I only learnt today that Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of 1964 movie Bedtime Story with David Niven and Marlon Brando. I also did not realise that 'The Hustle' was a remake.
― kinder, Wednesday, 26 June 2024 18:29 (three months ago) link
Seersucker:
The word originates from the Persian words شیر shîr and شکر shakar, literally meaning "milk and sugar", from the gritty texture ("sugar") on the otherwise smooth ("milk") cloth.
― Blood On Santa's Claw (Tom D.), Thursday, 27 June 2024 10:53 (three months ago) link
thank you. and now i learn where the word came from.
From Sanskrit (śarkarā), meaning "ground or candied sugar", came Persian shakar and Arabic sukkar. The Arabic word was borrowed in Medieval Latin as succarum, whence the 12th century French sucre and the English sugar. Sugar was introduced into Europe by the Arabs in Sicily and Spain.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 June 2024 11:13 (three months ago) link
the word sucre always reminded me of an arabic word. so, i was in the right ballpark.
― scott seward, Thursday, 27 June 2024 11:16 (three months ago) link
i imagine shîr is also the origin of the word “sheer” to describe very thin fabric?
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 27 June 2024 11:26 (three months ago) link
Sheer sounds distinctly Germanic to me.
― Blood On Santa's Claw (Tom D.), Thursday, 27 June 2024 11:37 (three months ago) link
hmm you’re rightschiere "thin, sparse" (c. 1400), a variant of skere, from late Old English scir "bright, clear, gleaming; translucent; pure, unmixed." The Middle English word might also be from or influenced by the Old Norse cognate scær "bright, clean, pure." Both of these are from Proto-Germanic *skeran (source also of Old Saxon skiri, Old Frisian skire, German schier, Gothic skeirs "clean, pure"), from PIE root *sker- (1) "to cut."
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Thursday, 27 June 2024 12:02 (three months ago) link
"mano a mano" means hand to hand, not man to man
― master of the pan (abanana), Thursday, 27 June 2024 15:24 (three months ago) link
A door blows open in your mind when you learn about the suffix -le, it explains so much. People used to add it to verbs to mean ‘more than once’ or continuously—so originally, to ramble is to ‘roam’ on, to jostle is to joust repeatedly, and to sparkle is to emit lots of sparks.
A door blows open in your mind when you learn about the suffix -le, it explains so much. People used to add it to verbs to mean ‘more than once’ or continuously—so originally, to ramble is to ‘roam’ on, to jostle is to joust repeatedly, and to sparkle is to emit lots of sparks. pic.twitter.com/85oefNHMfa— Wylfċen (@wylfcen) April 10, 2024
― nate woolls, Thursday, 27 June 2024 23:39 (three months ago) link
I wouldn't call my reaction to this knowledge "shock" as much as "bitter amusement, and relief that two other people have been spared" but TIL that Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson are married.
― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson), Thursday, 27 June 2024 23:53 (three months ago) link
(xp) Awesome.
― Blood On Santa's Claw (Tom D.), Friday, 28 June 2024 06:29 (three months ago) link
xxp I like that one
― kinder, Friday, 28 June 2024 16:15 (three months ago) link
yes.
― budo jeru, Friday, 28 June 2024 16:34 (three months ago) link
I've been known to ILXle.
― nickn, Friday, 28 June 2024 18:36 (three months ago) link
Literally this morning it struck me that Ludacris is a pun on his name, which is Christopher Brian Bridges. For a while he went by the name Ludichris, but he streamlined it.
His first album was called Incognegro, which is either genius or naff. Or both.
― Ashley Pomeroy, Saturday, 29 June 2024 13:46 (three months ago) link
Andy Murray's dad was a former footballer who played for Hibs.
https://www.doingthe92.com/images/uploaded/previews/U2P29481.jpg
― Blood On Santa's Claw (Tom D.), Thursday, 4 July 2024 18:48 (two months ago) link
There is a fourthJonas Brother who isn't in the band. He's called Bonus Jonas.
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Thursday, 4 July 2024 23:58 (two months ago) link
Careful he flies off the handle when you call him that
― perpetually awkward, perennially unhappy (Neanderthal), Friday, 5 July 2024 06:28 (two months ago) link
Sojourner Truth's first language was not english - she was born enslaved by a Dutch family in New York, and spoke with a dutch accent the rest of her life
― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, 11 July 2024 16:30 (two months ago) link
Terence Trent D'Arby changed his name in 2001 to Sananda Maitreya.
― Thrapple from the Apple (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 12 July 2024 17:37 (two months ago) link
what a wonderful phrase
― kinder, Friday, 12 July 2024 18:07 (two months ago) link
That mum in the phrase "mum's the word" is not actually yer mother, but 'mum' is a word that means 'silent' and is probably related to 'mummer'.
― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:03 (two months ago) link
keep mum
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:11 (two months ago) link
Yeah, somehow I'd forgotten that one.
― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:16 (two months ago) link
feel like there should be a cheeky playground rhyme from the 1940s that begins "my mum's a mummer"
luckily i am too busy this morning to develop this project further
― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2024 09:16 (two months ago) link
While we're on the subject, I noticed an American ILXor using the phrase "keep shtum" recently, a phrase I thought was only really used in the UK. Then I googled and found it was only in 1958 that it was first used in print. In a novel by Frank Norman, an interesting sounding writer I'd never heard of before.
― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:27 (two months ago) link
I always thought it was Yiddish!
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:28 (two months ago) link
Ah yes it is
this poster deeply confused me as a child
https://shop.iwm.org.uk/images/product/prod_12797.jpg
― ledge, Friday, 19 July 2024 09:32 (two months ago) link
(xp) Yeah, it is but it crossed over into, well, not quite mainstream but usage outside Jewish communities. Not aware that it had in the US.
― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Friday, 19 July 2024 09:38 (two months ago) link
you're older than you look, ledge ;)
― Grandpont Genie, Friday, 19 July 2024 09:42 (two months ago) link
never beating the born-in-the-blitz charges
― mark s, Friday, 19 July 2024 10:00 (two months ago) link
i was expecting that!
― ledge, Friday, 19 July 2024 10:09 (two months ago) link
did i ever know that andy samberg was married to faerie queene joanna newsom? i saw a picture of them yesterday and either i wiped the memory from my banks or i never knew.
― scott seward, Friday, 19 July 2024 11:44 (two months ago) link
I definitely didn't know that!
― Wee boats wobble but they don't fall down (Tom D.), Friday, 19 July 2024 11:55 (two months ago) link
I feel like the worldwide reach of pop culture and the internet puts the various lands of the Anglosphere together so that we each start to adopt each other’s slang.
― Bad Bairns (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 19 July 2024 14:00 (two months ago) link
Last night I learned that “3 Women” is not a fun Altman film but is a tense Bergman homage. Had friends over for Indian and a fun movie night, toasting the memory of Shelley Duvall, only to have our moods darkened. Great film tho
― Europe, where they eat flowers (flamboyant goon tie included), Friday, 19 July 2024 14:08 (two months ago) link
And as the night progressed you decided to lift the mood with back-to-back screenings of Quintet, A Wedding, and OC and Stiggs. The few people who remained will be your friends forever.
― Ashley Pomeroy, Friday, 19 July 2024 16:58 (two months ago) link
faerie queene joanna newsom
Are people still doing this?
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 19 July 2024 17:28 (two months ago) link
Beyond the pale. Comes from the lawless and ‘uncivilised’ lands to the west of the Dublin area (The Pale) which was outside English control in the Middle Ages.
― Dan Worsley, Friday, 26 July 2024 13:45 (two months ago) link
I remember learning that from a Robert Wyatt interview.
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Friday, 26 July 2024 13:47 (two months ago) link
I remember back in the early 90s there was an Irish band called The Pale and only now realise it refers to where they’re from and not their pasty white skin tones.
― Dan Worsley, Friday, 26 July 2024 13:51 (two months ago) link
...and the etymology is from stakes placed in the ground to demarcate territory. Which survives in words like impale, impalement, and Palo Alto.
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, 26 July 2024 14:59 (two months ago) link
... and paling!
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Friday, 26 July 2024 15:17 (two months ago) link
and palisades, which is what I thought was the direct origin of "beyond the pale."
― nickn, Friday, 26 July 2024 18:04 (two months ago) link
By gum I remember them. "I am the Butterfly". That was their song. That's literally all I remember about them. "I am the butterfly, I've shed my father's wings", or something. I mentally get them mixed up with Cud and Ned's Atomic Dustbin although they were much more obscure.
― Ashley Pomeroy, Friday, 26 July 2024 18:14 (two months ago) link
Peek Freans invented a biscuit called the ‘Creole’, later renamed as ‘Bourbons’. They also invented the ’Garibaldi’ biscuit. Bourbon empire was one of the powers Garibaldi defeated to unify Italy, ending their Italian dynasty.
― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 30 July 2024 13:15 (two months ago) link
Peek Freans is a great name for a company, biscuit or otherwise.
― Defund Phil Collins (Tom D.), Tuesday, 30 July 2024 13:22 (two months ago) link
Ozone from Breakin' was in a dance troupe with Rerun from What's Happening.
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 30 July 2024 13:48 (two months ago) link
Oh, and Toni Basil was their manager.
― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin), Tuesday, 30 July 2024 13:50 (two months ago) link