posted
You know there are some things you know and some things you don't know and you can drift quite happily through your daily routine, through life, without ever being bothered by them? Things that are just part of your knowledge base (like knowing virtually all tortoiseshell cats are girls and all ginger cats are boys) or not. But sometimes this ignorance comes and smacks you between the eyes, and you think, how can I not have known this? Can you have a damascene revelation (I've been puzzling over this usage)? Anyhow, light flooding eyes and searing brain. Ignorance revealed. Gasps of clarity.
What new knowledge have you gained recently? And did it cause you to berate yourself for gross stupidity?
New knowledge pours into me all the time, most of it stuff I've learned, things I couldn't have hoped to know beforehand. The job has taught me more than I possibly could have hoped, or wanted, to know about mortgages and savings and IHT and the housing market and other financial bobbins. The thrills. But, this is all fine! Useful odds and ends to be filed in the recesses of my brain, to pop up at opportune times. I like to feel I know quite a lot, but sometimes I am harshly disillusioned.
yesterday I staggered myself. I was looking at a variation of Spot the Ball competition and it came to me in a blinding flash (or rather, explanation written under the photo). There is no ball in the picture! When I was younger I used to pore over the things, trying to spot the foot/tennis/rugby ball in the background, or trapped in the undergrowth, or on the skyline. They never told you the rules in the newspapers. Didn't tell you that the damn thing had been airbrushed out and you had to guess it's likely trajectory. But suddenly it seemed obvious, and I felt obscenely foolish.
So, talk about revelations that have made you feel foolish, or snippets of knowledge you just have, or serious cases of 'seeing the light'. Or knowledge = power theory as brushed over in title..
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posted
I think it's a bit fucking sick to start a thread about KNOWLEDGE when this time tomorrow I will be 1 hour and 7 minutes into my Planetary Science exam.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poetess: I think it's a bit fucking sick to start a thread about KNOWLEDGE when this time tomorrow I will be 1 hour and 7 minutes into my Planetary Science exam.
Well, you'll be alright if there's a Spot The Planet section.
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posted
I'm hoping there'll be a section worth at least 12 marks for colouring in Saturn's rings.
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posted
That kovacs is a name from watchmen. that franz ferdinand is actually the bloke who was shot to start a war. I cant even remember which one! That enola gay was the bom dropped on Hiroshima.
These are a few of the things that have eneterd my knowledge pit of late.
posted
fucks sake i cant even get my facts right. it was on irc that this was revealed to me so the haze of fast communication confused me. and i had to have a short story critqued this morning so i am under the weather. Still, I was far too bitchy about everyone elses hurrah!
Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
posted
Every morning I walk past a sandwich shop called "Roland Butter". I've been walking past it for two years, and vaguely thought of Roland Butter as being a sort of quirkily cool name, such as might be found in a children's cartoon. I only realised last week that it's a devilishly clever pun: I felt pretty stupid then, I can tell you. Although on the plus side, I was thus prepared to chuckle knowingly at "Joanna Goodbite", where I enjoyed an egg roll on the weekend.
Also in my Public Law module I learnt that, all the years I've been airily dropping the phrase "I mean, Britain doesn't even have a written constitution" into drunken conversations about politics, to disguise the fact that I don't understand what everyone is talking about, I have been wrong. Britain does have a written constitution, it's just not codified. An important difference, I think you'll agree!
quote:Originally posted by Astromariner: Every morning I walk past a sandwich shop called "Roland Butter". I've been walking past it for two years, and vaguely thought of Roland Butter as being a sort of quirkily cool name, such as might be found in a children's cartoon. I only realised last week that it's a devilishly clever pun: I felt pretty stupid then, I can tell you. Although on the plus side, I was thus prepared to chuckle knowingly at "Joanna Goodbite", where I enjoyed an egg roll on the weekend.
Haw! When you say stuff like this, I want to give you a hug and say 'It's ok, people will forget in time' and 'anybody could have made that mistake'
Tell em about the shoe shop Misc, probably for the fifth time, but for the noobies benefit.
posted
I thought Enola Gay was the plane and Little Boy the bomb? It is a plot device in London Fields anyway -- not a very strong one.
I discovered recently what "chiasmus" means. That was useful.
eta: People should all remember that the Union Jack is the name for the Union Flag when flown at sea. And that Blade Runner is two words. I was reading Number9Dream this morning and it lost a great deal of credibility because of that latter error.
quote:Originally posted by philomel: Can you have a damascene revelation (I've been puzzling over this usage)?
I don't see why this is puzzling. A damascene revelation is surely one like that in the story where "scales fell away" on the road to Damascus.
This is what I was using it to mean but I had a shadow of doubt, having never heard or seen it written. Dictionary.com definition is: adj 1: of or relating to or characteristic of Damascus or its people; "damascene city gates" 2: (of metals) decorated or inlaid with a wavy pattern of different (especially precious) metals; "a damascened sword" n 1: a native or inhabitant of Damascus [syn: Damascene] 2: a design produced by inlaying gold or silver into steel v : inlay metal with gold and silver so I lost a little faith (ha!).
Astro: good! The other day, glued to The Hits on freeview, I asked my flatmate why it said 'NU4U', reading it as 'en nu for you'. Bloody txt spk. I could argue that I had the principle right, but I don't think it would cut very far.
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posted
Parthian Shot/parting shot and balmy/barmy.
It seems they're all correct terms. I used to think that people that said parting shot were thickies that didn't know they were saying Parthian Shot wrong. A Parthian Shot comes from the way the Parthians used to retreat from battle while firing loads of arrows back at the persuing enemy. Which is also what a parting shot is, in many ways.
"You're stupid!"
"You're even stupider!" *SLAM*
"Damn you and your parting shots/Parthian Shots!"
Now, on to balmy and barmy. Again, I had understood barmy to be a mispronounciation of balmy, meaning off on a rather pleasant different planet kind of Cool Mad.
I tried to use balmy in an article about jazz astronaut Sun Ra once and the editor corrected it to barmy, which had more of a we're-off-to-Wemberleee sort of Lad Mad feel in my view.
I tried to argue the point but was over-ruled by a majority. The majority being lots of people who had never heard the term balmy.
posted
Shhh, we weren't going to let Dang know that we've noticed his encroaching senility.
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quote:Originally posted by dang65: The majority being lots of people who had never heard the term balmy.
quote:Princeton Says: 1. balmy, barmy, bats, batty, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crackers, daft, dotty, fruity, haywire, kooky, kookie, loco, loony, loopy, nuts, nutty, round the bend, around the bend, wacky, whacky -- (informal or slang terms for mentally irregular; "it used to drive my husband balmy") 2. balmy, mild -- (mild and pleasant; "balmy days and nights"; "the climate was mild and conducive to life or growth")
I'm happy because of this definition as I thought it was some weird bastardised word that Americans use again cuz we say it when the weather permits.
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Astromariner
Going the right way for a smacked bottom
While at uni the SU bar went through a phase of writing stuff like Vodka! Baccardi! Gin! ATP!!! on the blackbords around the bar. You could tell who the biologists were because they were the puzzled looking ones going "ATP? In the drinks? That doesnt seem right. Why would they put adenosine tri-phosphate in the vodka?"
While everyone else was at the bar buying cheap drinks.
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quote:Originally posted by philomel: Can you have a damascene revelation (I've been puzzling over this usage)?
I don't see why this is puzzling. A damascene revelation is surely one like that in the story where "scales fell away" on the road to Damascus.
This is what I was using it to mean but I had a shadow of doubt, having never heard or seen it written. Dictionary.com definition is: adj 1: of or relating to or characteristic of Damascus or its people; "damascene city gates" 2: (of metals) decorated or inlaid with a wavy pattern of different (especially precious) metals; "a damascened sword" n 1: a native or inhabitant of Damascus [syn: Damascene] 2: a design produced by inlaying gold or silver into steel v : inlay metal with gold and silver so I lost a little faith (ha!).
Damascene conversion - as in: Saul of Tarsus changing into Apostle Paul on the Road to Damascus. Having 'seen the light' he was transformed from a persecuter of Christians to their most energetic missionary.
The example quoted by Philomel is as good an example as you'll find why the gadarene rush to embrace electronic resources at the expense of their richer, old media counterparts is such gross folly.Posts: 8657
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posted
'tis laziness. I prefer hard copy but was too sluggish to get up from my swivelly padded chair and trudge the seven metres to the shelf to pick up the Collins.
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Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
posted
Jesus, Philomel, Collins is for retards. One should always use the Oxford, you know. God. You are so non-U.
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quote:Originally posted by ben: The example quoted by Philomel is as good an example as you'll find why the gadarene rush to embrace electronic resources at the expense of their richer, old media counterparts is such gross folly.
You may as well not bother with much of the European literature and art of the last 2,000 years if you don't have at least a working knowledge of the Bible and the Classics.
It's like someone watching Pulp Fiction who's never seen another film.
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posted
I still find it absolutely fucking mental that blood is made in the middle of your bones! I mean, what the fuck's that all about? Is this a normal, logical thing for a body to do? I don't fucking think so.
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posted
mart if - and I really hope this never happens - you were God, where would you have blood made? What would be a more sensible way of doing things?
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