TIL: Today I Learned

[sophie]

Scots has spun or spon, and Faroese has spónur.

All the other Germanic languages have variants stemming from the root, but it's restricted to the woodchip/flake sense

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Sometimes when I'm bored, I like to go to an online etymology dictionary and look up random words. Usually vulgar ones.

 

[Takhisis]

^I feel less alone when I see that other people share (some of) my odd habits.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Link to video.

 

[Hrothbern]

Some shapes of snail shells would work fine I guess.
When eating mussels, I use an empty mussel as a kind of chopsticks to pick the meat out of another. A dip in sause or not. And when the attachment between the two halves wears out being a good spring, I use a new one.
And using a half mussel shell for a bit of the bouillon with the vegetables goes also fine.

Using a spoon made out of horn is nice. The feel in your mouth is nice and somehow the taste of what you eat becomes nice. I had long time, until worn out, small horn spoons for eating a (soft) boiled eggs... tastes better than steel spoons.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

TIL the Romance word for "spoon" (Sp. cuchara, Fr. cuillère, It. cucchiaio, etc.) descends from Lat. cochlear, which is formed of cochlea ("snail" or "snail's shell") +-ar (neuter noun-forming suffix). Don't really understand how that works.

The English word, spoon, comes from a Germanic root meaning "a flake" or "a piece of chipped wood"

The German and Dutch (and Low German/Plautdietsch/Yiddish) words (Löffel and lepel, etc.) come from a Germanic root meaning "to lick, to lap", and of course is a cognate with our verb "to lap". That one is a bit easier to wrap my head around.

I love that you acknowledge Plattdeutsch and Yiddish. you're my favorite linguist

 

[Takhisis]

You wouldn't believe it, but among Buenos Aires' many oddities is that its Ashkenazi community is strong enough that Yiddish is still spoken here.

 

[Hrothbern]

Amsterdam slang has many jiddisj words, that most people speaking them, are not aware of.
That begins already when they say: I live in Mokum

 

[Takhisis]

Using a spoon made out of horn is nice. The feel in your mouth is nice and somehow the taste of what you eat becomes nice. I had long time, until worn out, small horn spoons for eating a (soft) boiled eggs... tastes better than steel spoons.

This is because one gets to used to the taste of the spoon/fork/container's material, but actually they do have taste. Our own teeth have taste; anybody who gets any sort of implant or braces has to get used to the taste of the damned things.

 

[Zkribbler]

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had a surviving child. Marie-Thérèse, known as "Madame Royale," was released from three years of solitary confinement in 1795, and took refuge in Vienna in 1796.

 

[Arakhor]

She would have been the cousin of Franz II & I, so I can see why.

 

[Cutlass]

Are there any living descendants of the French monarchy?

 

[Arakhor]

Yes - the Orleanists, the Legitimists and the Bonapartistes.

 

[Traitorfish]

Also, the Spanish monarchy, who are a cadet branch of the Bourbons.

edit: Oh, and apparently so is the Luxembourgish monarchy, who are themselves a cadet branch of the Spanish Bourbons.

 

[Zkribbler]

Are there any living descendants of the French monarchy?

If you mean direct descendants of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, no. Marie-Thérèse was the only child of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette to live to adulthood, and she died childless. However, the House of Bourbon is vast.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Are there any living descendants of the French monarchy?

One of Napoleon's great-great-nephews is a high-powered banker in New York, IIRC.

 

[Kaitzilla]

So I've always held lotteries in disdain, but the Mega Millions is up to $1.6 billion.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...-worked/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.56708a386287

Pick 5 numbers from 1 to 70, and a 6th number from 1 to 25.
The odds of winning the Jackpot are 1 in 70*69*68*67*66*25 = 1 in 36,309,042,000
Since the order doesn't matter for the first 5 numbers, there are 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 different orders that could be drawn for the same 5 numbers + the 6th number
36,309,042,000 / 120 = 1 in 302,575,350 of getting the Jackpot.

So for the cost of a $2 ticket, I could buy every possible combination for $605,150,700

I just need to calculate how many other winners there might be, lump sum penalty, taxes etc.
Are any of you planning on doing this too?

 

[Cutlass]

So I've always held lotteries in disdain, but the Mega Millions is up to $1.6 billion.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/busi...-worked/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.56708a386287

Pick 5 numbers from 1 to 70, and a 6th number from 1 to 25.
The odds of winning the Jackpot are 1 in 70*69*68*67*66*25 = 1 in 36,309,042,000
Since the order doesn't matter for the first 5 numbers, there are 5*4*3*2*1 = 120 different orders that could be drawn for the same 5 numbers + the 6th number
36,309,042,000 / 120 = 1 in 302,575,350 of getting the Jackpot.

So for the cost of a $2 ticket, I could buy every possible combination for $605,150,700

I just need to calculate how many other winners there might be, lump sum penalty, taxes etc.
Are any of you planning on doing this too?

Lotteries are a tax on people who can't do math.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Lotteries are a tax on people who can't do math.

I just did the math.

The average expected return on every $2 ticket is higher than $2

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I just did the math.

The average expected return on every $2 ticket is higher than $2

Well, no. Because...

I just need to calculate how many other winners there might be, lump sum penalty, taxes etc.

Yes, yes you do.

For reference, the previous record jackpot (assuming this one does indeed surpass it) got split across three winning tickets.