The fact thread.

[shoni7510]

A man survived the sinking of a ship in 1871, leaving him truamatized afterwards. Some forty years later he was finally able to overcome his fears and sail again...only to die on the Titanic.

[Aaron Lowe]

Originally Posted by shoni7510

A man survived the sinking of a ship in 1871, leaving him truamatized afterwards. Some forty years later he was finally able to overcome his fears and sail again...only to die on the Titanic.

That's some bad luck!

The word "responsible" is incorrectly defined in most dictionaries to mean, being held culpable for.

Words ending in able and ible mean that the prefix before is able to be that. E.g. Loveable - able to love. Helpable - able to help. Suggestible - open to suggestion. Etc.

So, responsible literally means, to be able to respond. E.g. a parent is responsible for their children whether something bad happens or not. No culpability is needed to satisfy the meaning of the word.

Over time some words get so universally misused that their meaning changes to the misused version. It's a shame that responsibility (i.e. the ability to respond) is seen as a negative thing as this discourages people from responding at all.

[Aaron Lowe]

The word delighted is a strange word. De in front of a word means to make it not so. E.g. detox means to make it not toxic etc.

So, delight, literally means, to make dark.

Other strange words:
Flammable and inflammable mean exactly the same thing.

[Aaron Lowe]

Ignorance is another word that is widely misused to mean, to not know something.
The exact opposite it true. To ignore something you first have to know about it then choose to not pay attention to it.

Breakfast is another example. Breakfast does not have to be in the morning. It literally means, to break one's fast, where fasting is not eating.
So, if you don't eat until dinnertime, you are actually eating your breakfast, not your dinner.

[Aaron Lowe]

Finally, to be held fast does not mean to be held quickly. The fast in this case is not the fast of movement, or anything to do with abstention.

Here's a definition long lost from dictionaries. Something that is fast is something that is held in place strongly. E.g. as in steadfast.

So, to be held fast means to be held as if strongly prevented from moving.

Another example is the main tower of a castle that's designed to be the central defence position is referred to as a fast tower. It's not going anywhere, so nothing to do with movement.

[Aaron Lowe]

Once I start it's hard to stop.

How UK English concepts are changed to suit other cultures:

The word center is no longer in the English language for the UK. It used to be that a center was a central gathering place, such as a community center, and a centre was referring to the middle of a geographic shape, such as a circle.

So, a town had a center, not a centre, and a circle had a centre, not a center. But this was too confusing for other countries. For some reason the UK decided to do away with the word center altogether and just use centre in every case.

There are two schools of though about what constitutes proper English. One school believes that being truthful to the rules of Latin is more proper English and the other school believes otherwise.

Having "re" at the end of a word doesn't exist in Latin so, to one school or thought, the proper spelling of the word should be center and not centre (which is closer to French).

Therefore, technically, in some cases American English is considered more proper English than UK English. Considering also that the most commonly used form of English taught in the world is US English it shows how UK English is slowly fading away.

Another example is the definition of the word billion. It used to be that the English billion meant a million times a million, or 1,000,000,000,000 whereas an American billion meant a thousand times a million, or 1,000,000,000. Over the years this caused confusion as businesses had to keep converting between the UK and US systems. Eventually the definition was standardised to simplify things and avoid any potential expensive mistakes.

The result is that there was a sudden jump in the number of billionaires in the UK and even today the UK has more billionaires per capita than any other country in the world. If they'd kept their original definition of billion, they'd probably have the least amount of billionaires per capita.


Ah, semantics....

[shoni7510]

Purple is known as a 'royal' colour because it is the hardest to extract - it came from the sea snails, so only the royalty could afford it.

[Aaron Lowe]

Originally Posted by shoni7510

Purple is known as a 'royal' colour because it is the hardest to extract - it came from the sea snails, so only the royalty could afford it.

That reminds me of several paintings I saw of Jesus Christ painted around the 18th century. In these paintings the prominent figures wore radiant blue flowing robes. Over the years the other colours in the painting have faded but the blue is just as radiant as it was the day it was painted.

The reason why artists used this particular blue isn't so much about their devotion to Jesus but about advertising their prowess as an artist.

This particular blue came from an ink that was rare and expensive. So, what the artist was saying was, look, I am a successful artist because I can afford this special blue. The fact this colour hasn't faded over hundreds of years they couldn't have known, so it's just a happy coincidence.

They say God moves in mysterious ways....

Wampum is a traditional shell bead of the Eastern Woodlands tribes of the indigenous people of North America. Wampum includes the white shell beads fashioned from the North Atlantic channeled whelk shell, and the white and purple beads made from the quahog or Western North Atlantic hard-shelled clam.

I actually found one in the Wabash River.

[dream jo]

i get a lot off hear i do