# Thought you might enjoy some random knowledge **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 17, 2019, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100 "2019-05-17T03:30:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/1 "2019-05-17T03:30:45Z")
I keep a text doc on my desktop that is basically a compendium of stray data that I think is cool. Much of it is from sources that, alas, I neglected to attribute. Sorry. Here’s the current one: âme damnée: 1. a person who is willingly or blindly the tool of another person. 2. A devoted adherent, toady. Literally “damned soul” volute: a spiral or twisted formation or object. phlegethon: a stream of fire or fiery light. gramarye: occult learning; magic. gage: token of defiance driech/ dreary grikes/small crevasses pritch/to poke full of holes microbiome gut-brain axis – from a book Incommensurable magnitudes – from a book The Chinese word for penguin translates directly to “business goose” “Now it’s like playing chess with a pigeon…they knock over the pieces and shit on the board and pretend they won. It’s just boring.?” “More profoundly, illiteracy is also about refusing to act from a position of thoughtfulness, informed judgment, and critical agency.” Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur “Human cells and dandelion cells were remarkably similar to each other, while the most contrived bundle of invented proteins was still just a bag of busy water.” “There are two ways to slide through life: to believe everything and to doubt everything. Both save us from thinking. It’s the doubt part I really appreciate. Too many people think that hyperbolic cynicism and knee-jerk naysaying are the hallmarks of intelligence when in reality it makes you just as stupid and gullible as someone who accepts everything at face value and never questions anything.” “Author Preston Dennett related, for instance, the story of quantum physicist Jack Sarfatti, who claimed that a mechanical sounding voice had begun calling him back in the 1950s, promising to entrust him with some brand of clandestine information later in life.” “For man, as for flower and beast and bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.” –D.H. Lawrence “It’s a magical world, Hobbes ol’ buddy. Lets go exploring” -Calvin “If we care about having a meaningful world in which to lead meaningful lives then we should all try harder to reinvest our environments with the meaning that belligerent materialism has sucked out of them.” --Alan Moore “Take this message to my brother You will find him everywhere Wherever people live together Tied in poverty’s despair You, telling me the things you’re gonna do for me I ain’t blind and I don’t like what I think I see” –Takin it to the streets, Doobie Brothers “The whole reason that people banded together to form nations and governments is for the mutual benefit of all. That’s the overarching premise and purpose of our social structure and system of government. If you remove, little by little, all the benefits of participation, then what you have left is exploitation and abuse.” —Me “However, ‘shipping’ can involve virtually any kind of relationship- from the well-known and established, through the ambiguous or those undergoing development, and even all the way to the highly improbable and the blatantly impossible.” --wikipedia ---
**Author:** ![Ronald\_Raygun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c67d28/32.png) [@Ronald\_Raygun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ronald_Raygun)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/2 "2019-05-17T09:06:10Z")
we used to have this art installation on campus referred to as “the Volute” [http://www.publicartinla.com/sculptures/moores\_stone\_volute.html](http://www.publicartinla.com/sculptures/moores_stone_volute.html) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/3 "2019-05-17T13:18:55Z")
[“Business gooses” is practically chickens.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxEN0RXzyuY) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/4 "2019-05-17T14:02:11Z")
I’m suspicious of “Business Goose” as a literal translation of the Chinese for “penguin”. It fails to show up in an internet search for “business goose”, except for one site that also gives the discredited equivalence of Chaos = “two women under one roof”. This does not inspire confidence. Searching for Chinese translations of “penguin” brings up “standing goose” and “tip toe goose”, which seem more believable > **[172 Animals in Chinese 🙉 : Ultimate Animal (动物) Encyclopedia](https://ltl-school.com/chinese-animal-names/)** > > Learn the names of 172 Animals in Chinese - The Ultimate 动物 Encyclopedia. Discover your favourites with our complete guide to animals in Mandarin. > [@](#): > > Penguin in Chinese > > Characters:企鹅 > > Pinyin: Qì’é > > Literal Translation: “Standing Goose” [https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3zkl3g/whats\_your\_favorite\_literal\_chinese\_word/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/3zkl3g/whats_your_favorite_literal_chinese_word/) > [@](#): > > Fantastic! I love the word for penguin too, 企鹅, which is tip-toeing goose. I note that the literal English translations aren’t the same, but the Chinese characters are. ---
**Author:** ![PoppaSan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/poppasan/32/189_2.png) [@PoppaSan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoppaSan)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/5 "2019-05-19T02:47:58Z")
> [@brujaja](#): > > I keep a text doc on my desktop that is basically a compendium of stray data that I think is cool. Much of it is from sources that, alas, I neglected to attribute. Sorry. > > … I have a file like this also. Filled with quotes and phrases, one or four of which I know I lifted from posts here. I use them to cycle through my signatures on various boards. That is how I started it, as a place to keep them when I wanted a change. The originating quote was from a jacket I saw 35-40 years ago and still is one of my favorites > [@](#): > > When the power of love overcomes the love of power, there will be peace ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/6 "2019-05-19T03:00:01Z")
“The Iliad“, is so titled as Troy was, at one time known as Ilium. The ‘ad’ suffix means, ‘the story of’. So the translation of Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ should be Troy Story. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/7 "2019-05-19T10:11:48Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m suspicious of “Business Goose” as a literal translation of the Chinese for “penguin”. It fails to show up in an internet search for “business goose”, except for one site that also gives the discredited equivalence of Chaos = “two women under one roof”. This does not inspire confidence. > > Searching for Chinese translations of “penguin” brings up “standing goose” and “tip toe goose”, which seem more believable > . If you google translate one symbol at a time of 企鹅, it comes out as ‘Enterprise + goose’. Whether that means anything or not, I dunno, but I suspect it’s where they got it from. ---
**Author:** ![ekedolphin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ekedolphin/32/10003_2.png) [@ekedolphin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekedolphin)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/8 "2019-05-19T18:20:57Z")
The Calvin and Hobbes quote from the OP was from the very last strip. ---
**Author:** ![Jet\_Jaguar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jet_jaguar/32/3562_2.png) [@Jet\_Jaguar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jet_Jaguar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/9 "2019-05-19T20:15:26Z")
My wife is from China, and she says the first character by itself means “standing up, like on tip-toes”, so “standing goose” is the best transliteration. But she also says that the first character is also the first character in the words for things like business and entrepreneur, so she says she can see where that might have come from. BTW, the Chinese word for panda transliterates as “bear cat”. My favorite transliteration though is the word for water faucet - “water dragon head”. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/10 "2019-05-19T20:23:16Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > “The Iliad“, is so titled as Troy was, at one time known as Ilium. The ‘ad’ suffix means, ‘the story of’. > > So the translation of Homer’s ‘The Iliad’ should be Troy Story. > > 😃 Well, _The Odyssey_ is considered a sequel to _The Iliad_, so that should be retitled Troy Story 2. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/11 "2019-05-19T20:35:47Z")
> [@Jet\_Jaguar](#): > > My wife is from China, and she says the first character by itself means “standing up, like on tip-toes”, so “standing goose” is the best transliteration. But she also says that the first character is also the first character in the words for things like business and entrepreneur, so she says she can see where that might have come from. > > BTW, the Chinese word for panda transliterates as “bear cat”. My favorite transliteration though is the word for water faucet - “water dragon head”. Thirsty? Remember: “Things go better with ‘Bite The Wax Tadpole!’” ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2019, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thought-you-might-enjoy-some-random-knowledge/834100/12 "2019-05-20T14:40:20Z")
The English word penguin may well come from the Welsh [Pen Gwyn](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-is-the-origin-of-the-word-penguin/) meaning “White Head”, and originally applied to the great auk. j