Things you often Wonder

[Xela]

I like most things but not cabbage or mushrooms!

Mind you, overly fussy eaters piss me off.. in fact I'm going to post about them in the relevant thread...

[chrisp65]

What age is the cut off for finally picking what football team you support?

I'm hoping it's a bigger number than I've always presumed.

[Wainy316]

I like everything but mushrooms, boiled/fried eggs (I'm aware that's a biggie), olives and crab sticks.

[Xela]

13 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

What age is the cut off for finally picking what football team you support?

I'm hoping it's a bigger number than I've always presumed.

I think its 37... which is handy for me as I have a few months to decide. 

[Tegis]

6 minutes ago, Xela said:

I think its 37... which is handy for me as I have a few months to decide. 

 

[mjmooney]

On 18/04/2016 at 18:00, villa4europe said:

You've got to saag your curry up!

Also some good cream spinach recipes about, cream, spinach, garlic, worcs sauce, bit of nutmeg

Given that I don't like curry and I hate spinach, spinach curry is the worst thing I can imagine.

Anyway, another 'wonder':

Why do so many girls' names (and correspondingly few boys' names) end in 'a' - regardless of language or culture? 

[Stevo985]

I don't know the answer, but in languages that have masculine/feminine words, often the feminine words end in vowels (Spanish, for example, if a word ends in A the rule of thumb is that it's a feminine word).

So I would guess it's something to do with language.

[mjmooney]

6 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

I don't know the answer, but in languages that have masculine/feminine words, often the feminine words end in vowels (Spanish, for example, if a word ends in A the rule of thumb is that it's a feminine word).

So I would guess it's something to do with language.

Yeah, I get that, but why? Especially across different language groups.

[Stevo985]

God made it that way.

[blandy]

51 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Why do so many girls' names (and correspondingly few boys' names) end in 'a' - regardless of language or culture? 

Almost by definition it can't be regardless of language. I think people's names in large part are because of language and often culture.

[StefanAVFC]

Slavic girls names pretty much all end in a. I've met one girl here who doesn't have an a at the end of her name. 

I think it comes from Romans if I had to guess. They made female versions of their names for their daughters 

Claudius / claudia

julius / Julia 

etc

but im guessing that's the reason

[HanoiVillan]

(I looked this up, I can't pretend I actually knew this)

It comes down to the history of linguistics. Once upon a time, there was a language known as PIE (Proto-Indo-European). This language is the ultimate forefather of  some Indian and all European languages with the exceptions of Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian. From the link:

'PIE language seemingly had a masculing-feminine construct for nouns, where an ‘aa’ sound added to the end of a male noun makes the noun a female. This rule appears to have passed down to almost every language descended from PIE.

European names like John and Johann become female when appended with long ‘a’ – Joanna, Johanna. There are very few male names that end with a vowel, though – Nikolai, for example. Even with some of the recently derived Romance languages – Spanish, Italian, Portuguese – female names still typically end with an ‘a’ sound, while male names end with an ‘o’ or ‘i’ sound. (Isabella, Donatella, Teresa, Olga, Sofia, Elena, Natalia; Paolo, Antonio, Leonardo, Diego, Giovanni, Rossini)'

Languages that aren't derived from PIE don't have the same pattern, so this rule isn't true of eg. native American languages, east and south east Asian languages, those European languages mentioned above etc.  

[PussEKatt]

On 18/04/2016 at 23:08, mjmooney said:

Weirdly, although I don't much like green veg (I  actually can't eat spring greens or - THE most disgusting 'food' in the world - spinach), I really like sprouts! 

You are right to avoid green veges.There was a survey and it was discovered that out of 1000 people that died, 999 had eaten green veges in the week leading up to their death.

[mjmooney]

Thank you Hanoi, that is obviously the answer. Interesting that it goes back all the way to indo-european roots.

[leviramsey]

On 1/26/2016 at 08:43, StefanAVFC said:

How do people that stupid get into management?

The Peter Principle: people get promoted to their level of incompetence.

[leviramsey]

On 1/28/2016 at 08:42, useless said:

I did wonder about technology, Maybe that's taking up so much of the creativity these days, that it's to the detriment of other areas. But that doesn't really make sense, lol.

It's more like the era of mass culture is over, replaced by lots and lots of subcultures.

[sidcow]

I often wonder why you can buy some stuff,  particularly following the advent of the manufacturing might of China at absolutely ridiculously cheap prices,  often prices where there is simply no need for it to be that cheap.

But then there is other stuff where you can see absolutely no need for it to be so expensive.  Why can't they chuck those things out of China at 1/4 the price. 

Prime example I want a new cushion for a garden bench. You go into any Diy store or garden Centre and you won't get a piece of thin foam wrapped in cotton for less than £25.  However in homebase I saw a whole new garden bench WITH cushion for £40. So basically they can't make a bl00dy cushion for less than£25 which I refuse to pay but they can build a whole bench for £15

It's madness. Can't someone in China make me a cushion for £5 instead of a power drill for a tenner? 

[sidcow]

On 06/06/2011 at 15:29, Stevo985 said:

I often wonder if I'm the greatest Croquet player that ever lived. or maybe the greatest synchronised swimmer. Or the greatest base jumper

 

But the fact that I never have, and probably never will, try any of them means I'll never find out my true talent.

I have wondered this myself. I am not particularly talented at anything but what have I not done which I could be the best in the world at. Conversely there must be loads of world champions who would have got nowhere near the top if the 10 people who are better than them had ever tried it

[Seat68]

I am world class at hoovering, thought about taking it up competitively, you know to measure myself against the rest of the world. I am a sprint hooverer, can do the stairs and they are quality but an area with large square footage might not get the same attention to detail.

[mjmooney]

11 hours ago, sidcow said:

I have wondered this myself. I am not particularly talented at anything but what have I not done which I could be the best in the world at. Conversely there must be loads of world champions who would have got nowhere near the top if the 10 people who are better than them had ever tried it

Unknowable, but there is a school of thought that some people just have a "champion's mentality", and will probably succeed at whatever they turn their hand to, through sheer determination - there are several olympians who have been winners in two or more (often very different) sports. Whereas the rest of us may have a bit of talent, but will never truly excel because we simply don't have the stick-at-it mindset. 

It's probably the same for writers, musicians, etc. The old "ten thousand hours of practice" thing.