OMG I'm thick as mince

[OopsInamechangedagain]

I was just doing an online trivia quiz and one of the answers mentioned that zebra crossings are so-called because the black and white stripes resemble a zebra's coat. I can't believe that not once in my 40-odd years on this planet did I twig the connection!

What else have I missed...?

Mind you, I can't talk as it only occurred to me tonight that actors/actresses say 'break a leg' because they want the person to get in the cast

But that’s not true.

“Great Britain” can be used geographically to mean the largest island in the North Atlantic Archipelago (excluding the Isle of Wight, the Orkneys and Hebrides and, if you’re feeling picky, Portsmouth). Or it can be used to describe the political union of England, Scotland and Wales: including all the Scottish islands, Anglesey, IOW, Portsmouth, Lundy etc, but not the Channel Islands. Bowl’s map is definitely wrong insofar as it includes the Isle of Man within both Great Britain and the UK, when in fact it’s neither.

*Mind you, I can't talk as it only occurred to me tonight that actors/actresses say 'break a leg' because they want the person to get in the cast

But that’s not true.*

Then I stand corrected! I no longer feel so stupid :-)

Mind you, I can't talk as it only occurred to me tonight that actors/actresses say 'break a leg' because they want the person to get in the cast.

But that’s not true.

IIRC. It was originally said by the understudies to the leading players/actors. In the hope that a misfortune would happen, so the understudy would get the part.

Google claims that the wings at the side were called the legs and that it came from there.

I used to wonder as a child wat Hong the horse racing on TV why a horse called BAR ran in every race but was never mentioned in the commentary and never won. I thought he must have got terribly tired as well with all that racing.

I concede on the pigs. Well a bit.

We were waiting to cross the road at a busy crossing on Saturday and one set of cars stopped as is the sequence of the traffic signal. This was to allow another lane of cars through and not at that point to allow pedestrians to cross.

The two elderly ladies next to us were complaining loudly that it was a shame those cars had stopped (as there wasn't any cars coming the other way) but our green man was still red.

One said to the other very confidently that it was because the man in the booth counts how many cars to let through and then presses a button to make the light red/green. She went on to say that the man should be more aware of pedestrians waiting. When her friend questioned this she said it was true as she had seen it on a tv programme.

Where are these booths? Underground? In the sky? She was convinced every single crossing in the country was operated by a man in a booth.

I was stunned - but now questioning maybe she is right?!! 🤷🏻‍♀️

The pronunciation of place names like Derby and Berkshire has indeed changed - I believe we used to say them with an 'e' until well into the 19th century. I read somewhere that the long 'ah' sound started as an upper-class drawl/ affectation that caught on.
A bit like poshos who say 'hice' for house.
Americans still say Derby as it's spelled , it's what they call a bowler-type hat.

Would people who used rhyming slang say Berkley or Barkley?

If the first it would explain why those of us who say Barkley never realised what berk referred to.

oh the chicken of the sea-so is tuna chicken coz it says chicken of the sea on the tin

no its tuna-so why does it say chicken?!

her husband divorced her so alls right int he world

Diddl who knows but I wouldn't be surprised if they stuck to saying 'Berkshire/Berkeley' with an 'e' out of sheer contrariness.
Full disclosure - I am a cockney born (although not bred) from a long line of cockneys, and rhyming slang was used daily in my DGP's house. (Although never apples and pears AFAICR)

From Wiki-

"The English slang word "berk" is a contraction of "Berkeley Hunt", which in turn refers to the English vulgarity "cunt" (the usage is dated to the 1930s).[5] It is an example of Cockney rhyming slang. The "berk" in Berkeley is pronounced /ˈbɑːrk/, but in Cockney it is pronounced /ˈbɜːrk/, as in American English."

I think it was only this year I worked out a misheard lyric in Last Christmas I thought it was “face of a lover with a foreigner’s heart” and it’s “fire in his heart”.

As a child I believed a cartoon in a comic about the Pickpockets being real creatures - and when on a school trip to the zoo seeing a “beware of pickpockets” sign I was disappointed not to find them.

@SecretNutellaFix 😂😂😂😂😂

I would literally have laughed out loud if I’d heard that!

Only realised (duh!) when choir I am in was rehearsing Bohemian Rhapsody that it is Bismillah and NOT Miss Miller. No we will not let you go!

My sister phoned me up complaining loudly that the oven cleaning foam she was using was dangerously caustic “especially as I was kneeling on the floor in the dark as a I cleaned the oven”.......?.?..turned out the instruction said “open oven door and turn off the light”........ she had switched off ceiling light!!!

It's not Miss Miller???!!!

It's not Miss Miller, nor does he have a devil for a son.

Me neither!

I used to listen to the news as a child and hear them talking about "Gorrilla warfare" and had a kind of planet of the apes thing going on in my head. Then as i got older i thought it was people fighting to save the gorrillas from extinction. Wasnt until alot older i figured it out.

jem it’s not Maori in Moana, it’s Maui!! Who is one of the gods in Maori folklore.