I didn’t realize this until I was adult, either, upon rewatching it with my son. This says something about the power of labels, at least for children, anyway.
I didn’t notice this before, either.
I didn’t realize that “gaol” was pronounced “jail” until after college.
I remember that game from when I was 6 or 7 years old! I never noticed the significance of this spelling until this thread.
I don’t get it.
I just watched One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for the upteenth time. When McMurphy tries to refuse his medication, Nurse Ratched says “If Mr. McMurphy doesn’t want to take his medication orally, perhaps we can find another way to administer it. But I don’t think he would like it.”
McMurphy thinks it over, then turns to Harding and says “But I bet you would like it.”
I just realized last night what that was all about.
It took me years of watching The Beverly Hillbillies being frustrated that both the Hillbillies and the Drysdales seemed to go out of their way to not understand things that should be maddeningly obvious to the other party after a little bit of thought until…
One day I realized that that was the point of the series! :smack:
It wasn’t until college that I discovered that this genre had a name:
Okay - here’s one, although I suspect many Dopers, being word geeks, know this: FLOTsam is FLOATing crap and JETsam is crap that has been JETtisoned over the side of a ship…
I used to wonder how in the world people came to the conclusion that certain names that seemed completely different to me were actually the same name in different languages. “Ivan” sounds nothing whatsoever like “John”. “Juan”, “Jean”, and even “Johann” seemed pretty obvious. But “Ivan”?
Back in high school I used to play around with different styles of handwriting. For a while I turned in a lot of assignments written in backhand (cursive that slants from top left to bottom right – e.g. \\\ rather than ////). After one too many viewings of Spartacus I started taking notes in faux Greco-Roman lettering, all straight lines and eliminating J and U. So when one of my classes was divided into groups, and I wrote down the names of the members of my team, Juan Rivera’s name came out as IVAN. I was stunned.
We all know that. Flotsam belongs to the Queen, Jetsam belongs to the finder subject to ancient law.
I was floating in the pool reciting Hamlet to myself, zoning out. Some kiddies were playing behind me. Suddenly Momma ran from one end of the pool to the other.
Now I know why you must not run near the pool. It looks like an emergency.
Anyone who has children of a certain age has probably seen The LAnd Before Time. The first one was a pretty good Don Bluth kid flick and they have been cranking out made for DVD sequels for years. The main character is Little Foot, a long neck dinosaur. One of his friends is a spunky little Triceratops named Sara. Or so I thought through something like ten movies. Then it hit me. Her name is Cera. As in TriCERAtops.
For those of you who don’t like sherbert, time to get that stick out your ass. It is an alternate spelling and pronunciation which has become widespread. Sorry if the 17th century usage has changed. Language changes, get over it. I will continue to use and say sherbert and I will continue to be equally correct as those who use sherbet.
I remember having this same discussion here with people who can’t get over the fact that their “correct” way of saying forte is dying out.
So that clogged-up toilet has flotsam in it?
And I will continue to find it annoying. shrug you tell me to get over it–I suggest you do as well (get over the fact that people like me are annoyed by such things, that is).
I knew about this, but for the longest time I thought you were a guy . . . you know, a “cat.” So in my own little world of non-sequitur, I always read “Hi, Opal” as something like “Hey, dude.” Always as #3 in a list, of course.
No. If it’s floating, there’s no clog (yet). So we need a third term: flotsam, jetsam, and . . . I propose: clogsam. You heard it here, folks.
The bluegrass cover band Hayseed Dixie got it’s name as a variant of “AC/DC”. They’d recorded a CD of AC/DC songs.
It took a few months to get that one.
I have nothing to get over since I don’t care. I just don’t understand why someone would be annoyed by someone using a word properly.
I was telling my Environmental Science seniors (HS) about androgen insensitivity, in which an XY fetus does not respond to its testosterone, and stays externally female, but is not coded for a uterus, rendering her infertile. I was pointing out that “andro” is a root for “male”, and it hit me so hard that I made a stupid face in front of the class.
Andro-gyn-ous
Male-female-ous.
Duh.
But that CD isn’t as good as their classic Keeping Your Poop in a Jar.
I wish I was making that up.
You’re not the first, but it’s always confused me. I always thought of cats as being a fairly feminine animal, and opals are an iridescent, rainbow, girly stone. So opal+cat always seemed really girly to me, at about the level of “frilly unicorn” or something. So it’s always struck me as really strange when people assume I’m a guy based on my name.
I agree - although I know a woman who will say something like: Those cats at the corporate office…
And when she uses the phrase that way she is saying the equivalently of “Those dudes at the coporate office…”
Before her I had only ever heard it used like that in a beach-blanket movie.
Because IMHO it’s not really and truly correct. It’s more like, “Well, since so many people are saying it like this anyway, we’ll capitulate and make it acceptable.”
Next thing you know, NOO-CU-LAR and JEW-LUH-REE will be in the dictionary as acceptable alternate pronunciations! 
Yeah, but I am not sure how my name being “OpalCat” and someone saying “Hi, Opal” (not “Hi, Cat” for example) would default to assuming that usage. Just odd to me.
Yeah, I expect that 100 years from now “ur” will be listed in the dictionary as an acceptable alternate spelling of “your”. :rolleyes: I dread the day. Just because enough people mess it up to get it reluctantly added to the dictionary doesn’t mean I have to like it.