What really obvious thing have you only just realised?

franer1970 · 04-12-2013 03:13PM

The inside label on a t-shirt or jumper is nearly always on the left, so there's no need to check the collar to see which way round to put it on.

Liamalone · 04-12-2013 05:18PM

franer1970 wrote: »

The inside label on a t-shirt or jumper is nearly always on the left, so there's no need to check the collar to see which way round to put it on.

Nearly always? Sometimes, maybe, the odd time :P

04-12-2013 06:09PM

I have a friend in the UK who's fascinated by Irish and is trying to learn it. He sent me a message today saying:

"the Irish for 'many' is go leor, right? Does the word 'galore' by any chance come from this great language?"

My reaction: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So I googled it and he was right! The word 'galore' comes from 'go leor'. It seems so obvious now that I think about it, yet it never once occurred to me that there was a link there.

Allyall · 04-12-2013 06:50PM

Deleted User wrote: »

galore

Clock and Slogan :eek:

Feathers · 04-12-2013 07:31PM

OwaynOTT wrote: »

When AM is and PM is. Ireland AM was my clue.

Just remember: pre-midday and after midday

(...are not what AM and PM stand for :pac:)

catallus · 05-12-2013 01:50AM

Without googling this, I'm just after realising that jesse's replacement in breakingbad is philipseymorhoffman's son in TheMaster! Must check it....

catallus · 05-12-2013 01:51AM

I was right! And his name's Jesse! Mind Blown

Captain Chaos · 05-12-2013 01:55AM

Feathers wrote: »

Just remember: pre-midday and after midday

(...are not what AM and PM stand for :pac:)

Should be pre-midnight and after midnight, your way for remembering them is backwards.

05-12-2013 03:27AM

Deleted User wrote: »

I have a friend in the UK who's fascinated by Irish and is trying to learn it. He sent me a message today saying:

"the Irish for 'many' is go leor, right? Does the word 'galore' by any chance come from this great language?"

My reaction: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So I googled it and he was right! The word 'galore' comes from 'go leor'. It seems so obvious now that I think about it, yet it never once occurred to me that there was a link there.

Similarly the word "smashing" when referring to something being good, comes from Irish speakers in London saying "Is maith sin" when they saw things they liked.

Also, the expression "by hook or by crook" came when Oliver Cromwell was sailing into Wexford one time, and ordered his men to land beside either Hook Head or nearby Crook

pickarooney · 05-12-2013 05:57AM

OwaynOTT wrote: »

I'm living with a linguistics student for whom English isn't a first language. She really has melted my brain with questions about the English language, present perfect simple, past perfect progressive, etc.
that movie affected and now it's having an effect.
I would have done that, if I had of know. So be if I had of know, I would have done that.
Also getting that feeling you get that words don't make sense after repeating them over and over.

there's no such construct as 'had of' or 'had have' in English.

lufties · 05-12-2013 06:04AM

That lemons are really really good for you

DEFTLEFTHAND · 05-12-2013 06:19AM

Only learnt this recently, William H Bonney was the son of Irish famine immigrants, Catherine MCarthy and a (Bonney from Cork) father who ran away. He was born in New York and left home at 15 to head west to seek his fortune. He's known to have run a sophisticated criminal gang. He's said to have killed 21 men for his 21 years, he was eventually gunned down by lawman Pat Garrett in 1881.

He's probably more well known by his famous nickname. Billy The Kid..

SV · 05-12-2013 06:23AM

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Only learnt this recently, William H Bonney was the son of Irish famine immigrants, Catherine MCarthy and an unnamed father who ran away. He was born in New York and left home at 15 to head west to seek his fortune. He's known to have run a sophisticated criminal gang. He's said to have killed 21 men for his 21 years, he was eventually gunned down by lawman Pat Garrett in 1881.

He's probably more well known by his famous nickname. Billy The Kid..

Hardly really obvious that Billy the Kid had Irish famine immigrant parents is it?

salacious crumb · 05-12-2013 10:25AM

Not if you've ever read about him or seen any of the countless movies about him anyway...

Saruman · 05-12-2013 10:32AM

Not recently but belatedly a while back. I realised my index finger is not the longest finger. In 2004 I went to the US for the first time. When I got to immigration and was asked for my index finger to scan, I immediately put my middle finger on the scanner thinking it was the longest finger on a hand.
The immigration officer looked at me and said "Boy, you better get that finger off the scanner if you want to get in to the country!" or something along those lines. In fairness, I was pretty tired after the flight and my brain wasn't working great.

Pawwed Rig · 05-12-2013 10:43AM

Saruman wrote: »

"Boy, you better get that finger off the scanner if you want to get in to the country!" or something along those lines. In fairness, I was pretty tired after the flight and my brain wasn't working great.

Haha did he think you were giving him 'the bird'?

Saruman · 05-12-2013 10:51AM

Yes, I think I did know which finger but I was too tired. When I looked down I laughed and said oops sorry and then realised which finger he meant.
That situation could have gone the other way if he was having a bad day.

Feathers · 05-12-2013 09:55PM

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Should be pre-midnight and after midnight, your way for remembering them is backwards.

(I know, ssh, I was trying to confuse him.)

The Pheasant2 · 06-12-2013 12:45AM

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I have a friend in the UK who's fascinated by Irish and is trying to learn it. He sent me a message today saying:

"the Irish for 'many' is go leor, right? Does the word 'galore' by any chance come from this great language?"

My reaction: :eek: :eek: :eek:

So I googled it and he was right! The word 'galore' comes from 'go leor'. It seems so obvious now that I think about it, yet it never once occurred to me that there was a link there.

Another good one from Irish is "You dig?" as in "do you understand?" comes from "an dtuigeann tú?"

Canard · 06-12-2013 01:20AM

I've never heard dig used that way, I've only heard it as in "do you like it", but apparently slán led to "so long" and smashing to "is maith sin". I feel like I might have seen those on the thread before, but if not, maybe some of you just learned something new.

SV · 06-12-2013 01:55AM

The Pheasant2 wrote: »

Another good one from Irish is "You dig?" as in "do you understand?" comes from "an dtuigeann tú?"

WHAT!? Tell me that's true. If it isn't I hate you for building up my hopes and dreams

General General · 06-12-2013 02:07AM

Handball, specifically the handball of Adidas Spezial Handball trainers, is not the handball played here in Ireland.

The Royal Scam · 06-12-2013 02:16AM

SV wrote: »

WHAT!? Tell me that's true. If it isn't I hate you for building up my hopes and dreams

It is, it blew my mind when I heard it. It comes from the fact that a lot of the slave masters in the American southern states were Irish. When they were explaining instructions to the slaves the would use the Irish phrase which ended up being paraphrased into "You Dig".

Birneybau · 06-12-2013 03:53PM

Pearl Jam, as in the band, means jizz.

Hadn't a notion!

enda1 · 06-12-2013 04:02PM

Birneybau wrote: »

Pearl Jam, as in the band, means jizz.

Hadn't a notion!

Never knew that either! Wouldn't consider it that obvious though.

Edit: It seems that their reason for choosing the name has nothing to do with that.

It seems a combination of pearl and to jam i.e. play a long unscripted piece of music.

IvySlayer · 18-12-2013 11:51AM

Watching The Matrix......Neo is an anagram of One....

StickyIcky · 18-12-2013 12:37PM

Here's one. I was shocked when I realised that all my life something I believed I had misunderstood despite hearing it countless times throughout my life.

My mother and father would always say when we were working together as a team

"Many hands make light work."

I always believed it was some kind of reference to "we are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants" i.e. without lots of people working towards a common task things like the invention of light etc would never have come about.

Then I heard someone else last night say "Many hands make for light work." Then it clicked on me. It's mean't in the way that one person digging a large hole would be hard heavy work, but if many people were digging that same hole it would be light and easy work for all of them.

I could possibly be the only one who jumped to the conclusion that it was literally light as in from light fittings instead of light as in the opposite of heavy. But this happened when I was a small child and it's stuck that way forever... until last night and I'm 34.. crazy

sbsquarepants · 18-12-2013 02:13PM

enda1 wrote: »

Never knew that either! Wouldn't consider it that obvious though.

Edit: It seems that their reason for choosing the name has nothing to do with that.

It seems a combination of pearl and to jam i.e. play a long unscripted piece of music.

I'd heard that Pearl was Eddy Vedders granny!:D

Eh, never mind - just read the article and that's basically what it says - Pearl was his great granny.

Blisterman · 21-12-2013 03:10PM

"The ghost of christmas present"

I just got that!

Allyall · 21-12-2013 03:47PM

Christmas is only 3 days away!! :eek:

What really obvious thing have you only just realised?

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