Fun facts!

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Gef Mongoose said:
It’s a common misconception that the puritans that colonized New England wore all black (think Salem Witch type accusers). Black dye was very expensive back then.
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Holy shit
So I have this theory about coincidences being nature rhyming with itself:
Yesterday I encountered the word "ocotillo" (in reference to a cactus species) for the first time, then opened up a novel that night and it was on the first page I opened it to. Today, you mention this here, after I had seen a discussion of this in a book earlier. (It was saying how it was elites who were allowed to wear black, under oppressive sumptuary laws, and was actually regarded as showy compared to more understated browns and greens and grays.)



Most everybody has heard about the Island of Yap with its massive, statue-sized coins that are used as currency. The coins are arguably not functionally the same as coins, of course, being more like erecting prestige monuments and then trading them, and having valuation determined like art is (age, quality of the carving, past history of being owned by prestigious chiefs/warriors, etc.), really something that might be regarded as a sort of speculative asset.

What's fun is that on one occasion a canoe was transporting a Yap coin to a new location, and the canoe sank. As everybody knew the coin was still down there, whether or not they could see it, they agreed that it was still acceptable tender for transactions, and so this coin nobody can even see has been traded back and forth for eons, sitting at the ocean floor.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
Holy shit
So I have this theory about coincidences being nature rhyming with itself:
Yesterday I encountered the word "ocotillo" (in reference to a cactus species) for the first time, then opened up a novel that night and it was on the first page I opened it to. Today, you mention this here, after I had seen a discussion of this in a book earlier. (It was saying how it was elites who were allowed to wear black, under oppressive sumptuary laws, and was actually regarded as showy compared to more understated browns and greens and grays.)



Most everybody has heard about the Island of Yap with its massive, statue-sized coins that are used as currency. The coins are arguably not functionally the same as coins, of course, being more like erecting prestige monuments and then trading them, and having valuation determined like art is (age, quality of the carving, past history of being owned by prestigious chiefs/warriors, etc.), really something that might be regarded as a sort of speculative asset.

What's fun is that on one occasion a canoe was transporting a Yap coin to a new location, and the canoe sank. As everybody knew the coin was still down there, whether or not they could see it, they agreed that it was still acceptable tender for transactions, and so this coin nobody can even see has been traded back and forth for eons, sitting at the ocean floor.
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The original NFTs.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
Holy shit
So I have this theory about coincidences being nature rhyming with itself:
Yesterday I encountered the word "ocotillo" (in reference to a cactus species) for the first time, then opened up a novel that night and it was on the first page I opened it to. Today, you mention this here, after I had seen a discussion of this in a book earlier. (It was saying how it was elites who were allowed to wear black, under oppressive sumptuary laws, and was actually regarded as showy compared to more understated browns and greens and grays.)
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This is Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon . It's lumped in with frequency bias, but Baader-Meinhoff is when you hear of something obscure for the first time (that you can recollect), and then you immediately encounter it again.
 
Ughubughughughughughghlug said:
I didn't know the name but I know that argument, I personally don't believe it.
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I think (at least in all the times I've seen it used), the term Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon is agnostic as to the why/how it happens; it's just the observation/name given to the occurrence. I don't really like that it's lumped in with frequency bias on wikipedia either, since I think it is at best a very distinct version of it, and at worst, completely unrelated.

Just pointing out that there's a name for it really.
 
The only Apostle not martyred was St. John the Evangelist. St. John is typically considered the writer of Revelations and died of old age. His brother St. James the Greater was the first of the Apostles to be martyred.

Also, the upside down cross is considered a symbol of St. Peter, not Satanism (unless you wanna go the route of the Catholic Church being satanic). Peter's only remark when interrogated was that he wasn't worthy of being executed the same way as Jesus so they did it upside down. I don't know how painful that would be because crucifixion generally works by suffocating you. You have to push up with your legs or else you'll asphyxiate. It's why they broke the legs of the victims to speed up the death process.
 
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A common explanation for the origin of the word "faggot" (in regards to a homosexual male) goes that gays were burned at the stake in Europe and so the association between gay men and a bundle of sticks used as kindling was made. This is almost certainly wrong. This is, ostensibly, an English insult and the English didn't burn gays like the rest of Europe did. They hanged them.

The oldest uses of the word "faggot" as an insult all make the association with them being a pain in the ass to carry around.
The oldest use of "faggot" as an insult was to refer to a woman back in the 1300's. Think "ball and chain" or "baggage" or whatever have you. The association was that you can't do the things you want to do because you gotta carry this faggot around. This basic connotation carried on through centuries to refer to laws passed for purely partisan purposes and military recruits who were hired solely to fill ranks and all other manner of useless people you have to drag around for various reasons. You can't get done what you want to because you have to carry this faggot.
From here: how the association with gays became mainstream by the late 19th century becomes a bit unclear. The easier to explain, though less likely, version is that the word sounds a lot like the Yiddish "Faygele" which was already a slur for gay men. So intermingling of cultures resulted in the adoption of the new definition.
What I find more likely relies on the fact that the term "faggot" became a term in the 18th century for a lower-classmate who does the tedious work for an upper-classmate in a mutually beneficial relationship (again: think "pain in the ass"). The lower-classmen would do the dumb, tedious shit for the upper-classmen in return for some experience in the field. This was soon associated with Greek pederasty and the joke arose that the upper-classmen are basically fucking the lower-classmen in the ass. It was even a verb, for a time, to "faggot" someone to do a thing for you as they were your subordinate and you have more important, less tedious things to do.
So the progression went from "pain in the ass" to "person who does pain in the ass thing for you" to "catamite (younger student of an older teacher in a pederastic relationship)" to "guy who gets fucked in the ass."

Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
www.etymonline.com

faggot | Etymology, origin and meaning of faggot by etymonline

FAGGOT Meaning: "bundle of twigs bound up," also fagald, faggald, from Old French fagot "bundle of sticks" (13c.), of… See origin and meaning of faggot.
www.etymonline.com www.etymonline.com
 
Penis Drager said:
A common explanation for the origin of the word "faggot" (in regards to a homosexual male) goes that gays were burned at the stake in Europe and so the association between gay men and a bundle of sticks used as kindling was made. This is almost certainly wrong. This is, ostensibly, an English insult and the English didn't burn gays like the rest of Europe did. They hanged them.

The oldest uses of the word "faggot" as an insult all make the association with them being a pain in the ass to carry around.
The oldest use of "faggot" as an insult was to refer to a woman back in the 1300's. Think "ball and chain" or "baggage" or whatever have you. The association was that you can't do the things you want to do because you gotta carry this faggot around. This basic connotation carried on through centuries to refer to laws passed for purely partisan purposes and military recruits who were hired solely to fill ranks and all other manner of useless people you have to drag around for various reasons. You can't get done what you want to because you have to carry this faggot.
From here: how the association with gays became mainstream by the late 19th century becomes a bit unclear. The easier to explain, though less likely, version is that the word sounds a lot like the Yiddish "Faygele" which was already a slur for gay men. So intermingling of cultures resulted in the adoption of the new definition.
What I find more likely relies on the fact that the term "faggot" became a term in the 18th century for a lower-classmate who does the tedious work for an upper-classmate in a mutually beneficial relationship (again: think "pain in the ass"). The lower-classmen would do the dumb, tedious shit for the upper-classmen in return for some experience in the field. This was soon associated with Greek pederasty and the joke arose that the upper-classmen are basically fucking the lower-classmen in the ass. It was even a verb, for a time, to "faggot" someone to do a thing for you as they were your subordinate and you have more important, less tedious things to do.
So the progression went from "pain in the ass" to "person who does pain in the ass thing for you" to "catamite (younger student of an older teacher in a pederastic relationship)" to "guy who gets fucked in the ass."

Thank you for listening to my Ted Talk.
www.etymonline.com

faggot | Etymology, origin and meaning of faggot by etymonline

FAGGOT Meaning: "bundle of twigs bound up," also fagald, faggald, from Old French fagot "bundle of sticks" (13c.), of… See origin and meaning of faggot.
www.etymonline.com www.etymonline.com
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download.jpeg

You have to add visual examples bro
 
Before direct involvement in WWII, America was well known for lend-lease. One of my favorite funny examples Is the M3 medium tank. What makes it humorous (besides how awkward it looks), the English refered to the M3 as the "Grant", who obviously was the most famous union General of the War (then president afterwards). While America refered to theirs as the Lee...from the south.

Always found that funny
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Elephants think humans are cute. They did brain scans on them, and the part of elephants' brains that activate when seeing humans is the equivalent of what activates when a human brain sees puppies.

BadGoy1488 said:
Before direct involvement in WWII, America was well known for lend-lease. One of my favorite funny examples Is the M3 medium tank. What makes it humorous (besides how awkward it looks), the English refered to the M3 as the "Grant", who obviously was the most famous union General of the War (then president afterwards). While America refered to theirs as the Lee...from the south.

Always found that funnyView attachment 3602044
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I know it as Rabbit Team.

9180-1710243507.jpg
 
The Roman naming system consisted of three names, a praenomen, nomen and cognomen. A praenomen was a personal name given by the parents, the nomen was the family name, the cognomen could be anything - a nickname, a title that was given out as a celebration for a great deed, or it could signify membership of a branch of certain families. A Roman could also have multiple cognomen. For example Publius (first name) Cornelius (family name, member of the Cornelii) Scipio (member of the Scipii branch within the Cornelii) Africanus (given to him to celebrate his great victories over the Carthaginians in Africa).

The system eroded multiple times, first during the late republican/early imperial era. Noble families used to distinguish their sons with different first names, but then started to give out the same first name to brothers or sisters. In that way the praenomen and nomen merged into one, so the cognomen started being used to distinguish between brothers.

Then during the early 3rd century, the emperor Caracalla issued an edict with which every freeman in the empire was granted full citizenship. In the past, freemen turned Roman citizens had the custom of taking the same praenomen and nomen as their sponsor, and since their sponsor was the emperor, millions of people started having the name Marcus Aurelius (with their cognomen being a Romanized version of their native name) and it more or less became the title of a common citizen rather than an actual name. After a while, praenomen were completely phased out of public documents. Afterwards during the late empire the nomen Flavius was added into the mix due to Constantine the Great whose name was Flavius Valerius Constantinus, and it became a signifier of class. Commoners would most often have the nomen Aurelius, while the emperors, generals and any imperial servants would give themselves the nomen Flavius after entering into service. This was also the case of barbarian generals who were hired by the Romans. For example the Gothic king Alaric, known for sacking Rome in 410, was known as Flavius Alaricus when he worked as a mercenary general under the Romans.
 
During the Battle of the Bulge on Christmas Eve, 1944, 3 American soldiers got separated from their unit. Finding a cottage, they asked the German mother if they could come inside. Later, 4 Germans on patrol came across the same cottage and asked if they could come inside. After a period of tense awkwardness between the Germans and Americans, they all shared a hot meal of chicken and vegetable stew, bread, and a bottle of red wine the Germans provided.
 
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