I bet you didnt know that

Ted_YNWA

It was the butler in the library with the hot-water bottle.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

cdeb wrote: »

If you've gone and spoiled my book...!!

I could be recalling it all wrong,

Esel

Why do we 'orientate' instead of just 'orient', and why 'commentator' instead of 'commenter'?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Esel wrote: »

Why do we 'orientate' instead of just 'orient', and why 'commentator' instead of 'commenter'?

A commentator commentates, he doesn't comment. Two very different verbs.

Esel

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

A commentator commentates, he doesn't comment. Two very different verbs.

Ta. I'm still a bit disorientated disoriented.

Realt Dearg Sec

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

Esel wrote: »

Why do we 'orientate' instead of just 'orient', and why 'commentator' instead of 'commenter'?

A commentator commentates, he doesn't comment. Two very different verbs.

Fair point on commentate, but I by my understanding it's not really equivalent to orient and orientate, because while commentate is a verb, orientate isn't. Orient is the "correct" verb and orientate came later as a kind of redundancy.

I stand to be corrected on that though!

prinzeugen

Anders Shy Aircraft wrote: »

Egyptian and Chinese maps had South at the top. North gained prominence with the development of the compass for navigation use and ,it's thought, a desire for Europeans to be at the top of the map.

During the Falklands War, the RAF did not have any maps of the South Atlantic. They just turned a map upside down so the Azores became the Falklands.

It worked!

cdeb

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Fair point on commentate, but I by my understanding it's not really equivalent to orient and orientate, because while commentate is a verb, orientate isn't. Orient is the "correct" verb and orientate came later as a kind of redundancy.

I stand to be corrected on that though!

Orientate is a verb. I orientated the map. I will go for a walk to orientate myself when I arrive.

I can't see how "orient" can be correct at all. "Orient" is a noun meaning "east". The adjective is oriental, not orient. It stands to reason the verb form must also change and so can't be "orient"

IvyTheTerrific

cdeb wrote: »

Orientate is a verb. I orientated the map. I will go for a walk to orientate myself when I arrive.

I can't see how "orient" can be correct at all. "Orient" is a noun meaning "east". The adjective is oriental, not orient. It stands to reason the verb form must also change and so can't be "orient"

But plenty of nouns are also verbs, or am I missing something in the logic here?

cdeb

There's usually some declension though - unless you're American of course. The Americans will verb (sic) anything these days. It's horrendous.

But my main point is to correct Realt Dearg in saying orientate isn't a verb. It is.

Though it is true that "orient" is the older verb. I'd say orientate is a "correction" along the lines of aluminum/aluminium. And these days, orientate is taken as the British English word, while orient is taken as the American English word.

(Any "correction" may be because the word derives from Latin - legislation/legislate; creation/create; inundate (doesn't really have a noun form I guess - inundation?); imitation/imitate. All have Latin roots. So logically orientation/orientate, not orient)

KevRossi

From 1979 to 1981 the UK held secret talks with the Argentinians to hand over the Falkland Islands to them as they were proving too costly to maintain.

The war started in April 1982 when the Argentinians invaded the islands.

KevRossi

The difference in Bell Peppers...

New Home

Now that I think of it, there's something similar with fennels. The flatter ones are "females", and have a more delicate flavour which is great in salads. The rounder ones are "males", and are better suited to cooking.

Electric Nitwit

KevRossi wrote: »

The difference in Bell Peppers...

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gender-pepper/

:-(

Carry

KevRossi wrote: »

The difference in Bell Peppers...

Ah, now, as much as I like to believe that "females" are sweeter than "males" and that "males" are only palatable when properly cooked, but this is simply a rumour.

The taste of bell peppers depends on their colour. The green ones are not yet fully ripe, still full of chlorophyll (green), and are a tad more bitter and crunchier than the red ones. They eventually turn red, then orange and finally yellow and become sweeter and slightly softer than the green ones.

Hence the green ones are better for cooking, the red/orange/yellow ones good for salads or such like.
Since the red ones have more seeds (as they ripen) they are labeled as "female".
The number of lobes has no meaning whatsoever.

gozunda

Electric Nitwit wrote: »

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gender-pepper/

:-(

I'm not convinced....

New Home

Carry wrote: »

Ah, now, as much as I like to believe that "females" are sweeter than "males" and that "males" are only palatable when properly cooked, but this is simply a rumour.

The taste of bell peppers depends on their colour. The green ones are not yet fully ripe, still full of chlorophyll (green), and are a tad more bitter and crunchier than the red ones. They eventually turn red, then orange and finally yellow and become sweeter and slightly softer than the green ones.

Hence the green ones are better for cooking, the red/orange/yellow ones good for salads or such like.
Since the red ones have more seeds (as they ripen) they are labeled as "female".
The number of lobes has no meaning whatsoever.

Sorry but no, that part is just wrong. There are yellow peppers and red peppers. Two different varieties (well, three, with orange ones - EDIT: or way more than three, in fairness - there are now white and purple ones, too). They are all green when they're not ripe. And red and yellow peppers are delicious when cooked as well, it all depends on what flavour you need on your dish.

BaZmO*

Botanist James Wong went into decen detail on the ifs and buts of Peppers.

https://twitter.com/botanygeek/status/1040502393610424320?s=12

I haven't a clue about the genders or colors of peppers other than I cook the green ones and eat the red ones raw, but I've no memory of how I picked that up.

Fennel, on the other hand, has some interesting claims made about it. In India it's a popular Ayurvedic remedy as a galactagogue - it's supposed to help increase the flow of mothers milk. There's no real evidence I can find to support that assertion and there are some concerns about it's constant use, but it's a very common herbal medicine for lactating mothers and fennel tea is drunk by many new mothers on a daily basis to keep the milk flowing. It may well simply be an effective placebo or small extra reassurance.

It's also used for colds and 'flu, temperatures, wind, constipation and fatigue and is used to decrease all three Doshas (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha) - the vital forces or energies of the body in Ayurvedic medicine. If your Doshas have lost their equilibrium, a nice cup of horrible fennel tea might get your vital energies into balance and restore you, if you're into that kind of thing.

The other thing I know about fennel is that the seeds (I know them as saunf) are a very common ingredient in Indian cooking and that I hate them. There's a liquoricy taste off them that I dislike and my late Grandfather used to throw saunf into anything I'd be cooking when he thought I wasn't looking to 'improve' the taste. Which it never did.

New Home

According to an old wives' tale, it's best if nursing women don't eat lettuce because it can pass some substances through the milk to the baby and cause colics. Fennel, on the other hand, both the plant itself and its seeds, is recommended exactly for the opposite reason, it reduces gas and consequently colics.

mzungu

Reindeers can see UV light.

Scientists shone LED lights of different wavelengths, including UV, into the eyes of 18 anaesthetised reindeers while recording with an electrode whether nerves in the eye fired, indicating that the light had been seen. The UV light triggered a response in the eyes of all the reindeer. Hence, reindeer are the only mammals that can see ultraviolet light. This means that they can easily tell the difference between white fur and snow because white fur has much higher contrast. It helps them discover predators early in snowy landscapes.

sbsquarepants

mzungu wrote: »

Reindeers can see UV light.

.

Cheers mzungu, my daughter is 5 and she's mad about reindeers - I can't wait to tell her this this evening!

Scott Tenorman

I love this thread, kudos to all the contributors

s8n

Great Thread, Some fascinating reads

Ipso

mzungu wrote: »

Reindeers can see UV light.

Scientists shone LED lights of different wavelengths, including UV, into the eyes of 18 anaesthetised reindeers while recording with an electrode whether nerves in the eye fired, indicating that the light had been seen. The UV light triggered a response in the eyes of all the reindeer. Hence, reindeer are the only mammals that can see ultraviolet light. This means that they can easily tell the difference between white fur and snow because white fur has much higher contrast. It helps them discover predators early in snowy landscapes.

What about Rudolph the infra red nosed reindeer?

Fourier

Ipso wrote: »

What about Rudolph the infra red nosed reindeer?

And if you ever saw it you couldn't even say it glows as infrared lies outside the human visual spectrum.

Skylinehead

Fourier wrote: »

And if you ever saw it you couldn't even say it glows as infrared lies outside the human visual spectrum.

You would through a phone camera

As outlined before in this post, damage to one side of the brain can result in neurophysical disorders affecting the opposite side. Disorders affecting the same side are much rarer, but do happen. These disorders are caused by brain injury or surgery and most commonly stroke, but are generally rare especially in their most severe form.

One of the more challenging disorders must be Spatial Neglect, aka hemineglect. People with the condition simply don't process the affected half of their space, so that they only see half a painting, half a plate or bed or whatever. Half the world is just wiped out. The condition can sometimes be delusional but is most often it's a result of right hemisphere injury or damage and mapping reveal the nonattention on the affected side. The neglect field is usually the contralateral side but more rarely the ipsilateral side is affected.

The condition can be helped by therapies that increase the patients awareness of the extinct side, but its a slow process that relies on the unaffected hemisphere taking over the missing cognitive functions of the affected side.

nim1bdeh38l2cw

The last horse cavalry charge by the US Army in battle was in 2001. The time before that was in 1942.

Edit: Battle for Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan, November 2001.

mzungu

The largest blood vessel in your body is the aorta which is just over an inch in diameter.