I had a girlfriend once whose very smug, know-it-all personality must have given her lots of embarrassing epiphanies.
When we were dating, I was doing doctoral course work in applied statistics, and was considering doing my dissertation on actuarial research on satellite orbital debris (aka ‘space junk’): with all the comsats going up, orbital debris is increasing, and I thought it might be useful to analyze orbits for risk.
The resulting actuarial data would allow insurance companies to sell debris-damage policies to companies that launch satellites. (I didn’t finish a doctorate, and I’ve since learned there are various reasons making this not especially valuable research).
When I mentioned the topic to her, she laughed out loud, and said it was the stupidest idea she’d ever heard.
When the subject came up again a few weeks later, it turned out that she thought I was proposing that insurance companies could make lots of money offering insurance to people on the ground, in case a falling satellite hit them.
Thanks t-keela, that was a fascinating exposition of the ‘peace symbol.’ Similar basic symbols crop up in various places over the course of human history. It’s interesting that an “invention” (the semaphore/crow’s-foot construction) was actually an old runic symbol.
I was going to introduce an abbreviation, NNUTS, which stands for “nothing new under the sun” but I’m afraid it would be misunderstood as a derogatory comment rather than one of recognition and agreement. It seems like a fairly common conclusion when discussing origins of concepts and symbols.
In this thread
we’re discussing the origin of paddy-wagon. So I have this epiphany, something completely different from what is usually offered. Probably totally wrong but it predates the other origins so who knows.
We live in a finite world so we’re bound to repeat old ideas given enough time. I seem to recall a quote “There are no original thoughts”. Can’t recall who said it though. Probably lotsa folks.
We were driving by an abortion clinic and there were some protesters outside. They had cribs and baby dolls and wore black. One guy held a sign that read “Baby Death House”. I’m anti-abortion but think it’s silly to make a fool of yourself like this so I muttered under my breath “freaks. . .”. GF asked why they were freaks and I told her. She sat in silence for a few seconds and then said:
“Oh, I thought it was a store to buy funeral items for dead babies.” :rolleyes: Get it? “Baby Death House”?
I am 54 years old. I eat a lot of rice. As far back as I can recall, I’ve been aware of the existence of Rice-a-roni*. Apparently, however, I have never actually eaten Rice-a-roni. Just this weekend, at the grocery store, I was looking for seasoned rice, and I noticed that the ingredients for a particular type of Rice-a-roni were rice and vermicelli. “How odd,” I thought. Then I looked at other types of Rice-a-roni, and they too were a combination of rice and vermicelli. Epiphany time: "Ah, Rice-a-roni* is a combination of rice and pasta." I honest to god did not know this; I thought it was just flavored rice.
*the San Francisco treat
Hehe, you know, I believed it was “nobody doesn’t like Sarah Lee” from the beginning, but then one day I misheard it as “nobody does it like Sarah Lee”, and I decided, “Hey, THAT makes a lot more sense!”
I told my friends "Wow, I always thought it was “nobody DOESN’T LIKE Sarah Lee!” and they all laughed, because they were all so certain it was “nobody does it like Sarah Lee”.
Then the next time I heard it I realised I had been right all along. I don’t know if I ever told my friends this.
Anyway, here’s my personal epiphany. When I was young, my mother would speak of tossed salad, and she spoke quickly, so until I was about 12, I honestly thought it was called “taw salad”… but I had no idea what a “taw” was. Then I saw it written down and… click ohhhhh!
OH am I soooo glad you started this thread. I have had the most awful time of things when it comes to grammar. I am one of those who know exactly how to spell and pronounce more words than most. I am not perfect and appreciate it when someone corrects me, but my mother was a very intelligent woman and insisted on us using proper english (although she never taught us manners. Go figure).
I have had two temp jobs in the past 6 months and have worked for the most Godawful grammarless women I have ever known. The first one I would try to help. Not understanding why she shied away from me after a couple weeks. Eventually when I left I thought she was always mad at me for something. Clueless me discussed this with my sister who picked up on it in our discussions and said…“that’s why she was always mad at you, she hated that you were always correcting her! Women hate that!”
NOW I work for a woman who can’t even say what she wants to say!!! When I have to write a report and she tells me what to write I cringe. But I never submit it until she is out of sight. Then I hurriedly correct it and send. Once while we were listening to the radio this guy came on and did the same thing she does with grammar. He put a “t” on the end of all his s-words. I started to say OH God That drives me nuts. She says…“what does?” I stop for a second and realize…ooops
I was about 8 or 9 when the Batman movie came out, and along with it, lots of merchandise. I wasn’t particularly interested in Batman at all, so when I saw these black shirts with a big yellow logo, all I saw was the yellow and didn’t look at the black space inside it and thought it was a shirt with a big logo of awful, misshapen teeth.
Then I saw the movie, and it clicked.
I did the same thing with the cross-stitch picture my grandma has in her house. I asked her what it was, and she said that it said Jesus. I thought that it must say Jesus in some other language or something, because I couldn’t read it. Finally, I glanced at it one day and looked at the black space between the white symbols and saw it. http://www.stellaluna.org/temp/jesus.jpg
I just now “got” Rice-a-roni. I never thought about it till now, just thought it was catchy.
I always thought ‘pipe cleaners’ was a stupid name for those fun arts and crafts materials until the day I discovered that they were called that for a reason. Oh my God! They were a pipe cleaning tool first, they just happened to be fun to twist and shape into mothers day gifts! So many years in the dark…
I have another revelation that belongs in this thread, courtesy of Nintendo Power magazine…I was reading through the letters, and there was one about NES games not saving, and I finally found out why games that don’t use memory cards are called battery-backed…shakes head
I got one that’s very funny, but it was my little brother, not me.
I speak oddly. I use words that other people would not. Probably because I’m legally a genius (that’s another story). I was talking to my brother, and used the word “moniker.” He had no idea what I meant. It turned out that he thought the word was pronounced “monkey-yer.”
He still pronounces it incorrectly every once in a while. :wally
It’s French. In French, about half the letters are silent. What do you expect from a country that thinks snails are tasty? :rolleyes:
But then, I’m from Texas, where all food can be deep fried and/or BBQ’ed. And I mean all food. I’ve had deef fried ice cream, grilled eggs (I’m not sure how they did that), and chicken-fried buffalo.
I went to a school for seven years where we had a sports uniform made by the popular New Zealand athletics brand, Canterbury. The logo is 3 C’s joined together and if you stare at the spaces between the C’s, you can see the heads of 3 kiwis (the birds, not the fruit), NZ’s symbol… http://www.canterburyclothing.co.nz/images/ccctee.gif
I must have seen that logo many times every day for seven years but I only ever saw the C’s. One day in my final year I was sitting in a huge group of my classmates, quietly watching school sports when it suddenly dawned on me. Of course, in my amazement, I exclaimed my revelation really loudly, much to the amusement of everyone sitting around me. Apparently I was the only one who hadn’t realised. :rolleyes:
