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Do You have any Interesting but, Not Very Useful Facts


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8 hours ago, Tony_C said:

YES John....

and I guess, Yes Ian.... he didn’t walk all those miles...

 

Well done again John, clue was not cryptic enough! 

One of "The Proclaimers" ?

 

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From the name of language they speak. 

Quote:

"Owing to commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries between England and the Low Countries, a cognate of theodisk (most likely Middle Dutch Duutsc) was borrowed into English and developed into the exonym Dutch, which came to refer exclusively to the people of the Netherlands"

Is that what they told you in the den of iniquity you mentioned above? :rolleyes:

Edited by RobH
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Rob you astound me!........ That is amazing!.......... I was taking a punt.. For 30 years I have been married to a Dutch lady, 6 or 7 years previous to that when we first started going out she asked me why we called them Dutch.

 

Until now, I have never been able to answer; I’ve met more than my share of ‘know it all’s’ around the world with a particularly high percentage in Holland but, None of them have ever been able to come up with answer to this....... You are a scholar sir.

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1 hour ago, Tony_C said:

Why do ‘we’ call people from Holland - Or, more technically correct, The Netherlands’Dutch’?

 

 

(No clues on this one)

 

46 minutes ago, RobH said:

From the name of language they speak. 

Quote:

"Owing to commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries between England and the Low Countries, a cognate of theodisk (most likely Middle Dutch Duutsc) was borrowed into English and developed into the exonym Dutch, which came to refer exclusively to the people of the Netherlands"

Is that what they told you in the den of iniquity you mentioned above? :rolleyes:

 

Not many prople realise that Holland is not a country.

As you both well know, the country is 'The Netherlands'.

Holland is a region in the West of The Netherlands.

 

Schiphol, means Main Port.

The area on which the airport is built used to be a port

Not a lot of people know that

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The Q about lighter milk bottles seems to have been lost.

To repeat, why are they a tenth of the weight they used to be?

Cost?  No.   Improved glass technology, yes, but that's not the reason why.

The reason why bottle makers strove for lighter bottles is that the biggest expence for a milk company is sterilising the bottles!    Heat costs, and a lighter bottle uses less heat to be raised to the requred temperature!

Not many people know that.

John

I'll get m'coat

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The old Ford slogan - you can have any colour as long as it is Black.

Is all to do with the production line. It traveled at a constant speed. 

Black paint dries quicker than any other colour and fitted into the production line speed.

 

Roger 

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36 minutes ago, john.r.davies said:

The reason why bottle makers strove for lighter bottles is that the biggest expence for a milk company is sterilising the bottles!    Heat costs, and a lighter bottle uses less heat to be raised to the requred temperature!

Not many people know that.

John

Didn’t know that JOhn..... But, kinda obvious now.... I got stuck on the Fact the TV is older than the bottle!.. Dutch quality,..... which Brings us neatly back to The Netherlands? 

IMG_20200324_221530.jpg

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Thinking about it, I haven't seen a milk bottle for well over ten years now - maybe quite a bit more. Deliveries ceased round here years ago.

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Heard this the other day.....

Not sure if it's pukka but I  thought it was interesting.

In the old days of printing , the letter stamps ( is that right?) were placed in a cabinet for easy storage .

The capital letters were in the top of the cabinet .

The others letters in the bottom.

Hence UPPER CASE and LOWER CASE.

 

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6 minutes ago, Crawfie said:

Heard this the other day.....

Not sure if it's pukka but I  thought it was interesting.

In the old days of printing , the letter stamps ( is that right?) were placed in a cabinet for easy storage .

The capital letters were in the top of the cabinet .

The others letters in the bottom.

Hence UPPER CASE and LOWER CASE.

 

Yes

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I expect many will know this.

A flintlock pistol needs to have a position where the flint striker or 'cock' is moved away from the priming-pan, to allow the frisson to be opened and the pan to be filled with powder during the loading process. That position is called 'half cock' (as opposed to the firing position which is 'full cock'). It shouldn''t be possible for the gun to be fired from that position but if it does , it goes off at half cock. Hence the expression for a premature event.

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7 minutes ago, RobH said:

I expect many will know this.

A flintlock pistol needs to have a position where the flint striker or 'cock' is moved away from the priming-pan, to allow the frisson to be opened and the pan to be filled with powder during the loading process. That position is called 'half cock' (as opposed to the firing position which is 'full cock'). It shouldn''t be possible for the gun to be fired from that position but if it does , it goes off at half cock. Hence the expression for a premature event.

So........half cock ejaculation?

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I understand it's really of unknown origin but it isn't the port-out-starboard-home thing. Possibly a slang word for 'dandy' according to one source. 

Edited by RobH
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2 hours ago, RobH said:

I understand it's really of unknown origin but it isn't the port-out-starboard-home thing. Possibly a slang word for 'dandy' according to one source. 

It isn't ?   I believed it was, as it referred to liners traveling and from the orient, whereby in very hot climates like heading off down the Suez - the port side of the vessel was northerly and therefore in the shade.  Accordingly posh people ..like officer's and the generously tipping gentry were given those cabins and chairs on that side deck.  On the way back the starboard side of the vessel would be shaded, so then posh types paid more to be accommodated on that side.

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6 hours ago, RobH said:

From the name of language they speak. 

Quote:

"Owing to commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries between England and the Low Countries, a cognate of theodisk (most likely Middle Dutch Duutsc) was borrowed into English and developed into the exonym Dutch, which came to refer exclusively to the people of the Netherlands"

Is that what they told you in the den of iniquity you mentioned above? :rolleyes:

And I thought it was much older bastar'n of the word which became "deutsch"   ie., the (their) Germanic language, as opposed to the Angles or the  Saxons. 

..Just goes to show - I knows nuffink.

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A load of “Cock and Bull” comes from the trading hotel/pubs  The Cock and The Bull two pubs in Stony Stratford high street....on the original A5

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Starboard and Port came from the Vikings 

The stearing board (starboard) was on the right hand side of the longboat held under the right arm of the helmsman, so when they came into port the boat had to be tied up with the left side (port) against the dock so as not to damage the stearing board.

George 

Edited by harlequin
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8 hours ago, Bfg said:

And I thought it was much older bastar'n of the word which became "deutsch"   ie., the (their) Germanic language, as opposed to the Angles or the  Saxons. 

..Just goes to show - I knows nuffink.

That’s what upsets so many of the Dutch...... 

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9 hours ago, Bfg said:

It isn't ?   I believed it was, as it referred to liners traveling and from the orient, whereby in very hot climates like heading off down the Suez - the port side of the vessel was northerly and therefore in the shade.  Accordingly posh people ..like officer's and the generously tipping gentry were given those cabins and chairs on that side deck.  On the way back the starboard side of the vessel would be shaded, so then posh types paid more to be accommodated on that side.

True, especially in the days of Empire, P.O.S.H. Was written on the ticket, hence the term.

John.

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