Comments on: 100 quirky things we didn't know last year

100 quirky things we didn't know last year

philipy — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 08:52:20 -0800

100 quirky things we didn't know last year, such as that pea plants can grow inside a human lung, mafia members unwisely use Facebook and swans occasionally get divorced.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:10:31 -0800

You can assault someone without touching them. Who the fuck didn't know that?

By: Obscure Reference

Obscure Reference — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:11:47 -0800

People really don't know how to pronounce Van Gogh? Do they think there's lead in a lead pencil?

By: dabitch

dabitch — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:12:20 -0800

Police say the man - one of the country's 100 most-wanted suspects - was responsible for the 2004 murder of a member of a rival clan, who was killed with a portable rocket launcher.

Portable rocket launcher. Say what you want about the mob, but they got style.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:16:17 -0800

American and British sign language is different. Some of these are clearly padding.

By: Obscure Reference

Obscure Reference — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:19:34 -0800

Number 53 is meant as sarcasm.

By: edgeways

edgeways — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:21:51 -0800

yeah..this is more of a things-the-writers-didn't-know-last-year than anything else. to be fair some of the list is cool, and interesting, but overall it's a mediocre best-of-year list.

By: jeather

jeather — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:22:32 -0800

Insectariums? People sleep on average just over 8 hours a day? Lots of people only clean house on weekends? Some of these are really boring and not even vaguely quirky. I will, however, have nightmares about plants growing in my lungs now.

By: mooselini

mooselini — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:42:47 -0800

100 quirky things we didn't know last year: 11. Face blindness - difficulty in remembering faces - is called prosopagnosia. Charcot and the gang must be bugging OUT.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:43:37 -0800

So 19, a fave story of mine, turns out to be from Feb 2009, so 'last year' is a bit of stretch.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:47:50 -0800

People really don't know how to pronounce Van Gogh? Well, I've never heard it pronounced as Fun Cock.

By: cmoj

cmoj — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:49:58 -0800

1. The G-spot nearly came to be known as the Whipple Tickle. And thenceforth it shall be!

By: jph

jph — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:53:32 -0800

I thought something similar about "assault" shakespeherian; basically "oh how cute that the rest of the world has figured out that they're using the word incorrectly."

By: MuffinMan

MuffinMan — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:55:22 -0800

Well, I didn't know Donald Trump's hair was real.

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 09:56:35 -0800

Squirrels can be black. All the squirrels in the town down the road from where I grew up were black. It would have blown these people's MINDS.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:03:44 -0800

This brings to mind a book review of Esquire editor A.J Jacobs' book The Know-It-All, subtitled One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World. The reviewer -- I think it was Joe Queenan -- opined that most of the stuff that Jacobs was expressing wonderment at learning was stuff that most reasonably well-educated people had grasped as teenagers. The reviewer concluded that Jacobs was at the end of the exercise not only not the smartest person in the world but not even the smartest person on the Esquire masthead.

By: MrMoonPie

MrMoonPie — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:23:56 -0800

We have all-black and all-white squirrels in DC.

By: thsmchnekllsfascists

thsmchnekllsfascists — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:24:51 -0800

All the squirrels in the town down the road from where I grew up were black. It would have blown these people's MINDS. A few months ago I was visiting the SO's college friends out near Buffalo. I came across a black squirrel and stopped, slack-jawed and terrified. I've spent a pretty significant chunk of my life outdoors—camping and whatnot—and I'd never even considered the possibility that such a thing could exist. The notion had never even entered my head. There was no "Wow, wouldn't it be totally weird if there could be such a thing as a black squirrel" moment. So yeah, unless you're from a place where these things are common, it can be pretty mind-blowing to witness a creature whose existence you'd never even imagined.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:25:39 -0800

"oh how cute that the rest of the world has figured out that they're using the word incorrectly." I mean that's why you can say 'Assault and battery,' right? If they were the same thing you wouldn't say that.

By: pineappleheart

pineappleheart — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:30:12 -0800

ricochet biscuit, Queenan's put-down was even more cutting than that: He said that Jacobs would not even be the smartest person at Entertainment Weekly. I'll never forget how satisfyingly cruel and widely-applicable that review was.

By: James Scott-Brown

James Scott-Brown — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:50:43 -0800

The review mentioned by ricochet biscuit. Some exerpts: "The animating idea of this misguided endeavor is that corralling a vast array of unrelated facts will, in and of itself, make a person more interesting. This is idiotic. Facts absorbed without context merely magnify the intellectual deficiencies of the autodidact, because a poorly educated person does not know which facts are important." "Deluded into believing that his enterprise has made him smarter, Jacobs constantly seeks to bedazzle the reader with his latest shocking discoveries, unaware that things he perceives as riveting arcana are common knowledge in many quarters" "Far from becoming the smartest man in the world, Jacobs, at the end of his foolish enterprise, wouldn't even be the smartest person at Entertainment Weekly. Not even the great Flaubert could devise a condemnation harsher than that."

By: Sticherbeast

Sticherbeast — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 10:59:33 -0800

I mean that's why you can say 'Assault and battery,' right? If they were the same thing you wouldn't say that. Now is an opportunity to shed some fun trivia: after the Norman Conquest, Norman French became the official language of the law. Seeking maximum clarity after the switch, court clerks often used both the Anglo-Saxon and Norman words for the same terms of art, thus creating such apparent redundancies as "breaking and entering," "null and void," "will and testament," and "cease and desist."

By: paduasoy

paduasoy — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:04:16 -0800

And Jacobs's response.

By: pineappleheart

pineappleheart — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:08:02 -0800

Wow. Queenan sure won that one.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:49:33 -0800

I'm not an urban explorer, but I know Steve and he's really a nice guy. I think maybe he was hamming it up a little for the camera, but he's really genuinely interested in this stuff. I think some of the snark in this thread is a little unfair. If you have a real passion about something, why not share it? If people might buy them and enjoy them, and you might have more time to pursue your interest, why not have photos available for sale? I guess it's not my underground thing that I want to keep secret, but as far as I'm concerned, more power to him.

By: snofoam

snofoam — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 11:56:32 -0800

Obviously, last year I didn't know that I could have two threads open at the same time and then comment in the wrong one.

By: Decani

Decani — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:44:47 -0800

Once again: I refuse to read articles that tell me what I do and do not know. I strongly recommend everyone else does the same. Seriously, is this just me? Does no one else get how profoundly fucking rude it is for some suppurating twuntrag of a writer - or sub-editor - to presume to tell me what I know? Isn't anyone else aneurysm-inducingly outraged by such loutish impertinence? Really? Just me? Oh well, fair enough. Carry on.

By: mendel

mendel — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:30:45 -0800

3. Animal heaven is called Rainbow Bridge. What? No, that's where your pets wait for you in heaven! Way to miss the point of the whole glurgy thing. I went into it expecting the list to be terrible, but this list is terrible.

By: straight

straight — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 14:31:16 -0800

Once again: I refuse to read articles that tell me what I do and do not know. Why would you think the "we" in "things we didn't know last year" would include anyone but the writers of the article? Surely the only sensible interpretation of the headline is something like "Here's some stuff we learned this year...did you know...?"

By: Justinian

Justinian — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 15:16:20 -0800

What? No, that's where your pets wait for you in heaven! I've always wondered about the whole Rainbow Bridge and pets thing. I mean, do the pets all die (again) when the bridge breaks during Ragnarok? Or are they going to swarm over the lands of men with the forces of Muspell, in retaliation for their enslavement? Or what?

By: acrasis

acrasis — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 16:11:02 -0800

Many people thought Queenan was cruel for that review. I didn't. If Jacob had simply written a stupid book I could have refused to read it. However, Jacob did not simply write the book: for a year prior to its publication, he appeared on "Weekend Edition" to chart his progress and progressively drive me out of my mind. It was that prolonged torture that caused me to feel Jacob deserved his fate. So when I say I did not click the link and read, do not scorn me. I have done the right thing.

By: wayland

wayland — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:35:10 -0800

The pea thing and the mafia facebook thing both have doubles farther down the list. I didn't check to see how many more there were.

By: sonika

sonika — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:00:09 -0800

I thought the bit about St. Helena was pretty interesting. I had no idea people still lived there post-Napoleon! I'm clearly not the smartest person on MetaFilter.

By: crossoverman

crossoverman — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 01:11:48 -0800

51. Wonder Woman was originally an Amazon. What? Had they also not heard of Wonder Woman before last year? Where did they think she came from?

By: liza

liza — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 06:50:47 -0800

i wanna play with gorillas. also, the 1948 Olympics let me to this pic which am pretty sure has my father running in it for the Puerto Rican Olympic delegation.

By: thsmchnekllsfascists

thsmchnekllsfascists — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 07:23:47 -0800

Where did they think she came from? Wonderland? IDK.

By: His thoughts were red thoughts

His thoughts were red thoughts — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:37:43 -0800

101. The BBC has a new intern that they need to keep busy.

By: Decani

Decani — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 12:32:24 -0800

Why would you think the "we" in "things we didn't know last year" would include anyone but the writers of the article? Surely the only sensible interpretation of the headline is something like "Here's some stuff we learned this year...did you know...?" posted by straight at 10:31 PM on January 3 No, actually. I make the assumption that writers of articles for public consumption are addressing that public in an inclusive, matey way when they say "we". I'm frankly astonished to learn that you think they're referring solely to themselves.

By: philipy

philipy — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 07:19:56 -0800

I would guess that "we" refers to "we, the general public" or "we, the audience for this website, as represented by us the writers who mostly identify with our readers". But it's pretty hard to know what the general public does or doesn't know, and there's no reason for any of us to think that what we personally know or don't know is representative. All that is probably beside the point though, as I daresay the subtext in the snarky responses is "look how clever I am, compared to those stupid people". Consider the title of the post re-written to: "100 things, possibly quirky, some of which some of us possibly didn't know last year, and might find interesting." Which might well also describe the list of Mefi FPPs on any given day.