Things you were shockingly old when you learned

He liked things enigmatically literally didn't he? Sister Lovers was him and abandmate dating a pair of sisters though it sounds like it should be a poetic allusion dunnit? may just be later valorisation?

Chilton born on Dec. 28 too.

Yeah I always assumed “December boy’s got it bad” was singular not plural

I only got the September song metaphor because my mom used to play “April Come She Will” a lot when I was a kid

I just learned the song "Popcorn" by Hot Butter was first done by a guy named Gershon Kingsley in 1969.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htuL6mvlTgk

TIL that Peggy Lee substantially rewrote the lyrics for her version of “Fever,” making it very quite different from the Little Willie John original.

TIL = within the past week

TIL = within the past week

TWIL

Didn't realise that the original letter locations on a typewriter were changed so that the word 'typewriter' could be typed with keys that are situated only on the upper row.

When Sholes sold his typewriter design to the Remington company, Remington engineers made an additional change to the layout by transferring the letter “R” to the upper row so their typewriter salesmen could quickly type the word “typewriter” to potential clients by locating all of the necessary letters in the upper row.

The use of the word piracy to copy someone’s work goes back to the 17th century.

When I heard the phrase I assumed the phrase referred to the school year: “a teacher dates a student over the summer holiday”, for example

I did not realize that it referred to the months of the year as a metaphor for the stages in one’s life

tbf the song’s lyrics deliberately touch on both these meanings.. “oh the days dwindle down, to a precious few” etc. As in, a time-bound relationship

that the buffalo bills are named after buffalo bill i guess??

Not the Silence of the Lambs guy, tho.

either that or their mascot should be a duck

With spicy wings!

Sister Lovers was him and abandmate dating a pair of sisters though it sounds like it should be a poetic allusion dunnit?

It is also a quote from David Crosby's "Triad".

The "months as life-stages" trope seems to cast aside January, February and March. I can do without them myself but it makes for an inconsistent metaphor.

it was only today that it dawned on me that for years, I'd been reading the thread title "Every huge artist has their "New Jersey"" as "Every huge artist has their "Nebraska"" and now that thread finally makes more sense. I have no idea why my brain confused these states.

They're the only two states that appear in Bruce Springsteen album titles.

Is that so.

https://i.imgur.com/RLCFyjB.jpeg

The resolute desk in the White House is called that not because it’s where presidents sit while being purposeful and determined. It was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute.

that’s actually pretty cool. i always thought it was because it was as big and sturdy as a ship not cause it was built from one

I had no idea either. Some interesting history (on both)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resolute_desk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolute_(1850)

TIL: four nuclear missiles were detonated during the Cuban Missile Crisis - two by the U.S. and two by the Soviet Union. Doing this during DEFCON 2 conditions seems like a bad idea and I'm kinda shocked that we're all still here.

Ned Ludd was actually a folkloric figure whose name was appropriated by the Luddite movement several decades after he (or the person/people he was based on) lived. I'd always assumed he was the leader of a social movement! Shows you how much I know about British industrial history.

Wow, I just realised that “cuckold” and “cuckoo” are part of the same concept. I had thought the former was just infidelity, or maybe it’s come to mean that.

cuckoos notoriously leave their eggs in other birds nests for them to rear or that was the myth anyway. So I can see why it would tie in with the idea of cuckold though I thought cuckold was the passive role possibly victim. Though the understanding all seems to deny free will on the wife/female role in the situation.

i was thinking it must at least go back to Molière, but a quick check at wiktionary shows a quote a hundred years earlier from Rabelais. but i think you're otm about laying eggs in another's nest

Basically all of Western Europe is on the same time zone. Except for Portugal and the UK, if the UK counts as "europe" and not "the hell islands".

... and Ireland.

xp European cuckoos do this. American cuckoos raise their own young.

xp and Iceland

"trailblazing" has the literal meaning of marking trees to create a path. i always imagined someone running and leaving fire behind them.

... and Ireland.

― I've left the box of soup near your shoes (Tom D.)

your country is basically fine but tainted by proximity to The Worst Country

kind of like canada

Cardiff has only been the capital city of Wales since 1955. Wales had never had a capital city prior to 1955(!) and Cardiff, Caernarvon and Aberystwyth were all in contention.It was never even formally announced...

On 20 December 1955, Gwilym Lloyd-George, then Minister for Welsh Affairs and Home Secretary, proclaimed that Cardiff was the capital of Wales, in a reply to a Parliamentary question from David Llewellyn. Lloyd-George said that "no formal measures are necessary to give effect to this decision"[14]

haha wtf

Americans call it "soccer" because It's a truncation of "association football"

having watched man u all season, i'm more into disassociation football these days

(xp) Like rugger. It's English public school speak.

The person on the cover of REM's Lifes Rich Pageant is Bill Berry. I always thought it was Boris Karloff or someone who looked like him.

Ouch.

all of Western Europe is on the same time zone. Except for Portugal and the UK

Lots of "how are you getting on with the time difference" jokes when I moved.

hms resolute was one of quite of lot of ships dispatched to find the lost franklin expedition. franklin's two ships had become trapped in the ice (from which fate no one returned). resolute was one of at least three three further ships that that also became trapped in the ice!

luckily everyone got off them ok, since there were by so many other ships also searching nearby that ((unlike with the franklin crews) rescue was possible

jesus imagine if i was a professional proofing editor or something

that the US military didn't ban smoking on its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines until 2010

Formica was a mica substitute and the name is from 'for mica'.

xp I think if I was a mile underwater with a nuclear reactor I could probably use a cigarette now and then

Just step outside, if you hafta.

the designated smoking areas were called "smoke pits". I just never knew this happened on modern submarines loaded with nuclear warhead armed ballistic missiles. But yeah I can imagine the appeal of a pensive smoke before the end of human civilisation, but it does seem very much like a remnant of 1950's H+S protocols.

TIL this is a saluting emoji:🫡

It’s mystified me for years. I could never figure out what that appendage was.