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Pookah posted:My favorite weird bit of irish is "duine gorm", which is the proper phrase to use to describe a black person, except it literally translates as 'blue person'. One theory I read was that it happened because the first irish people to meet a black african didn't want to be rude and call them 'duine dubh' (black person) because that was uncomfortably close to a common term for the devil. Do they not have a word for brown or something?
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Sep 12, 2016 02:28
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stubblyhead posted:Do they not have a word for brown or something? Yeah, lots of different ones based around the word 'donn'. No-one seems to know where the blue thing came from, one theory was that the first african traders that came to Ireland were from Morocco and tended to wear blue robes, but that sounds pretty unlikely to me - if I met group of people with a physical characteristic I'd never seen before that was very different to anything I'd ever seen, I don't think I'd fixate on their clothing as a descriptor.
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Sep 12, 2016 11:19
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I'd always assumed that it was an artifact and that the gorm in daoine gorm didn't relate to the colour. Also pretending not to see colour for fear of embarrassment and commenting on their clothes seems p Irish to me.
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Sep 12, 2016 15:20
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James Garfield posted:It did! The Arabic word for orange came from Sanskrit (via Persian) But I thought the Arabic word for orange was a variation on 'Portugal' . . . I looked into it, and the Sanskrit word naranj that produced our 'orange' is now only used in Arabic to mean 'a bitter orange', like the oranges they use in curacao and other liqueurs. I guess the Portuguese showed up later with the first oranges that didn't taste like rear end, so common oranges are now named after them.
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Sep 12, 2016 15:39
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After doing some googling apparently they didn't want to call Africans daoine dubh because the devil was called "an fear dub" which means the black man.
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Sep 12, 2016 15:47
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Intoluene posted:Iirc, English is fairly unique for having a special word for light red. Not really, but the specific etymological origin is unique. I'm pretty sure it's some variation of 'rose' in most European languages.
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Sep 13, 2016 11:24
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Pookah posted:My favorite weird bit of irish is "duine gorm", which is the proper phrase to use to describe a black person, except it literally translates as 'blue person'. One theory I read was that it happened because the first irish people to meet a black african didn't want to be rude and call them 'duine dubh' (black person) because that was uncomfortably close to a common term for the devil. This is a thing in Icelandic as well. "Blámađur" or "Blueman" is an antiquated word for someone from Africa which itself was sometimes referred to as "Bláland". Both of these words are seen as at least a bit racist these days. However somewhat confusingly in some old Sagas "blámađur" is just as often used as a word for troll* or ogre which let to it feeling a bit awkward to read about Saga heroes wrestling trolls that were being called a racial slur. It is possible the Norse picked up the habit of applying this word to Africans from the Irish since Ireland had quite a bit of a Norse presence in the Viking Age and Gaelic slaves were common. As much as 20% of the original settlers of Iceland were Celts of some sort, mostly from Ireland, and almost all of them slaves and/or concubines. Svertingjar and Blökkumenn are similarly old but are generally considered to be more acceptable to this day. Both basically mean Black men. The latter has been in use since at least the 11th century since there is a Varangian runestone from that time in Sweden raised in remembrance of a man called Hróđfúss who was betrayed by "black men" while working as a Varangian in the south. Most scholars don't think these are actual Africans but rather one of the Slavic or Turkic tribes that lived near the Byzantine empire. Most likely the Wallachians since they are called by that name elsewhere but possibly the Cumans. Both of these groups were just as pale skinned as the Norse but apparently "blakkr" could mean both "black" and "pale". *Which although now synonymous with ogres once referred to any sort of supernatural creature or practioner of magic. Same goes for "draugr" which now refers to ghosts but is used to describe basically anyone monstrous or scary in older texts. As a sidenote the Icelandic, and Old Norse in general, draugr was a shape-shifting walking corpse that has more in common with vampires and other revenants than it does with the more ethereal ghost spirits more common in most of the world. However in the late 19th century the Icelandic ghost became increasingly less physical and more spirit like as spiritism came into fashion.
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Sep 14, 2016 02:28
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The painting American Gothic is only called that because the window in the house in the background is in a Gothic style.
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Sep 14, 2016 09:53
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Ddraig posted:The painting American Gothic is only called that because the window in the house in the background is in a Gothic style. True fact: it used to be called "America's Got Hicks" but they abbreviated it.
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Sep 14, 2016 10:46
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Ddraig posted:The painting American Gothic is only called that because the window in the house in the background is in a Gothic style. Also, the woman in the painting is meant to be the man's daughter, not wife, according to the artist, Grant Wood. The models were Wood's sister and Wood's dentist.
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Sep 14, 2016 20:40
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Something I just learned: Grant Wood sounds like a porn star.
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Sep 14, 2016 22:49
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foobardog posted:Also, the woman in the painting is meant to be the man's daughter, not wife, according to the artist, Grant Wood. The models were Wood's sister and Wood's dentist. Which makes the use of it in a lot of different settings amazing, such as the logo of Farmer's Only
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Sep 14, 2016 22:52
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The way I read it the woman in American Gothic was affronted that she was viewed as the farmer's wife so she asked the artist to please specify that she was supposed to be his daughter.
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Sep 14, 2016 22:59
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syscall girl posted:The way I read it the woman in American Gothic was affronted that she was viewed as the farmer's wife so she asked the artist to please specify that she was supposed to be his daughter. Yeah she felt pretty down that she apparently looked old enough to be that dude's wife. I like the portrait Wood did of himself, you can see the resemblance to the woman in A.G. 
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Sep 15, 2016 00:12
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Ddraig posted:The painting American Gothic is only called that because the window in the house in the background is in a Gothic style. I assumed you were dead.
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Sep 15, 2016 17:53
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FreudianSlippers posted:This is a thing in Icelandic as well. "Blámađur" or "Blueman" is an antiquated word for someone from Africa which itself was sometimes referred to as "Bláland". Both of these words are seen as at least a bit racist these days. However somewhat confusingly in some old Sagas "blámađur" is just as often used as a word for troll* or ogre which let to it feeling a bit awkward to read about Saga heroes wrestling trolls that were being called a racial slur. It is possible the Norse picked up the habit of applying this word to Africans from the Irish since Ireland had quite a bit of a Norse presence in the Viking Age and Gaelic slaves were common. As much as 20% of the original settlers of Iceland were Celts of some sort, mostly from Ireland, and almost all of them slaves and/or concubines. Very interesting, thanks (also I love hearing stuff about Iceland )
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Sep 15, 2016 17:55
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Way back in elementary school, a substitute teacher told us that lox was a saltier type of cream cheese that's kosher. Now, at age 32, I recently was corrected and told it's salmon. I have no idea how I managed to go 20+ year without it coming up in conversation.MariusLecter posted:Jet fuel can't melt steel beams.
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Sep 16, 2016 01:33
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What's lox? Coming up with liquid oxygen and confusion
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Sep 16, 2016 11:44
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Geirskogul posted:What's lox? Coming up with liquid oxygen and confusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lox
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Sep 16, 2016 11:47
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Geirskogul posted:What's lox? Coming up with liquid oxygen and confusion It's like cream cheese, but saltier. Kosher, too.
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Sep 16, 2016 11:51
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Wanamingo posted:It's like cream cheese, but saltier. Kosher, too. Good to know.
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Sep 16, 2016 11:54
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Geirskogul posted:Good to know.  No, it really is smoked salmon.Liquid oxygen + creamcheese isn't nearly so good on bagels.
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Sep 16, 2016 14:35
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It makes for a cool sandwich, if nothing else.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:13
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Tasteful Dickpic posted:It makes for a cool sandwich, if nothing else. So good, it'll make you fall to pieces. Or nitrogen, whatever
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Sep 16, 2016 16:59
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Bertrand Hustle posted:the ancient Greeks described color all fuckin' weird-like. The sky was bronze, and sheep were the color of wine. Homer didn't have any trouble with or odd ideas about colors, he just wrote the first popular sparkledog fanfiction
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Sep 17, 2016 04:14
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Sentient Data posted:Homer didn't have any trouble with or odd ideas about colors I would imagine he had a lot of trouble with colors, what with being blind and all.
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Sep 17, 2016 04:54
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stubblyhead posted:I would imagine he had a lot of trouble with colors, what with being blind and all. It really makes his opinions on "fat chicks" questionable.
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Sep 17, 2016 05:03
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MariusLecter posted:I assumed you were dead. Nearly but not quite.
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Sep 18, 2016 12:55
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The new Touché Amore album is called Stage Four because it's about the singer's mother dying of cancer, not because it's their fourth album.
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Sep 18, 2016 14:30
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The show my nephews always talk about is called Paw Patrol, not Papa Troll.
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Sep 19, 2016 13:50
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It's Dutch Schultz, not Doc Schultz or Dutch Holtz. (spelling notwithstanding) CopywrightMMXI posted:The show my nephews always talk about is called Paw Patrol, not Papa Troll. I love this.
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Sep 19, 2016 14:47
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Even empty books (i.e. notebooks) can have ISBN:s. Don't exactly know why though.
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Sep 22, 2016 07:30
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Jerry Cotton posted:Even empty books (i.e. notebooks) can have ISBN:s. Don't exactly know why though. That's called a UPC, for selling it at a retail location
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Sep 22, 2016 07:35
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Avenging_Mikon posted:That's called a UPC, for selling it at a retail location No you idiot poo poo fuckhead it's got an ISBN it's pretty loving easy to tell because it says "ISBN" in front of it. 
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Sep 22, 2016 08:48
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Jerry Cotton posted:Even empty books (i.e. notebooks) can have ISBN:s. Don't exactly know why though. Do they have Dewey Decimal numbers though?
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Sep 22, 2016 09:31
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Hyperlynx posted:Do they have Dewey Decimal numbers though? This one doesn't. Also, looking up if we use the Dewey system I stumbled upon the fact that there are three separate systems in use in this country  One for municipal libraries, one specifically for the Helsinki municipal library, and e: Stuff I can't believe I just bothered to look up.
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Sep 22, 2016 10:49
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Speaking as a former Librarian the municipal libraries are a bit behind the times and should probably adopt the UDC system since its sort of the industry standard, or at the very least should be. The inner Librarian in me is hopeful for the glorious day when there's a universal single standard worldwide and all information is catalogued with it.
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Sep 22, 2016 11:24
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Ddraig posted:Oook.
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Sep 22, 2016 12:54
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Now you're speaking my language.
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Sep 22, 2016 12:57
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Jerry Cotton posted:Even empty books (i.e. notebooks) can have ISBN:s. Don't exactly know why though. You can buy a huge block of isbns for relatively cheap as a one-time fee (and can turn the isbns into scannable barcodes), but if you need upcs you have to pay a pricy recurring license basically forever
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Sep 22, 2016 13:01
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