I just found out the origins of the slang terms 'Quid' and 'Bucks', do you have any random interesting general knowledge you'd like to share?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

Ds asked me today why we call money quid and not bucks like the Americans, so we looked it up.

Quid comes from the Latin Quid Pro Quo, meaning something for something.

Bucks comes from early colonial use of deerskins as barter currency 'buckskins'.

I was pleased ds had asked as I find these things fascinating and pleasing.

I'd love to hear anyone else's fascinating facts.

@chomalungma Oh, now you’ve made me remember some brilliant “stuff you didn’t know was named after an actual person ones.

Robert Bork was an American judge. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the Senate rejected his nomination. The Democrats opposed him vociferously, including with a now infamous an anti-Bork ad narrated by Gregory Peck. Bork waited 114 days to finally be rejected (which can’t have been nice, but he appears to be a fairly awful person who thought black people and women really shouldn’t have equal rights, so don’t feel too badly for him.) The dictionary now lists “to Bork” as “to defame or villify a person in the mass media, usually to stop them achieving office.” However, borked is more widely used in the computer industry to mean broken, damaged, ruined.

And, quite poasibly my favourite:
Gerrymandering is the practice of establishing an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. It is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry(pronounced with a hard "g"; "Gherry"), Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area in the shape of a mythological salamander. Gerry + Salamander = Gerrymandering.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

You can't strike a match on a jelly.

You made that up. How dare you! I light my hob this way every day. The dc know not to touch my match striking jelly.

Gerrymandering is the practice of establishing an unfair political advantage for a particular party or group by manipulating district boundaries. It is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry(pronounced with a hard "g"; "Gherry"), Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area in the shape of a mythological salamander. Gerry + Salamander = Gerrymandering.

Firstly - I wish I'd heard of Elbridge when I was searching for baby names. It is hideously marvellous. (Ds taking deep sigh of relief that younger me was kinder in my naming tendencies)

Second - wha?!? Did he make this district in the shape of a salamander on purpose or was that an accident?

Thirdly - salamanders aren't real? Really?

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

The spiders one was, apparently, made up by two peaple to see how quickly they could get something to spread across the Internet. Although I suppose that could be made up too! hmm

I think it might be! I've just found this:

"The idea that Lisa Holst is the originator of the spider statistic is reported in an article on snopes.com, a website dedicated to clearing up internet rumours and urban legends. As yet, however, it has not been possible to confirm the existence of either Holst or the article she is supposed to have written."

The spiders thing was made up by Stuart Marconie.

@AlfonsoTheSensible the prostitutes may well have had genital herpes, and that may well aid the spread, but it was ulcers that were the real issue. Them appearing/getting worse is a symptom of HIV and also aids in the efficiency of HIV and AIDS spreading during sexual contact. True in both genders, but especially observed in men. There’s a lot of info online, but this shows that GU’s are there and shedding the AIDS virus often in an infected individual: www.aidsmap.com/news/mar-2010/genital-ulcers-frequently-associated-hiv-shedding-men

@Literallynoidea

I want to know why Portsmouth's football team is called Pompey.

Volunteer firemen in the eighteenth century (known as pompiers) exercised on Southsea Common. In 1781, some Portsmouth sailors climbed Pompey's pillar near Alexandria and became known as the “Pompey boys”. The pomp and ceremony connected with the Royal Navy at Portsmouth led to the adoption of the nickname, “Pompey”.

In France and Italy your hands/wrists should be on the table, putting them in your lap is rude. This dates to Louis XIV and is to prevent poisoning.

It reminds me of the expression “above board” ie above the table, which relates to playing cards and keeping them visible at all times to prescient cheating

Here's one of my faves. There are many Grape Lanes in towns and cities, especially the old ones, such as York etc. The 'Grape' part has evolved from the less salubrious 'Grope Lane' which is in turn derived from 'Gropecunt Lane' and it's believed to be the part of the city where you'd find sex workers.

Trump is a slang word for fart. Apparently it derives from the surname of a former US president renowned for being both odious and full of hot air.

'Twirlies', which is a common name for pensioners in Merseyside, originated from CF senior citizens trying to jump on the bus before 9.30am with their free bus passes.

The driver would shout 'Eh love, you can't get on now - you're too early!'

And I learned this one off a tv programme the other day. Nepotism comes from the Italian word 'nephew' and began in the Middle Ages when Popes would place a favoured 'nephew' in a position of power. As the Pope had taken a vow of chastity, sometimes these 'nephews' were actually their sons, hidden in plain sight.

@Councilworker

I want to know why a cigarette is nick named a fag.

A small bundle of sticks tied together for starting a fire was called a faggot. Cigarettes were called fags as far back as the 19th century and that's the reference to the burning stick.

Wow, that's so fascinating how years after lighters it's still called a fag!

Brilliant thread!

My Grandad always said that there is more iron in a pint of Guinness than a bag of nails...

The spiders thing was made up by Stuart Marconie.

Mightn't he just have repeated it?

[quote GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER]One for the etymologically minded!

We had the son of a Swedish friend staying for a few months after he got a job in London. I met him at Heathrow (had never met before) so had to ask and write his name on a placard - surname Aker, with a little circle thing over the A.
I asked him later whether it meant anything in Swedish.
Yes, it meant ‘field’.
So being me I instantly thought ‘acre’ and looked it up in my big fat Oxford.

Remember Tom Cruise in Top Gun - "Maverick'

Back in the Wild West, or something like that, all cattle were branded. So everyone knew whose cattle was whose. Except someone called Maverick. He didn't brand his cattle. But everyone knew they were his - but he was a Maverick.

(I have more)

The spiders one definitely pre dates the internet- that one was going round my secondary school in the 80s !

And fag is used as a homophobic insult in American language but not UK. We used to have ‘fag hags’ in the gay scene in the 90s here, and many a gay man would affectionately refer to themselves as ‘old fags’ , it’s possibly the huge American influence on social media which has decided that ‘fag’ is homophobic?

I don't think that's true - fag was used as an insult in the UK when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s well before social media. My understanding is that it came from fagging - in UK public schools when younger boys would do jobs for older ones.
I had lots of gay friends at uni and they talked about fag hags etc, but I think that was a reclaiming an insult and using it to take it power away thing?

This is a great thread - thanks Op!

@JesusInTheCabbageVan

The spiders thing was made up by Stuart Marconie.

Mightn't he just have repeated it?

Nope. He made it up. There was a section in his radio program where he made up a ‘fact’ that was one of the ones he made up. Annoyingly I can’t find any proof but I’ve heard him say it a couple of times.

When watching a dad aid his daughter in-line skating down our road a few days ago, I said to my ed 'he'd better be careful otherwise they'll come a cropper!' She looked at me blankly and she'd never heard this before. I didn't know where it came from so looked it up. The first article I read said there was a printing factory where there were a high rate of accidents. It was owned by HS Cropper and people said that working at his factory you could come a cropper.
Now looking it up again, it's seems perhaps not the actual origin of the phrase www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/come-a-cropper.html

A few of my favourites:

• The first Bitcoin transaction was to buy pizza. The purchaser spent 10,000 bitcoins on two pizzas. As of today, that quantity of bitcoins is worth $440 million.

• When a bill becomes law in Parliament a clerk still uses Norman French to indicate the Queen’s assent (“La Reyne le veult” or “The Queen wills it”).

• Although Joe Biden was sworn in as ‘the 46th president’ there have actually only been 45 different presidents of the USA.

@triflepudding

The Internet started in the mid-eighties...

...so it must be true!

[quote TwoLeftSocksWithHoles]@triflepudding

The Internet started in the mid-eighties...

...so it must be true! [/quote]
Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989.
No one had internet in their houses in the mid 80s