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porkswordonboard posted:Salt is actually a super fascinating topic that has its fingers in every pie and has shaped the world more than many of us realize. Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky covers everything from saltmaking to politics to recipes to etymology. One small example is the word "salary," also derived from salt, as Roman soldiers were often paid partly in salt. I think it's super interesting! I own multiple copies of this book because I loan it to anybody whose hands I can shove it into. It's a shockingly deep subject.
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Dec 20, 2016 16:49
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Sounds like it's worth its salt LOL
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Dec 20, 2016 16:53
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rydiafan posted:I own multiple copies of this book because I loan it to anybody whose hands I can shove it into. It's a shockingly deep subject. Universal history of numbers is another cool book, I've done the exact same with it
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Dec 20, 2016 17:18
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Phlegmish posted:Sounds like it's worth its salt LOL Na, Clearly worth more.
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Dec 20, 2016 21:23
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porkswordonboard posted:Towns ending in the suffix of -wich are called that to denote places of saltmaking, mostly through elaborate systems of evaporating pools. To be more concise, it's derived from wic, the Anglo-Saxon word for "dwelling" or "fortified place" as well as the Old English wic (wyck, wych) meaning "bay," denoting brine springs and wells.
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Dec 21, 2016 01:44
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KoRMaK posted:...It's crazy, how much we take it for granite now... I'd love to believe this was intentional.
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Dec 21, 2016 01:59
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god dammit I think im developing a cold or something
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Dec 21, 2016 02:00
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KoRMaK posted:I think im developing a cold or something so you hear Ds as Ts?
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Dec 21, 2016 02:08
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Useless Rabbit posted:I'd love to believe this was intentional. I took it with a granum of salt.
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Dec 21, 2016 02:42
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KoRMaK posted:There's some bbc docu that I watched, probably a James Burke docu, that highlights how deep salt goes in human society. It's crazy, how much we take it for granite now but how vastly important and scarce it was for so long and how it shaped civilization. Also like that is coffee. Coffee is hosed up, yo. It's got a real messed up history involving colonization and enslavement of indigenous peoples I think it boils down to whatever we consider to be "essential" is likely to have a complicated and far-reaching history, and bleed into a ton of other areas we wouldn't think of. Like the town-naming thing, as someone pointed out there's a lot of reasons towns can end in -wich, but by what I've read, a majority (not all!) of such in Britain were significant salt manufacturers, so -wich *often* indicates salt was a Big Deal there. Plenty of towns are by a bay, but the ones ending -wich are likely to have had salt pits, evaporating pools, etc. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though, that's the whole point of this thread! Also: does anyone else hate it when people pronounce it "ex cetera?"
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Dec 21, 2016 02:58
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Here in Aussieland I pronounce it et-cetra wanna fight
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Dec 21, 2016 04:28
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porkswordonboard posted:Also: does anyone else hate it when people pronounce it "ex cetera?" Not as much as when people write it "ect."
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Dec 21, 2016 04:39
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I pronounce it as "et cetera", as in Peter Cetera
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Dec 21, 2016 04:46
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It does bother me a bit but technically the Latin c is supposed to be pronounced as k and no one does that either
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Dec 21, 2016 08:18
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Phlegmish posted:It does bother me a bit but technically the Latin c is supposed to be pronounced as k and no one does that either No-one in your rear end-clown culture does 
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Dec 21, 2016 08:41
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Titus Sardonicus posted:I pronounce it as "et cetera", as in Peter Cetera Dammit
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Dec 21, 2016 13:24
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In German, you just say "und so weiter", which means "and so on". English is a fiend for loan words like no other.
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Dec 21, 2016 16:44
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andipossess posted:Apparently you can thank Clueless for popularizing that phrase rather than the admittedly horrifying history behind it. Hooray, my hometown is famous.
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Dec 21, 2016 19:47
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Bertrand Hustle posted:In German, you just say "und so weiter", which means "and so on". English is a fiend for loan words like no other. I'm not sure Latin terms count as loan words
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Dec 21, 2016 21:59
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Hyperlynx posted:I'm not sure Latin terms count as loan words Why not?
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Dec 22, 2016 01:53
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Tiggum posted:Why not? I mean its not like we're giving them back
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Dec 22, 2016 02:01
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Latin doesn't care anyway since it's dead
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Dec 22, 2016 02:12
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legacy words. bequeathed words
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Dec 22, 2016 02:58
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Bertrand Hustle posted:In German, you just say "und so weiter", which means "and so on". English is a fiend for loan words like no other. Uhh you can also say and so on in English, as you just did?
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Dec 22, 2016 08:05
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Joint custody words.
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Dec 22, 2016 08:29
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InediblePenguin posted:bequeathed words yes
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Dec 23, 2016 02:39
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Diamonds are mostly just scratch resistant but not especially durable and can be broken with a hammer.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:11
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RareAcumen posted:Diamonds are mostly just scratch resistant but not especially durable and can be broken with a hammer. Uhhhhh Tell that to my diamond pickaxe. Heh. Heh.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:51
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Diamonds are one of, if not the, hardest metals known the man.
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Dec 29, 2016 19:52
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purple death ray posted:Diamonds are one of, if not the, hardest metals known the man. The melting point of diamond is very low but it's extremely viscous so it's the slowest-moving liquid known to man, just after glass.
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Dec 29, 2016 20:16
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purple death ray posted:Diamonds are one of, if not the, hardest metals known the man. No because if theres a car made of diamond and it goes 400mph it'll explode when it hits a wall because the faster something goes the less durability it has.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:08
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Jerry Cotton posted:The melting point of diamond is very low but it's extremely viscous so it's the slowest-moving liquid known to man, just after glass. This is wrong in an awful lot of ways. Unless 
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Dec 29, 2016 21:14
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Diamonds are, in fact, not a girl's best friend.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:23
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RareAcumen posted:Diamonds are mostly just scratch resistant but not especially durable and can be broken with a hammer. Or set on fire, for real.
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Dec 29, 2016 21:51
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Figured this one out years ago but for a good portion of my life I didn't realize that wax burned and was the fuel for a candle. I just figured that the wick burned and the wax simply prevented it from burning too quickly.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:58
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Frank Miller and Arthur Miller and Steve Miller. I think I "knew" all three were different people but I pictured the same generic old man face for all three so I must not have been distinguishing them. Never stopped to ask myself how the guy who wrote The Crucible and the guy who directed Sin City could realistically be the same, but that's why I can't believe i just figured it out
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Dec 30, 2016 02:09
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sweeperbravo posted:Frank Miller and Arthur Miller and Steve Miller. I think I "knew" all three were different people but I pictured the same generic old man face for all three so I must not have been distinguishing them. Never stopped to ask myself how the guy who wrote The Crucible and the guy who directed Sin City could realistically be the same, but that's why I can't believe i just figured it out Frank Miller wrote the best and worst Batmans. He lost his mind after 9/11. Much like Dennis Miller. e: Dennis Miller never made anything worth reading/watching so I guess much unlike
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Dec 30, 2016 06:00
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Didi Conn (the lady from Grease and Shining Time Station) is not the same access as Nana Visitor, the lady who was on Deep Space Nine. I mean, I suppose I kinda knew, since in terms of Grease/STS and DS9 there's no way they could be the same actress, but I just got off my proverbial rear end to confirm it.
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Dec 30, 2016 06:16
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MisterBibs posted:Didi Conn (the lady from Grease and Shining Time Station) is not the same access as Nana Visitor, the lady who was on Deep Space Nine. Why not? Nana Visitor was 21 when Grease was released, which seems like a pretty reasonable age for a character that's in high school. E: confirming that Salt was a surprisingly interesting book.
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Dec 30, 2016 08:26
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sweeperbravo posted:Frank Miller and Arthur Miller and Steve Miller. I think I "knew" all three were different people but I pictured the same generic old man face for all three so I must not have been distinguishing them. Never stopped to ask myself how the guy who wrote The Crucible and the guy who directed Sin City could realistically be the same, but that's why I can't believe i just figured it out The easy way to remember this is that unlike the other two Arthur Miller is not a hack.
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Dec 30, 2016 17:16
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