32 Things You Likely Didn't Know

email | July 26, 2003 | Anonymous

[expatguy]

bump

[CanadianLibertarian]

Sorry, just the childhood nostalgia of the Peter Pan story and the lament for that innocent bygone age when a man could have a little six year old friend and no nasty suspicions raised.

Then don't ask about Alice Liddell and Lewis Carroll... you don't want to know.

Unfortunately, I do know. PLEASE don't put Carroll in the same class as Barrie. Barrie wrote a wonderful tale of fun and adventure, childhood innocence and trust. Carroll wrote of a nightmare world where nothing was what it seemed and everything was senseless insanity. Barrie was a gentleman and a gentle man; Carroll a pervert, a pedophile and a pederast.

[Swordmaker]

Simply aint so. I had a traditional English education, and my favorite teacher, Mrs. Harvey was a wonderful older lady straight out of the Victorian Era. She routinely called those wonderful insects "flutterbys". And think, what does a butterfly do? It flutters by.

If your Mrs. Harvey's quaint malapropistic derivation of "flutterby" is true, then why didn't the name of the insects stay flutterby instead of it being being changed to the less appealing name of "butterfly."

[Swordmaker]

Carroll a pervert, a pedophile and a pederast.

You left out "likely drug addict..."

[CanadianLibertarian]

If your Mrs. Harvey's quaint malapropistic derivation of "flutterby" is true, then why didn't the name of the insects stay flutterby instead of it being being changed to the less appealing name of "butterfly."

Good question. I really don't know! But you know, I don't think her use of the word was a malapropism, she would laugh and quite explicitly tell us how times had changed and that "flutterby" was the original word. I mean she was aware that folks don't use that word anymore, but was quite clear that they used to.

[expatguy]

The proposed William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library will have a section where you must be 18 or older to read certain documents.

[jwh_Denver]

If you pick up a guinea pig by its tail its eyes will fall out.

[kitkat]

LOL!

[Swordmaker]

I don't think her use of the word was a malapropism, she would laugh and quite explicitly tell us how times had changed and that "flutterby" was the original word.

I like her outlook on life... but I have researched the origins of the word "butterfly" and do not find "flutterby" as an original. The Encyclopedia Brittanica which lead me to

Butterfly Etymology
by Matthew Rabuzzi Cupertino, CA. U.S.A.

Here's a little bagatelle (or, very imprecisely, a bugatelle!) of entomology etymology. I've long been fascinated by the large variety of distinct words for "butterfly" in various Indo-European languages. Here is my butterfly collection, which I hope will be of more than "e-vanessa-nt" interest.

"Butterfly" in English

Middle English buterflie, Old English buttorfleoge (written citation 1000 C.E.)

The Oxford English Dictionary notes some old Dutch words "botervlieg" and "boterschijte", and conjectures that butterflies' excrement may have been thought to resemble butter, hence giving the name "butter-sh_t", then "butter-fly".

Webster's Third New International Dictionary says perhaps the word comes from the notion that butterflies, or witches in that form, stole milk and butter (see German "Schmetterling" below).

. . .

"Schmetterling" in German

From "Schmetten", an Upper Saxon dialect loan-word first used 16 & 17th C, from Czech "smetana", both meaning "cream", referring to butterflies' proclivity to hover around milkpails, butterchurns, etc. Folk belief had it that the butterflies were really witches out to steal the cream.

(As an aside, "schmettern", among other things, means "to ring out, to warble, to twitter" -- an aural analogue of how butterflies look in flight? Latin "pipilo/are" means "to twitter, to chirp", after all. But the German, to my ears, sounds more like the sound a butterfly makes as a Prussian sort accelerates down the autobahn mashing it into a smear on the windshield.)

"Tagfalter" is another name for butterfly, perhaps meaning "day-hinge" or "day-folder", and "Nachtfalter" is a moth. These make semantic sense, or the "falter" part may instead reflect the Old High German "fifaltra" derived from the Latin.

-----------------

So. Given the choices of believing your Mrs. Harvey or the Oxford English Dictionary and an expert entomology etymologist I am afraid I have to choose the OED and the expert. Sorry, Mrs. Harvey.

[wysiwyg]

I saw this on cable a few days ago... Yes, William Lear invented 8-track tapes for use as in-flight entertainment in Learjets. Ford picked up on it and started putting them in cars. About.com has more info.

[sumocide]

15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

I don't doubt that an allied bomb killed an animal at the zoo, but I wonder how they are sure it was the first bomb.

The earliest date for an allied raid on Berlin I could find is August 25th 1940. The Berlin zoo's history page says the zoo was first bombed in 1941 and doesn't mention any casualties. So it's probably untrue.

[Freedom4US]

There's a lot of good reasons to prevent passing gas in an enclosed space with three military guys, sheesh. Also, rapid altitude changes might cause serious problems with the digestive system. The early MRE's (Meal, Ready-to-Eat) which replaced the C-Ration, stated in no uncertain terms "Not For Pre-Flight or In-Flight Use" on the meal that had the Bean Component

[BushCountry]

Just marking this thread to come back later, however since this thread is educational...

* There is an annual ghost mela held in Madhya Pradesh?
* Switzerland attracts the most suicide tourists?
* Sicily is seen upside down from an Italian village?
* A new Japanese jeans actually slows down ageing?
* In ancient times, iron cost more than gold?
* Silver can destroy 650 disease-causing bacteria?
* That Mahavira wasn’t really the founder of Jainism?
* The words ‘lakh’ and ‘crore’ do not exist in English?
* There’s a fruit that “smells like shit but tastes like heaven”?
* The banana could be extinct in 10 years?
* There is a plant that goes searching for water?
* The Puffer Fish contains a poison that is 500 times deadlier than cyanide, yet it’s a delicacy in Japan?
* Barbie's full name is Barbara Milicent Roberts.
* A crocodile can't stick it's tongue out.
* It is impossible to lick your elbow.
* Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of
Alphabetti Spaghetti especially for the German market
that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas.
* In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.
* 7% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
* The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be
the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
* By law, every child in Belgium must take harmonica lessons at Primary school.

Most people who read this probably tried to lick their elbows.

[scouse]

a wooden Oscar with a moveable mouth

Which Edgar Bergen christened Candace. It was later given its own television series entitled "Murphy Brown".

[Erasmus]

It is true that Bill Lear inspired the development of the 8-track cartridge for his Lear Jet. It was an adaptation of the "Fidelipac" cartridge that was in use in broadcasting (and in some places still is!).

In addition, it is true that Bill Lear was one of Paul Galvin's early associates, and helped to develop the practical car radio at the beginning of the 1930's.

In the 70's or 80's, Lear publicly claimed credit for inventing the term "Motorola;" however this was refuted by Bob Galvin, the founder's son, shortly thereafter. His father, who died around 1960, had told him the story of his coining the term while shaving one morning as the product was nearing its introduction.

[8mmMauser]

More on ducks and quacks:

I note tests are done on domesticated ducks in barnyard or lab conditions. However some of us familiar with wild ducks can note wild ducks and environment are substantially different in many respects.

A drake has a very deep quack and it is very hard to track his origin, whereas the hen which may be calling him in is easier to pinpoint. I can not recall an instance in fifty years of stalking these beasts where an echo were possible.

On the other hand I can't recall where I left my glasses either.

[ODDITHER]

Re what self respecting man would beat his wife with something narrower than his thumb?

Answer: the same self respecting man that chose to lie about a 2 by 4. The only reason they didn't use another part of a man's anatomy to measure the stick, is because they knew that they woulc lie just like they did with the 2 by 4.

[AppyPappy]

33. Things you receive in email are rarely true.

[MarkL]

17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

That's true... There was a documentary on the life of Bruce Lee a while back, and they showed a number of his original screen tests. In once, he kicked a suspended ceiling light, breaking it. The light was at least 6" above his head, and about all you saw was the broken light coming down. In another of his screen tests, he is talking about different types of hits and kicks that he was able to do, and was demonstrating them (not actually making contact) on a studio flunky... In every case, they guy was flinching well after the blow was completed and Bruce was back at a relaxed standing position.

Mark

[MarkL]

That intrepid tester of suspicious stuff, Cecil Adams of the Straight Dope, assigned it to one of his researchers. She disproved the myth herself in 1998 with a few friends, a duck, and a large courtyard conducive to echoes. Sure enough, the quack echoed (once they figured out how to make the duck quack, that is). Likewise, the good folks at the premiere urban legend resource, Snopes.com, have personally experienced the quacky echo of talkative ducks.

Only the "induced" quacks of ducks echo... Naturally occuring quacks do not echo, although some ducks do unexpectedly make the sound AFLAC rather than quack, especially is Yogi Berra is around!

Mark