working on Government Service, and had at the time no derogatory racial connotations. (Michael Pickett jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu. Other theories include: Westernised Oriental Gentleman.)
Where are cheesy chips from? Growing up my mum told me they were only allowed to be sold in the West Country. I believed it wholeheartedly. (@frankie2001mia)
Apparently almost all the old ghost sightings were people hallucinating from gas-powered lamps leaking gas fumes everywhere! (@JerryRoe. Gas leaks were extremely dangerous and were stopped up as soon as detected.)
Actor John Savident was stocking up on some Christmas booze one year at a posh off licence in the West End. Ahead of him at the counter there’s a woman placing an order. John S thinks, ‘Damn - I’m sure I’ve worked with her in something, but for the life of me I can’t remember what, or even her name.’ So he tries to strike up a conversation - ‘Oh hello, my darling, lovely to see you again!’ - bit of actors’ chat. She’s polite but a bit icy. ‘How’s work? Doing panto this year?’ he asks. ‘No’, she replies, with a bit of a stare. She heads off. John Savident thinks, oh, bit toffee-nosed her, wish I could remember her name and what we were in together, I know that face so well. A moment later the penny drops. ‘Oh God. That was Princess Margaret.’ (It was Clement Freud last time.)
Thanking the bus driver is one of those things that is common in many many places (including most of Britain and Ireland, among a number of other countries) but which people keep thinking is super specific to where they live. (@garicgymro)
Hilariously I’m now seeing accounts who normally suggest a conspiracy theories in the deaths of every single famous person suddenly suggesting Navalny just died of an innocent heart attack. (@swansonian)
New research shows people can change their minds about conspiracy theories. (theconversation.com. Versus "Don't bother arguing with them, nobody ever changes their mind.")
I believed my Dad when he told me that Lever Brothers owned a fluorspar mountain in Norway that they turned into Vim.
All this and more in my book What You Know that Ain't So, available at Amazon.
More here, and links to the rest.
