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What really obvious thing have you only just realised?

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,548 ✭✭✭✭Brendan Bendar


    Why is that?

    Oops.......must have gone back:o


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Subscribers can change their names :)

    SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer glückliche Katze 87 is still available

    Wouldn't that be "flauschige Katze"?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,799 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    Slang is short for

    Short Language


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 433 ✭✭g6fdyotp5nj2l7


    Iceland won't win Euro 2016


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,949 ✭✭✭✭IvyTheTerrible


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    Slang is short for

    Short Language

    Really? I haven't seen that in any dictionary, it's origin is unclear.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 32,386 ✭✭✭✭rubadub


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    Slang is short for

    Short Language

    no it's not, that was fairly obvious to me but you did make me check!


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,799 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    I don't have any concrete back up to prove it, but came across it somewhere.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,150 ✭✭✭✭Malari


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    Slang is short for

    Short Language
    Really? I haven't seen that in any dictionary, it's origin is unclear.

    I had to go check as I thought that would be interesting considering the 's' in short isn't the 's' sound in slang! Doesn't seem to be true.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,455 ✭✭✭livedadream


    In its earliest attested use (1756) the word slang referred to the vocabulary of "low or disreputable" people. By the early nineteenth century, it was no longer exclusively associated with disreputable people, but continued to be applied to language use below the level of standard educated speech. The origin of the word is uncertain, although it appears to be connected with Thieves' cant. A Scandinavian origin has been proposed (compare, for example, Norwegian slengenavn, which means "nickname"), but is discounted by the Oxford English Dictionary based on "date and early associations". Jonathan Green however agrees with the possibility of a Scandinavian origin, suggesting the same root as that of sling, which means "to throw", and noting that slang is a thrown language - a quick, honest way to make your point


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,799 ✭✭✭✭Ted_YNWA


    well that has firmly put me in my place.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,455 ✭✭✭livedadream


    Ted_YNWA wrote: »
    well that has firmly put me in my place.


    soz


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,073 ✭✭✭Rubberlegs


    Until I watched The Tunnel, Sabotage recently , I thought the channel tunnel was a motorway under the sea.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,825 ✭✭✭StupidLikeAFox


    73Cat wrote: »
    Until I watched The Tunnel, Sabotage recently , I thought the channel tunnel was a motorway under the sea.

    Well there you go, I thought they had a railway line alongside a road too. Turns out they have special train carraiges for cars.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurotunnel_Shuttle


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭civis_liberalis


    I never really thought about it, but I knew about the cars on carriages from when they crossed it on an episode of Top Gear years ago.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,772 ✭✭✭civis_liberalis


    I realised recently what a courtesy flush wash. I never thought about it all that much. I just thought it was a funny thing to say, as in, why wouldn't you flush the damn toilet? I do the courtesy flush, I just didn't realise that was the name for it.

    Funny description from Urban Dictionary.
    "A flush in the middle of the toilet-sitting process in order to reduce the aroma ... usually performed on a 'foreign throne' as a courtesy to the owner of said throne...


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,031 ✭✭✭we'llallhavetea


    that colonel is pronounced kernal. although that is in no way fcuking obvious. you think you know life then this sh1t pops up.


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,691 ✭✭✭4ensic15


    that colonel is pronounced kernal. although that is in no way fcuking obvious. you think you know life then this sh1t pops up.

    You should also know that Lieutenant is pronounced leftenant.


  • Posts: 14,242 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    4ensic15 wrote: »
    You should also know that Lieutenant is pronounced leftenant.
    I'll never forget my primary school teacher practically flinging herself out the window in disgust when I pronounced Lieutenant EXACTLY AS IT IS WRITTEN, circa 1997.

    Leftenant, why??


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,031 ✭✭✭we'llallhavetea


    4ensic15 wrote: »
    You should also know that Lieutenant is pronounced leftenant.

    ah heeor! *rips hair out*

    :pac:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,793 ✭✭✭FunLover18


    4ensic15 wrote:
    You should also know that Lieutenant is pronounced leftenant.

    Is that not the Brits? Pretty sure we say loo-tenant here ... I know I do


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 803 ✭✭✭jcon1913


    I realised recently what a courtesy flush wash. I never thought about it all that much. I just thought it was a funny thing to say, as in, why wouldn't you flush the damn toilet? I do the courtesy flush, I just didn't realise that was the name for it.

    Funny description from Urban Dictionary.

    A pal of mine used the courtesy flush mid motion. He was at his bosses house and the bosses family was waiting for him when he came out of the bathroom to be introduced.

    He phoned his mother to tell her 'thanks' for the training he got as a young fella😄


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,775 ✭✭✭✭Gbear


    Etymology lesson time (warning, this may be all wrong).

    AFAIK, the "kernal" pronunciation for Colonel comes from the Spanish version of the word - coronel.
    So "kernal" is big in the states because of the Spanish influence in the south, the war with Spain, Mexico, Texas, the Alamo and all that.
    The French pronounce it as you would expect - ko-lo-nell.
    We seem to have imported the pronunciation from the yanks via Spain but spell it the way the French do.

    Lieutenant comes from French - Napoleonic-era IIRC. It means "place-holder" if you translated it directly.
    At the time ieu was prounounced ef in French. As a result, when it made it's way over the channel, it retained it's spelling and the pronunciation of that time - leff-tenant.

    French changed, lieu became l-yuh and that was the pronunciation adopted by the Americans. They changed a fair bit about language deliberately, like dropping u's from harbour, and adopting aluminum instead of aluminium so it may be that they simply decided that pronouncing it "leff" is stupid, which it is these days.

    Alternatively, they were on pretty good terms with the French post the war of the independence, so perhaps they were exposed to the contemporary pronunciation at that point.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,031 ✭✭✭we'llallhavetea


    thought yiz were taking the piss about the leftenant bit!


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,691 ✭✭✭4ensic15


    FunLover18 wrote: »
    Is that not the Brits? Pretty sure we say loo-tenant here ... I know I do

    Irish Army invariably pronounce it as leftenant. The only people here who pronounce it as it is spelt have been looking at American television programmes.
    Lieutenant-Colonel is pronounced leftenant Kurr nell


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,818 ✭✭✭Lyaiera


    4ensic15 wrote: »
    Irish Army invariably pronounce it as leftenant. The only people here who pronounce it as it is spelt have been looking at American television programmes.
    Lieutenant-Colonel is pronounced leftenant Kurr nell

    They don't. I know an officer in the Irish army and he said most people just don't care, and you'll hear both.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,128 ✭✭✭✭aaronjumper


    The reason cars have looked ugly for years is because they've been designed to be more aerodynamic.

    Turns out you can't be good and stylish.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,460 ✭✭✭Barry Badrinath


    Lyaiera wrote: »
    They don't. I know an officer in the Irish army and he said most people just don't care, and you'll hear both.

    They mostly do.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,152 ✭✭✭✭KERSPLAT!


    The reason cars have looked ugly for years is because they've been designed to be more aerodynamic.

    Turns out you can't be good and stylish.

    You've never met McGruber ;)


  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 4,691 ✭✭✭4ensic15


    Lyaiera wrote: »
    They don't. I know an officer in the Irish army and he said most people just don't care, and you'll hear both.

    I have spoken to many officers in the Irish army and none have ever said lootenant.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,460 ✭✭✭Barry Badrinath


    KERSPLAT! wrote: »
    You've never met McGruber ;)

    Oh you! :pac:

    One day we will meet. No kissin' though!


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