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Author Topic: Post a useless fact  (Read 64328 times)

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TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3030 on: August 01, 2012, 05:09:00 PM »
Many city names in Italian are wry forms of Latin. Bologna was called Bononia in Latin. Piacenza was called Placentia. The current names are simply not just forms that originated from language changes but also from misunderstandings of the original names.

Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3031 on: August 01, 2012, 08:41:46 PM »
  I can still use my broken hairbrush.  :autism:
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."
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Offline Queen Victoria

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3032 on: August 01, 2012, 08:47:39 PM »
It's hilarious to give your husband a weight loss cookbook and ask him to pick out some recipes he'd like.
A good monarch is a treasure. A good politician is an oxymoron.

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TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3033 on: August 02, 2012, 04:27:16 AM »
The old Swedish pronoun for the 2nd person plural was I (it's not pronounced as the English pronoun for the 1st person singular but like "ee").

In modern Swedish it's ni.

How did the "n" come there? 

When Swedish verbs still had plural forms, "you come/are coming" was I kommen. If this was in the form of a question, it was kommen I? Since the other plural forms were vi komma, de komma and the singular form is kommer, people somehow viewed the limit of the pronoun to be before the "n".

The old pronoun still exists in some dialects among older people and/or people who have lived in the same place most of their lives. My mother often says I, though without the verb in plural. Plural forms of verbs in spoken Swedish only exist in very few places like in some villages in northern Dalarna.

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3034 on: August 03, 2012, 05:18:46 AM »
The only state in Europe and one of the few in the world not claiming to be a democracy is the Vatican. In theory it's also the last absolute monarchy in Europe, since the Pope has the right to do whatever he wants within the Vatican, just like the absolute monarchs once had.

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3035 on: August 03, 2012, 09:09:01 AM »
Swedish snut="cop" is cognate with English snout  :eyebrows:

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3036 on: August 03, 2012, 02:41:58 PM »
Since the 1970's the German language is dying in Alsace, but since 2000 it's growing in South Tyrol.

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3037 on: August 04, 2012, 03:34:28 AM »
Sonia Saviange, the actress playing the pianist in Salò, killed herself IRL too.

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3038 on: August 04, 2012, 04:14:50 AM »
Black powder was once wrongly attributed to the Swabian monk Berthold Schwarz. This is probably due to two facts:

1. One of the first gunpowder factories in Europe was situated in Augsburg, the capital of Swabia.
2. Also in German the namn Schwarzpulver is used, so it's likely to be a folk etymology as well.

The truth is, however, that black powder was named so by Americans towards the end oh the 19th Century to discriminate it from the then newly invented smokeless guncotton.

It's however probably also false that black powder was invented in China. It's now believed that it was invented in India or Turkey or perhaps by the Greeks, although the Chinese used it very early. This misunderstanding stems from Chinese diplomates repeatedly claiming for foreign diplomates that black powder was invented in China.

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3039 on: August 04, 2012, 05:00:55 AM »
Within two hours and 19 minutes I'll be un-banned from that other board.

Offline "couldbecousin"

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3040 on: August 04, 2012, 06:57:26 AM »
Within two hours and 19 minutes I'll be un-banned from that other board.

  And within 2 hours and 20 minutes you'll be re-banned?  :zoinks:
"I'm finding a lot of things funny lately, but I don't think they are."
--- Ripley, Alien Resurrection


"We are grateful for the time we have been given."
--- Edward Walker, The Village

People forget.
--- The Who, "Eminence Front"

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3041 on: August 04, 2012, 07:26:49 AM »
 :agreed: :indeed:

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3042 on: August 04, 2012, 07:33:24 AM »
They have forgotten to un-ban be. I'll kill them for that! :arrr:

TheoK

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3043 on: August 04, 2012, 09:02:07 AM »
Now I'm back on track  :viking: But I take a trip to the island first. It's very apricus today  8)

Offline Lestat

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Re: Post a useless fact
« Reply #3044 on: August 04, 2012, 12:20:29 PM »
What are you using it for couldbe?  o_0

I still have my two broken hairbrushes, damn things were a ripoff price, nearly 20 quid! but they were the only ones with the type of bristles I feel comfortable with at the time that I could find. One of them was my former housemate's, but buggered if I was going to let her keep it, I bought it, the nasty little slag lied, stole, stole and hid my pain meds, benzos and other meds to make me withdraw, then come to the 'rescue' with some of her own to win brownie points, attacked me (lol, and got flattened for the trouble, tried blaming any of her crap on apparently having other personalities, cried rape about other people, even her own family...most virulent little devil whore I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with)

Kept the brushes though, even though the handles snapped off fairly quickly...and EWWW the handles were padded with a layer of thin rubber, underneath which was some kind of ridiculously sticky gel, that got bloody everywhere. Glad it didn't get in my hair, I'd never have got it out, it wasn't water soluble for one.

What other board, lit? WP? I registered on that technicolor dribble of  pus-saturated sewage (-'s forum), posted an introduction, and perhaps 2-3 more posts, and got banned after no more than a couple of days, for no reason whatsoever.
Beyond the pale. Way, way beyond the pale.

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