It would have worked with a mechanical horse, powered by steam ^_^
Today I Learned #3: There's a wiki for everything!
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It would have worked with a mechanical horse, powered by steam ^_^
amadeus
Bishop of Bio-Dome
The Lt. Gov of Tennessee is named Randy McNally.
I wonder if that guy really likes maps.
I wonder if that guy really likes maps.
I guess it depends on if he can read maps. I'm constantly croggled at how many times I've given directions to people to come here, and ask them, "Do you know where Burger Boy (a local hamburger joint) is?" When they say yes, I tell them, "Turn north when you get there."
Their next response has never failed to be, "Which way is north?"
TIL that "Bloody" used to be the UK favourite swear word, but is not anymore. The new one will trigger the autofilter, the use frequency graph (as well as the one from 1994) is full of words that should not be used here. That just leaves the frequency by age:
Original paper
Original paper
^How was it overtaken by just one word, when apparently it is in third place?
Likely an effect of the continued americanization of the UK. "Bloody" is too provincial, and it also doesn't sound like much of a swear word in the first place; seems to have based its potency on very different dynamics, while the two terms which overtook it tie to the usual stuff.
Likely an effect of the continued americanization of the UK. "Bloody" is too provincial, and it also doesn't sound like much of a swear word in the first place; seems to have based its potency on very different dynamics, while the two terms which overtook it tie to the usual stuff.
The one that is now first is a very English, specifically Anglo-Saxon word, so not convinced Americanisation has much to do with it.
All of them are english. Obviously the UK has been experiencing US cultural imperialism for decades now, and I think that a number of UK expressions and terms are gradually pushed out of circulation because the americans identify them as solecisms (doesn't matter if that is valid or not; it's not in all cases, anyway).
If you are the colony of Soloi, so far away from the center of the greek word, you can't (any longer) afford to have your own variation of the language
Yes that word is now quite popular in most new TV shows and movies. I expect that by the time the Millennials begin to retire there will be a new champion favored by Gen Z and its successor.
Broken_Erika
Play with me.
TiL Leaded petrol for cars has only just recently been eliminated worldwide.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58388810
I saw the map with leaded petrol recently on Wikipedia, and was actually surprised that it was still used. Good to see it gone.
TIL (well, yesterday): Soap operas are called like this because the first ones were actually sponsored by soap makers o_O.
TIL (well, yesterday): Soap operas are called like this because the first ones were actually sponsored by soap makers o_O.
The reason: The soap makers' biggest customers back then were housewives, who would take an hour or so out of their day to sit down and watch TV with an ongoing story with romance and angst that was the perfect length to relax with in between putting the laundry in the machine to wash and taking it out to either put it in the dryer or hang it on the line. Since these soaps were "presented live" - as in not pre-recorded and VCRs didn't exist back then, the soap makers basically had a captive audience for their soap ads.
There were a lot of ads for coffee and tea, as well. The housewives needed something to sip on while they cried their way through the angsty stories, right? Fast-forward a few decades, and there was a series of coffee commercials using characters who carried on a romance while they were borrowing each other's coffee or having unexpected little meetings here and there in episodes that were about a minute long. They were popular commercials and the actors were likable. It didn't induce me to become a coffee addict, though.
I remember back in the '60s, when my mother and grandmother watched their daily soap. I still remember the announcer saying, "And now... presented live... THE... EDGE... OF... NIGHT!" (it was a soap that always had some murder mystery going on, as the main characters were an assortment of lawyers and cops and gangsters and their wives and girlfriends; it wasn't until later that they added doctors to the mix).
Fun fact: Lori Loughlin (actress who served time in prison for bribery when trying to get her unqualified daughter into university) was once on The Edge of Night. I think she might have still been in her teens at the time. I can't believe I still remember the name of the character she played: Jody Travis, who tried to seduce her sister's husband (the handsome Dr. Miles Cavanaugh).
Soaps used to be half an hour. Then they became an hour, and General Hospital tried a 90-minute format, but gave it up; the viewers didn't go for it, and who can blame them? A 90-minute soap episode is just weird.
There used to be many more soaps on than there are now. Each network had about 3 or 4, and it became a challenge for fans of more than one to fit everything in if they were on different networks. I didn't have that problem since mine were on the same network: One Life to Live, and General Hospital (The Edge of Night had been canceled a few years before I got hooked on OLTL).
Most of those shows are gone. GH is still going, as are Days of Our Lives and The Young and Restless (my dad's girlfriend was addicted to that one and made my dad watch it for her when she was away... then he got somewhat hooked on it and insisted on coming into the house to tell me all about what was going on with Nikki and Victor and wouldn't listen when I told him I did not care about that show).
Another fun fact: The actor who plays Victor (if he hasn't retired by now) played the villain in Escape From the Planet of the Apes.
Night-time soaps took off in the '80s, when Dallas went from a 5-episode miniseries to a full series. I remember having to sneak downstairs to watch those 5 episodes, as they were on after my bedtime, and I knew my grandparents would blow a gasket if they caught me. But as luck would have it when the show became a full-fledged series, it was shown at 9 pm on Fridays, and it turns out that my grandmother was a Larry Hagman fan (who knew? I had no idea she'd liked him from I Dream of Jeannie). So for years, she and I would watch Dallas every Friday. I never let her see the tie-in novels, though. Holy crap, they were explicit.
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EgonSpengler
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TIL eight people have been awarded honorary citizenship of the United States: Sir Winston Churchill; Mother Teresa; Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who helped many European Jews flee the Nazis; William and Hannah Penn, who founded the Province of Pennsylvania and its capital, the city of Philadelphia; and three European military officers who helped the United States in our War of Independence against Great Britain: Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, of the Kingdom of France; Casimir Pulaski, of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania; and Bernardo Vicente de Galvez y Madrid, of Spain.
EgonSpengler
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While tumbling down the rabbit-hole of Wikipedia pages relating to the American War of Independence, I discovered a Royal Navy admiral by the name of Peter Parker. Ironically, Sir Peter was involved in the capture of New York City in 1777, under Rear Admiral Lord Howe.
After the successful New York-New Jersey campaign (the British controlled the Port of New York through to the war's conclusion), Sir Peter was promoted to Rear Admiral, Commander-in-Chief, Jamaica Station at the port of Kingston. Aboard his flagship, HMS Bristol, he mentored a promising 19-year-old officer by the name of Horatio Nelson.
After the successful New York-New Jersey campaign (the British controlled the Port of New York through to the war's conclusion), Sir Peter was promoted to Rear Admiral, Commander-in-Chief, Jamaica Station at the port of Kingston. Aboard his flagship, HMS Bristol, he mentored a promising 19-year-old officer by the name of Horatio Nelson.
His spidey sense tingled and he knew the man was due for greatness.
TIL that Affinity Client Services owns the Greek alphabet, or something:
Tariq Rashid, a UK-based data scientist and author, tried to create a t-shirt design using on-demand print shop Spring to celebrate the Riemann zeta function
Rashid uploaded his design to Spring, formerly known as Teespring, so that it could be printed to order by netizens. The biz had other ideas. It removed Rashid's design from its store because his item included the trademarked word "zeta" in its blurb.
When Rashid emailed Spring to object that zeta is a common mathematical term, the company's legal team replied: "We completely understand your concerns about our keyword block. As you are aware, Zeta is a letter of the Greek Alphabet. The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally by the Affinity Client Services. Due to this ownership and the takedowns we have received, we must police our platform for content using 'Zeta.'"
A copy of his correspondence with Spring's legal team appears to confirm that though the company unblocked the listing, so that it could be made live again, any use of the word zeta would trigger another takedown.
Rashid uploaded his design to Spring, formerly known as Teespring, so that it could be printed to order by netizens. The biz had other ideas. It removed Rashid's design from its store because his item included the trademarked word "zeta" in its blurb.
When Rashid emailed Spring to object that zeta is a common mathematical term, the company's legal team replied: "We completely understand your concerns about our keyword block. As you are aware, Zeta is a letter of the Greek Alphabet. The Greek alphabet is currently protected legally by the Affinity Client Services. Due to this ownership and the takedowns we have received, we must police our platform for content using 'Zeta.'"
A copy of his correspondence with Spring's legal team appears to confirm that though the company unblocked the listing, so that it could be made live again, any use of the word zeta would trigger another takedown.
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