Things you were shockingly old when you learned

i imagine shîr is also the origin of the word “sheer” to describe very thin fabric?

Sheer sounds distinctly Germanic to me.

hmm you’re right

schiere "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."

"mano a mano" means hand to hand, not man to man

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

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.

(xp) Awesome.

xxp I like that one

yes.

I've been known to ILXle.

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.

Andy Murray's dad was a former footballer who played for Hibs.

https://www.doingthe92.com/images/uploaded/previews/U2P29481.jpg

There is a fourthJonas Brother who isn't in the band. He's called Bonus Jonas.

Careful he flies off the handle when you call him that

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

Terence Trent D'Arby changed his name in 2001 to Sananda Maitreya.

what a wonderful phrase

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'.

keep mum

Yeah, somehow I'd forgotten that one.

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

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.

I always thought it was Yiddish!

Ah yes it is

this poster deeply confused me as a child

https://shop.iwm.org.uk/images/product/prod_12797.jpg

(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.

this poster deeply confused me as a child

you're older than you look, ledge ;)

never beating the born-in-the-blitz charges

i was expecting that!

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.

I definitely didn't know that!

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.

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

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.

faerie queene joanna newsom

Are people still doing this?

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.

I remember learning that from a Robert Wyatt interview.

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.

...and the etymology is from stakes placed in the ground to demarcate territory. Which survives in words like impale, impalement, and Palo Alto.

... and paling!

and palisades, which is what I thought was the direct origin of "beyond the pale."

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.

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.

Peek Freans is a great name for a company, biscuit or otherwise.

Ozone from Breakin' was in a dance troupe with Rerun from What's Happening.

Oh, and Toni Basil was their manager.

Surprising how many biscuits are named after revolutionaries. You’ve got your Garibaldi, your Bourbon, and of course your Peek Freans Trotsky Assortment.

What solfege is.

Toni Basil should be a regular on this thread, the things people still find out about her. Like her relationship to Devo's Jerry Casale and her devo cover "you gotta problem" is a good one. Or choreographing the Once in a Lifetime video. Co-invented "locking". What a legend.

she covered Be Stiff as well