Weird things you never knew

Emp_Fab

Stuffing your underpants with nettles then doing squats causes a painful rash.

Kittyfrisk

blobb said:

Ddigger said:

^^video, or it never happened! 

It's called vocal overtoning. I can do it, just, a friend of mine teaches you how to do it, this lady is the reference:

https://youtu.be/vC9Qh709gas?t=32

Also see Mongolian throat singing  
Marvellous stuff.

Kittyfrisk

poopot said:

A duel between three people is called a truel.

I find a truck much more fun 

Kebabkid

That Ghandi's wife was called Goosey Goosey and Mark Twain's was called Choo Choo

proggy

The Bugatti Veyron engine has 16 drain plugs and an oil change takes 27 hours to complete.

Sesh

You were once the youngest person in the world. 

viz

blobb said:

Ddigger said:

^^video, or it never happened! 

It's called vocal overtoning. I can do it, just, a friend of mine teaches you how to do it, this lady is the reference:

https://youtu.be/vC9Qh709gas?t=32

There’s an amazing chap on youtube who has a different technique and is fucking awesome, but this is my shite version:

https://youtu.be/fHwOUcptwOo


this is him:

https://youtu.be/0-ljtP6WJrI

Stuckfast

thecolourbox said:

There was apparently no such thing as the colour blue in ancient civilisations - Romans and Greeks etc considered it basically a shade of green or "wine red" as quoted from Homers Odyssey when he was describing the colour of the sea.

The Egyptians were the first to have a word for blue, as they were the only civilisation that could produce the colour in dyes or paint.

Are you sure? I've just been reading a book about Roman Britain, and it says that the Gauls and Britons were commonly known to Romans as the 'blue people' because of their ancient habit of dying clothes sky-blue with woad -- a habit that had already died out before the Romans even invaded Britain.

Also, the ancient Egyptian civilisation preceded both the Greek and Roman civilisations, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between them, so if blue articles existed in Egypt they would surely have been traded with Athens and Rome.

JohnS37

Rhythm is the longest English word to lack vowels.
And there is a lot of nonsense in this thread about grammar.

Kalimna

Stuckfast said:

thecolourbox said:

There was apparently no such thing as the colour blue in ancient civilisations - Romans and Greeks etc considered it basically a shade of green or "wine red" as quoted from Homers Odyssey when he was describing the colour of the sea.

The Egyptians were the first to have a word for blue, as they were the only civilisation that could produce the colour in dyes or paint.

Are you sure? I've just been reading a book about Roman Britain, and it says that the Gauls and Britons were commonly known to Romans as the 'blue people' because of their ancient habit of dying clothes sky-blue with woad -- a habit that had already died out before the Romans even invaded Britain.

Also, the ancient Egyptian civilisation preceded both the Greek and Roman civilisations, and there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between them, so if blue articles existed in Egypt they would surely have been traded with Athens and Rome.

I think perhaps that there was no name for the colour blue, even though it obviously existed as a coloyr. In much the same way that the '7' colours of the rainbow are entirely arbitrary.

EricTheWeary

JohnS37 said:

Rhythm is the longest English word to lack vowels.

Yes and no though? Y functions as a vowel or consonant depending on how it’s used.*
Crwth, phpht and grrr have no conventional vowels. But Crwth is a Welsh word and the W functions as a vowel. They all kinda have vowels because they all have vowel sounds when you say them. 

So rhythms is the longest word without a traditional vowel letter. 

* the definition of vowel and consonant somewhat beyond me but it’s to do with sounds rather than a list of letters. 

Hattigol

EricTheWeary said:

JohnS37 said:

Rhythm is the longest English word to lack vowels.

Yes and no though? Y functions as a vowel or consonant depending on how it’s used.*
Crwth, phpht and grrr have no conventional vowels. But Crwth is a Welsh word and the W functions as a vowel. They all kinda have vowels because they all have vowel sounds when you say them. 

So rhythms is the longest word without a traditional vowel letter. 

* the definition of vowel and consonant somewhat beyond me but it’s to do with sounds rather than a list of letters. 

Pedant has just two vowels. 

blobb

@Viz good effort. There is no way I'm sharing my attempt at overtoning! I do however recommend having a go. The easy (er, easier) bit is getting the fundamental. If you can do this it's brilliant for stress relief. I used to do it on long motorway journeys to stay alert. Just growl the vowels then move on to Henry, or more precise Henry as if you were saying it with a comedy French accent ('en-ri).

Another useless thing the good fret folk may not know.....seeing as his name has been mentioned....'Mark Twain' is a shout out from the guy that sits on the bow of a Mississippi riverboat if the water depth becomes too shallow for the boat to pass safely.

2 Fathoms or 12 feet.

chillidoggy

I've just lost 5 minutes of my life reading this tosh.

Rocker

chillidoggy said:

I've just lost 5 minutes of my life reading this tosh.

It would have passed anyway.

EricTheWeary

The first series of Only Fools and Horses had a different theme tune ( although by the time of DVD releases it was changed to the more familiar one). 



The more familiar version was written and sung by the series' screenwriter John Sullivan but he had written it for Chas and Dave to sing who turned it down. 
John Sullivan also wrote the earlier Citizen Smith which included an episode called Only Fools and Horses.  

thecolourbox

Blimey that original theme was awful wasn't it, I for one am glad they changed it. 

EricTheWeary

thecolourbox said:

Blimey that original theme was awful wasn't it, I for one am glad they changed it. 

Although written by Ronnie Hazelhurst who was one of the UK's most successful theme  tune writers - Yes Minster, Are You Being Served,etc,etc.
For a brief glimpse of Ronnie he's the conductor here:

poopot

Sly Stallone still has the turtles from Rocky… they are 46 years old now!

Kalimna

As a crossover to the fungi thread, the fungi kingdom is more closely related to animals than plants...