I was in the thread about wakes; the question arose (I think I raised it but maybe someone else did) whether “wake” refers to seeing if the person is really dead before burying them, i.e. if they’ll wake.
So I’m checking out some facts before posting. I looked up Poe’s “The Premature Burial” to see when it was written. Blah blah I made my post. Later, I was reading more on Poe and found this: “Annabel Lee” was an inspiration for Vladimir Nabokov, especially for his novel Lolita (1955). Originally, Nabokov titled the novel The Kingdom by the Sea.[18]
I wondered what other connections dopers are inadvertantly stumbling across, things that you weren’t even looking for.
The other day I accidentally learned that the cat I got 4 months ago must be part Chantilly/Tiffany. I never would’ve thought to look it up, or that that breed even existed, had I not stumbled across someone else’s post about it.
Years ago, I read something like the following. Roman chariots had a standard axle width of 4’8"; their roads were built to accommodate this. Later European, roads were built to the same width since some of the Roman road bed were still around. Later, railroads were built to that width so that carriages and other ‘cars’ could be switched from road to rail. America followed the European lead and built their rails at a gauge of 4’8". The tunnels along the line were then sized to this gauge. When they built the space shuttle, the booster rockets could be no larger than the tunnels to allow them to travel from Utah to Florida. So there’s a direct link from Roman chariots to the shuttle.
That and ‘Iron Butterfly’s’ “In-a-gadda-davida” is actually “In the Garden of Eden”
Funny, I just posted about the space shuttle/chariot thing elsewhere. While looking it up (I couldn’t quite remember the details) I stumbled across that.
I’m always disappointed when those things turn out to be false. It’s so much more interesting the other way.
Weird one I stumbled across awhile ago: Who invented the paper cutter?
Milton Bradley
The Wikipedia article says he did; then click on the link of the invention and it says someone else did, but 1) there are two types, and 2) the article lacks sources. Hmm.
