[QUOTE=MaxTheVool]
In the Latin alphabet, Gyro begins with an I…
[/QUOTE]
Nice one. 
[QUOTE=Swallowed My Cellphone]
:: raises hand ::
Um… what about “strangled”? Does that work like electrocuted? That you have to be dead to have been strangled?
I can see someone who lived saying “I was shocked. I’m lucky I wasn’t electrocuted!” Wouldn’t “strangled” be the same? “The bastard tried to choke me to death. I’m lucky to have gotten away before I was strangled.”
Yes?.. No?..
[/QUOTE]
Strangled is not the same. It is a verb in its own right. In the greek it is strangalan: “choke, twist,”
Electrocution is a coined term based on combining “electro-” and “execution”.
[QUOTE=Martini Enfield]
In this part of the world, it’s called the “Hash Key”. I’ve only ever heard it called a “Pound Sign” in the US, and the first time I heard it, I was trying to work out why an American phone would have a “£” key on it… :smack:
[/QUOTE]
Oddly enough, I can’t remember the # actually being called the pound sign until about 25 or so years ago at the earliest. Before then, it was always called “the number sign”, and is still used that way as a sort of short hand. For instance in an blackberry message you might ask, “What’s the # of that item?”
I also thought one got “mye-zled”, though I was fairly young when I realized that was wrong. “Mye-zled” just sounds so right for what the meaning is. I was confused!! I was all – woozled and misled. 
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
Oddly enough, I can’t remember the # actually being called the pound sign until about 25 or so years ago at the earliest. Before then, it was always called “the number sign”, and is still used that way as a sort of short hand. For instance in an blackberry message you might ask, “What’s the # of that item?”
[/QUOTE]
I remember when push-button phones replaced the diallers back in West Texas. There, it was called the “pound sign” from the start. (Wasn’t on the diallers.)
Albany, not Buffalo, is the capital of New York state.
I was in my twenties when I first realized that “Thousand Island” dressing was named so because the pickle bits looked like little islands …
[QUOTE=cerberus]
I was in my twenties when I first realized that “Thousand Island” dressing was named so because the pickle bits looked like little islands …
[/QUOTE]
:smack:
Are you sure? I thought it was called that because it was popularized (not necessarily invented) in the Thousand Islands.
[QUOTE=Rilchiam]
Are you sure? I thought it was called that because it was popularized (not necessarily invented) in the Thousand Islands.
[/QUOTE]
According to Wiki, both are possible.
[QUOTE=Hubert Cumberdale]
I think I believed in God (at least in the religious superstition sense) until I was at least 14 or 15.
[/QUOTE]
‘Richard’…
[QUOTE=Staggerlee]
‘Richard’…
[/QUOTE]
Are we talking pet name or rhyming slang?
Either way, I think it’s best to remain silent when someone’s trawling for a response.
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
I know very little about the history of the Vietnam war. In movies I kept hearing about Ho Chi Min, and for some reason I assumed for years they were talking about a person. I only realized a couple of years ago that it’s actually a city.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=hawksgirl]
Umm, it was a person. The city was named after him.
[/QUOTE]
:haha Where’s the Nelson Muntz smiliey when you need it? Still, at least you can console yourself with the thought that on average you have always been correct in your understanding of Ho Chi Min’s personhood. Incidentally, there’s a London blue plaque for Ho Chi Minh on the site of the hotel where he worked in the kitchen.
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir]
My sister believed until her late teens that the British Isles are physically connected to Europe (and this was pre-Chunnel, mind you). She spoke about “taking the bus from London to Paris.”
[/QUOTE]
There’s nothing silly about that one. Long before the Channel Tunnel opened you could get buses from London to any number of European cities. Buses can go on car ferries too! And of course you still can, and a lot of the buses still use the ferries rather than going on the Eurotunnel train shuttle.
[QUOTE=Noone Special]
Sort of. “Shwarma” is not Hebrew – it’s clearly a loan-word from Arabic, nobody thinks it’s originally Hebrew.
[/QUOTE]
I’m almost sure it’s Turkish in origin, not Arabic.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
:haha Where’s the Nelson Muntz smiliey when you need it? Still, at least you can console yourself with the thought that on average you have always been correct in your understanding of Ho Chi Min’s personhood. .
[/QUOTE]
Did *anyone *actually realize I was joking?
[QUOTE=Peter Morris]
Did *anyone *actually realize I was joking?
[/QUOTE]
What should have given it away?
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
The societal reaction to mercury in recent decades has bordered on the hysteric. I’ve heard of cases where somebody spilled a few cc of mercury in a school lab, and then the whole building being evacuated while haz-mat clean-up specialists go in and remove the deadly substance.
I realize, it’s not exactly a health food, and is toxic like most heavy metals, but if you break your mercury thermometer you’re not going to die.
But just today on the morning news they were exposing the mercury threat from a new angle…that of mercury in antiques, like pendulum clocks and barometers.
[/QUOTE]
Hell, when I was a kid in the fifties we used to play with mercury as a toy. We let it flow through our fingers (weird feeling) and coat silver coins (dimes, mostly) with it. The mercury stuck to the silver and made a very shiny coin. Also, when I was panning for gold in the Sierras, we used mercury to collect the (very little) gold from the pan. The mercury just soaked it up. When we were ready to refine the gold from the mercury we just burned the mixture. The mercury would evaporate and the gold would stay. Fortunately, we were savvy enough to stay away from the fumes of the evaporating mercury. (We were outside)
Haz-Mat? Hummph.
For over a week I believed I had posted my response in this thread and it somehow got lost… it turns out I posted it basically as a complete non-sequitor in the thread about misconceptions that foreigners have about your country… so here goes…
Until very recently I thought “getting your car detailed” meant having your car painted and some detail added…like a racing stripe…or a dragon…or those stupid window decals showing the family or Calvin peeing on something. A coworker told me she was getting her car detailed after work. I asked if she was getting a dragon or some kanji put on the rear window. She looked at me funny and I responded sheepishly with “I-I-I don’t really know what car detailing means.” She then explained it usually mean having a very “detailed” cleaning job done on your car.
[QUOTE=Push You Down]
For over a week I believed I had posted my response in this thread and it somehow got lost.. it turns out I posted it basically as a complete non-sequitor in the thread about misconceptions that foreigners have about your country… so here goes…
Until very recently I thought “getting your car detailed” meant having your car painted and some detail added…like a racing stripe…or a dragon…or those stupid window decals showing the family or Calvin peeing on something. A coworker told me she was getting her car detailed after work. I asked if she was getting a dragon or some kanji put on the rear window. She looked at me funny and I responded sheepishly with “I-I-I don’t really know what car detailing means.” She then explained it usually mean having a very “detailed” cleaning job done on your car.
[/QUOTE]
I remember replying to your post, saying that I believed the same thing. But… where?
I’m almost positive you posted it here.