Things that are actually pretty weird when you think about them?

Social norms. Why do we almost universally accept certain norms and who decides what the norm is? How does it happen? A Pat on the back for something well done, three meals a day, ironing (why are flat clothes better than a bit crumpled, picking your nose is a bad thing - those sorts of things. How is it decided what is polite and what isn't?
All of this puzzles me!

Different languages like Some European languages where words are jumbled in the sentence if you were to translate it but when they are talking to each other it makes perfect sense and it’s just like me speaking In English to someone else. Can not get my head around that at times.

Also the English language using the same sounding words for different things but have different spellings e.g. there and their, meet and meat, flower and flour. Trying to explain the difference between there and their and why they are spelled differently to a 6 year old is fun

How we are born, we live and then die ... it’s something that blows the mind when you think about it.

@TheSpottedZebra this one blows my mind too!

"Say a polish person living in England and in there dreams if I appear do I speak English or Polish."

I've had dreams in my own language featuring people speaking it who don't normally if you see what I mean. Quite often, there's no language or speech though, just images.
I think that if there is language in my dream, it would be the one I was thinking in before going to sleep.

@lampshadery

I get that, but with hands. They're just so weird, and we forget all the time.

"Absolutely with you on this. I'm not into kissing at all."

Apparently it's not normal in many parts of the world.

"I only had some schoolgirl french that I'd not used in years! This was also prior to my studying the English language and so I knew very little about European language history.

As it turned out my knowledge of Scots Gaelic came in very handy! That will have confused a few of you reading!

Turns out they're all Germanic languages and I was able to fairly quickly pick up enough to get by just from my previous knowledge of Scots Gaelic, I learned more the longer I lived there of course as immersion and necessity REALLY helps! Early on I got on the wrong bloody bus! To find my way to getting the RIGHT bus home involved using a mish mash of the few Dutch words"

Have I misunderstood here? Neither French not Scots Gaelic are Germanic languages. English and Dutch are, of course.

I find the concept of how humans look weird. We all have two blob things in our heads to see with, a weird long thing sticking out of the middle with two holes in, a big hole at the bottom and then two wrinkly things out the side! The way our faces are made up is really weird to me - and that we consider some faces beautiful.

It really bothers me if I think too much about it 😂

Money & economics - just really weird that every country seems to have a national debt - who did they borrow it from & how is it repaid (if it is!) & ultimately it's just printed pieces of paper - just print some more!! I know it's all economics & stuff but just seems to get crazier & crazier when everyone owes billions to everyone else!! Also space - Brian Cox speaks in a way that you think you're going to understand, but I'm completely lost within 5 mins & my brain just can't cope with space / time / light year stuff (and don't even get me started on dark matter')! Also the thought that everything on earth has always been here in one form or another, and yet we've got more rubbish than ever - where's it going to go when there's no more room to dig landfill sites?

Kissing developed as we lost our strong sense of smell and is used to taste the pheromones of our mate to see if they are compatible for breeding.

Courgettes become marrows. Not sure who asked this but they are also called courgettes in English (as well as France).

You burn fat. Like you burn oil in a lamp or burner. Your body converts the fat into energy (like an oil burner creating a flame) in the same way it does with eaten calories.

@SunshineCake it was me that posted the original post, not me who asked what those items were called

If I think about clapping while I'm clapping my hands lose all rhythm and one hand is likely to miss the other because it makes no sense.

Apologies if anyone else has mentioned this but I find clapping really strange.

It seems such primitive and child like way to show approval.

At a end of a concert, for instant, all these 'civilised' grown up people sitting in a room together banging their hands together. Very odd.

I did scroll down to see if anyone had answered as they had to have done as it is so obvious, but I got bored of looking. No big deal.

You're a bit late to the party, sunshinecake!

[quote Eckhart]@Bettina500

I started compiling a list of things we don't have a word for in English.

So far, I only have: Those things you blow at parties, that unfurl lengthways and whistle; the thing you put between your shopping and the next person's shopping on the conveyor belt at the supermarket till; another one I can't remember.

Can anybody think of any others?[/quote]

1. Party blowers.
2. Dividers.

That the royal family, George Clooney, David Attenborough etc. are real people who at the same time as I'm writing this will be busy eating/weeing/making princesses/picking their nose...

The royal family as a concept. We have one family who get to live in palaces and castles and we bow and curtsey and think they're special because their great great x 1000 grandad was the biggest, baddest caveman, chieftain or something. Why?

Space. It's huge. It gives me vertigo just thought making about us whizzing around in it on this little chunk of rock.

Human civilization. We have millions of houses, roads, cars, suitcases, pooing unicorns, boxes, glitter glues, clothes and other random stuff instead of a nice nest like everything else.

Losing weight, where does the weight go

Mostly we breathe it out funnily enough, also sweat contains fats, and of course yes in urine too.

@Eckhart Yes, language is changing so much faster these days, with communication being so much freer than it was even just a few years ago.

Not only that, the world is so much "smaller" as a result and people are communicating with others who speak other languages more than ever before I'm sure.

I started compiling a list of things we don't have a word for in English

Somehow missed this earlier I think

It would be a VERY long list because most words we use in "English" are actually french/Italian/German/Dutch/Hindustani/Swahili/Japanese...

Much shorter list - Anglo Saxon words we still use!

@honeylulu there's been whole threads on 'post apocalyptic survival skills which do you have?' - not a real thread title not sure how you'd find them. I'm fairly good as had practical and outdoorsy parents plus I was involved in guiding and scouting for a LONG time from the age of 7 until mid 30's and learnt a lot there too. A lot of people have skills but a shocking amount wouldn't know so much as how to start a fire without a match or a lighter!

Re walking as humans and teaching babies to walk. I've looked after a LOT of babies and I don't think we do teach them, I think they teach themselves at different stages. I certainly didn't bother with dd as I didn't need to! The little bugger was off and into everything at 9 months!! She never crawled though she side rolled to get places before that and not for very long and then just one day only a short while after pulling to standing she just walked clear across the living room floor with no warning! Pleased that day...not so pleased in the days and weeks following as she really did find her way into everything! She was a right "climber" too. Never mind just regular baby proofing we had to make chairs, boxes, toys that could be stood on etc inaccessible too as she'd use them to climb.

Building whole cities on areas prone to earthquakes - why?! Surely the humans living in those areas KNEW there were loads of earthquakes there?!

LOVING this thread!

@JJsDinerWaffles

I used to work in a pub with a ghost cat. It was the most haunted pub in England, actually. The cat was never seen, but people regularly went to stroke it when it brushed past their legs. Even people who didn't know there was a ghost cat there.

The idea that we all have a skeleton inside us. I see those plastic skeletons and really makes me feel odd when I think I have one inside me.
Also that one day your heart could just stop beating, and really it's actually amazing how our bodies work to keep us alive