# Off Topic > The Water Cooler >  >  Trivia

## ChemistB

To start this one off, I'll go with some Water Cooler trivia since that is the name of this folder.   :Smilie:  

The modern idea of gossiping around the Water cooler isn't so modern.  On old sea faring vessels, there was a barrel of fresh water kept on or below deck for the sailors (or pirates) to drink from and, just like today, they would congregate and tell tales or the latest "news."   This news was not always reliable and soon this news was known by the same name as the water barrel.  The name of this barrel was "scuttlebutt" and therein lies the root of the term "what's the scuttlebutt?"

ChemistB

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## dominicb

Oh great.  I love trivia, the winner of (nearly) a million pub quizzes and author of a thousand (as yet unwritten) trivia books, we'll stick with the subject of phrase  origins on this one.

In the middle ages, street markets were common with a popular feature being a trader selling a piglet in a tied sack (poke).  Unscrupulous traders would often replace the (relatively expensive) piglet with a (cheap and nasty) cat : you don't really want to open the bag to check the contents, as the piglet could escape and are extremely quick and likely to escape and you would be liable for the cost.

Anyone taking the trader at his word and not checking the bag could end up buying *a pig in a poke* ie, not quite what they expected.  Or you could insist on checking the contents of the sack and quite literally *let the cat out of the bag*!!!!

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## darkyam

Long as the topic is word or phrase origins, here's a few:
Rome used to pay its soldiers in salt rather than silver or gold.  The word salary comes from "salarium", meaning salt allowance.  It's also where we get the phrase, "worth his salt".  
Sunday and Monday are pretty easy to figure out the etymology of.  
Tuesday = from Tiu, the Saxon god of the sky and war, their counterpart to the Scandinavian god Tyr.
Wednesday = from Woden, chief god of the Saxons, their counterpart to the Scandinavian god Odin.
Thursday = from Thor, Scandinavian god of thunder, rain, and farming.
Friday = from Freya, Scandinavian goddess of love and fertility.
Saturday = from Saturn, Roman god of agriculture.

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## Macdave_19

Here's a random crud one for ya:

"For Pete's sake"

Back in the day, priests never wanted to swear in churches and so would always curse using the words "Saint Peter" (lord knows why??) anyway i guess over time this has been shortened to "for pete's sake".

a useless and uninteresting fact twice the fun for your money!!

oh yeah and if anyone is interestes i can also explain why no-one see-s white dog pooh anymore lol, what can i say the office gets boring lol

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## EdMac

As a keen sailor, I was under the impression that the expression "that's let the cat out of the bag" referred to the Cat O' nine tails.

As you are probably aware it was an instrument of punishment (a nine tailed whip) used in the navy to flog sailors for some misdemeanour.  When the truth (real or otherwise) was revealed, that's when the cat was let out of the bag.

Similarly, it is the derivation of a cat having nine lives and "room to swing a cat".

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## dominicb

Why a nine tailed whip?

Apparently it's known as a trinity of Holy Trinities (the Holy Trinity being the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost).  Three being regarded as a particularly holy number, therefore 3 x 3 (=9) is ultra holy and just the trick for flogging the naughtiness out of errant sailors.

And of course once suitably chastised the hapless sailor was taken to the medical quarters of the ship to have antiseptic applied - in the 17th and 18 century, salt (we're back to salt again) was the main antispetic, from where we get the expression *to rub salt in the wound*.

DominicB

Edit : 



> When the truth (real or otherwise) was revealed, that's when the cat was let out of the bag.



Of course these things are so steeped in history it's often almost impossible to be sure which version is correct - just enjoy the stories ...

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## EdMac

It was a great life for a seaman - first of all, there you a civilian sitting in the pub having a quiet drink and this nice man offers to buy you a drink, next thing you know you have been press ganged into service (having had a shilling pressed into you hand) - any arguing and you get shown the cat! - and now you are in the navy for a few years.

The other lovely punishment was being keel hauled. You were pulled under the ship from one side to the other using ropes attached to the Yards (poles on the mast that go from side to side).  The really good bit about that was that the bottom of the ship would be covered with barnacles which would shred your skin.  Still, as your chances of surviving the keel hauling were at best slight, it was of no great consequence.

Maybe you can answer me a trivia question Dominic - why do so many quizzes consist of questions about football, soaps and pop music - what has happened to all the serious trivia?

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## dominicb

Hi EdMac




> why do so many quizzes consist of questions about football, soaps and pop music - what has happened to all the serious trivia?



It's a good question really.  I suppose it's 'cos most peoples' knowledge extends more to the "celebrity" elements of life - football / soap (actors / actresses), pop music (stars) than it would to, say, quantum nuclear meta physics.  If someone sets up a quiz, they want it to reach as wide an audience of possible, and that means people have to be interested I suppose.  Is trivia dying ... ?

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## Paul

Forty-two.

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## ChemistB

Ahhh, now we have to build a huge new super computer to find out what question Paul was answering.   :Smilie:  

ChemistB

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## dominicb

Not necessarily.

What are seven sixes?

See.  Simps ...  :Smilie:

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## darkyam

Maybe it was a reference to the year St. Peter became Bishop of Rome (the first Pope).

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## EdMac

> What are seven sixes?



Fantastic batting!

or

The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything has a numeric solution in Douglas Adams' series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the story, a "simple answer" to The Ultimate Question is requested from the computer Deep Thought—specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer which turns out to be 42. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Question itself is unknown - suggesting on an allegorical level that it is more important to ask the right questions than to seek definite answers.

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## dominicb

The reason for the tax year running from 6 April one year to 5 April the next is primarily historical and has its origin in the switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

First, a little history of why the calendar changed.  A leap year, as everyone knows, occurs every fourth year and is made up of 366 days as opposed to 365 days, so called because in ordinary years a date which falls on a Monday one year will fall on a Tuesday the following year and a Wednesday the year after that, but in the leap year the day would leap over Thursday to Friday.  Leap years were fist decreed by Julius Caesar in 46 BC who approximated the solar year as being 365.25 days; a true value for a solar year - the time it takes the earth to go around the sun  is 365.2422 days.

The calculation of the number of days in a year according to Julius Caesar was 11 minutes 14 seconds too long.  Pope Gregory XIII first noticed this in 1582 when the March equinox, which fell on 25th March in Caesars time occurred on 11th March in 1582.  To ensure that this did not happen again, it was decreed that leap years should only fall on a century year (ie., 1600, 1700 etc) once every 400 years.   Therefore the year 2000 was a leap year, the next century year to be a leap year will be 2400.

The Gregorian calendar year differs to a solar year by 26 seconds, which would add up to 1 days difference every 3,323 years.

It had been calculated in the 16th Century that the Julian calendar had lost 9 days since its introduction in 46 BC.  Most of Europe changed to the new, more accurate Gregorian calendar in 1582, but Great Britain continued with the old one until September 1752 by which time the error had increased to 11 days.  These 11 days were 'caught up by being removed from the calendar altogether (as required by the British Calendar Act, 1751): Wednesday, 2nd September was followed by Thursday, 14th September.  In order not to lose 11 days' tax revenue in that tax year, though, the authorities decided to tack the missing days on at the end, which meant moving the beginning of the tax year from the 25 March, Lady Day, (which since the Middle Ages has been regarded as the beginning of the legal year) to 6 April.  The dates were adopted for income tax on its re-imposition in 1842 and have not changed since.

DominicB

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## EdMac

Oops, deleted - did not read it all before I started to reply!

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## Simon Lloyd

> Not necessarily.
> 
> What are seven sixes?
> 
> See.  Simps ...



Dominic maybe it's much deeper than that!

42/3 (the magic number) = 14 i know you're thinking whats that got to do with it, well 14/9 (the ultra holy whip!) = 1.5 which is half of the magic number, 1.5 is also divisible by 3 giving 0.5, 42/0.5 = 84 when divided by 3 three times gives 3 to 0 decimal places again arriving at the magic number!

Have you seen the film 23 starring Jim Carey? its similar!!
 :Wink:

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## dominicb

Hi Simon

I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here - think that green body paint has gone to your head (impressive chest, by the way - nice six pack, I'd kill for that ...).

14/9=1.555 recurring, which means that is actually 0.642857th of the value of 3.  So 42/0.642857=65.3333 ...

Kind of got board here, it's not quite as interesting as the theory of *phi* (have you read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code - quite a good holiday read).

Anyway, my Mum & Dad live at house number 84, and I live at house number 3 - what happens when you factor that into your sums ... ?





> Have you seen the film 23 starring Jim Carey? its similar!!



'fraid not.  Is it good?  Should I?

DominicB

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## daddylonglegs

I have a penchant for linguistic trivia.....

"Orange" is an example of a word which lost its original first letter to its indefinite article [allegedly], i.e. originally from the sanskrit "narangah" it was initially "a norange" [or possibly une norenge] which mutated to "an orange"

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## Simon Lloyd

> Hi Simon
> 
> I'm not sure I follow your reasoning here - think that green body paint has gone to your head (impressive chest, by the way - nice six pack, I'd kill for that ...).
> DominicB



Yeah me to, my six pack is relaxed - Permanently! lol

I was just yanking your chain with the figures but its kinda strange your mum and dad live a one of the figures i came up with and you live at the magic number - <@@> i bow at your feet your lordship there must be something holy about you! 

The Number 23 -  Jim carey yeah good film gets you thinkin' too!

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## daddylonglegs

> Yeah me to, my six pack is relaxed - Permanently! lol



Is it that magic number again, Simon?

42 (inch waist)

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## dominicb

> I have a penchant for linguistic trivia.....
> 
> "Orange" is an example of a word which lost its original first letter to its indefinite article [allegedly]



The English language is littered with words that have lost the N at the front due to the misapplication of the definite article.

napron >> apron (from the French word naperon=little cloth)
nadder >> adder
nauger >> auger
numpire >> umpire
nuncle >> uncle

This peculiarity can also happen in reverse, for the same reason :
ewt >> newt
eckename >> nickname (_ecke_ being a Middle Ages adverb, meaning _also_)
It is also thought that the phrase "Dressed up to the nines" is a corruption of "Dressed up to the eyen" - _eyen_ being _eyes_ in old English.

DominicB

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## Simon Lloyd

> Is it that magic number again, Simon?
> 
> 42 (inch waist)



Only if i wear extremely high heels, they make you look slimmer don't you know!

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## Leith Ross

Daddylongs should enjoy this bit of linguistic trivia...




> "Orange" is an example of a word which lost its original first letter to its indefinite article [allegedly], i.e. originally from the sanskrit "narangah" it was initially "a norange" [or possibly une norenge] which mutated to "an orange"



The Spanish word for orange "naranja" is from the same Arabic word! The real debate is whether word originally meant the fruit or the color.

Leith

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## Paul

Isn't the _color_ orange, in spanish, anaranjado?  Which has 'naranja' smack dab in the middle.

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## Leith Ross

Hi Paul, 

Most likely due to regional differences in the language. I learned Castillano in school. The color orange was naranjo/a, while something made from oranges was anaranjado. The Mexican version is same, but the Chileans use anaranjado for the color. Etymologically both are derived from the same Arabic word. 

Leith

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## daddylonglegs

> The real debate is whether word originally meant the fruit or the color.



Hello Leith,

I have no idea whether it's true or not but according to wikipedia the colour came after the fruit....see the "Etymology" section here

...I notice that you use "color" whilst I use "colour". There are more interesting examples of differences between "American English" and the real thing. Use of the word "gotten" is sometimes derided here as a new-fangled Americanism when, in fact, it's an older form of "got" seldom used by most in England (although the similar form survives in "forgotten").

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## Leith Ross

Hi DaddyLongLegs,

There are many varieties of English: British, Irish, Scottish, Australian, and American. When you say someone is "mad" you mean they are insane. When Americans say "mad" it usually means to be upset. We also use the "******" to indicate anger. The same term is Australia means to be intoxicated. Language is always changing. That's what makes it interesting. 

I am of Scottish descent (if you couldn't tell!), and have recently started to learn Gaelic or gaidhlig as written in Scottish. Learning to speak it isn't so bad, but the writing system reminds me of Japanese. By that, I mean, it is a language you need to learn to speak before you attempt to learn to write it. I lived in Japan for almost 4 years, and of the languages I have learned it is the most complex.

Leith

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## dominicb

Hi Leith

Anyone subscribed to this thread will know that you appear to have a fair amount of knowledge of the Spanish language, and the Japanese language and are now learning Gaelic.  You have indicated elsewhere in this forum that you are also comfortable in Italian as well as your native English :EEK!:   :EEK!:    Any other languages you'd like to 'fess up to whilst we're on the subject?

As a person who has really struggled to learn foreign languages all my life (French at school, and German at University) I am truly jealous at those who have the mindset to pick up multiple languages.

DominicB

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## Leith Ross

Hello DominicB,

My wife feels the same way as you. I seemed to have inherited the talent from my father. If it is of any consequence, the talent seems to have skip a generation with my daughter.

Leith

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## daddylonglegs

I've cycled in many parts of Europe (yes, I know it's tricky with all those legs  :Smilie:  ) and found that I only really pick up a language by using it for a period of time. I can get by in French and Spanish (and when I say get by I really mean only that) and struggle with German and others.

The locals, I find, have a tendency to reply to my attempts at their language with almost perfect English, except when more off the beaten track.

I remember cycling in Holland one time. In the more populous West, the "Randstad" area between Amsterdam and Rotterdam, nearly everyone spoke English but when we got further East it became necessary for us to attempt the local language. In one shop the girl serving realised that I hadn't understood the amount she'd asked for, translated into English for me and also explained, in English too, that her slight hesitation was because she had to reverse the order of the numbers, i.e. convert the Dutch "four and twenty" [or something similar] into the english "twenty-four". It was at this point that I realised I was never going to be a linguist.

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## Leith Ross

Counting can be a very strange in different languages. English, like Latin, uses a decimal system. It is both easy to use mentally and mathematically. Aside from minor syntactic differences, like the one DaddyLongLegs mentioned in Dutch, counting is pervasively decimal. 

It is interesting to note that certain languages use different "counters" when counting different things. This is more than simple ordinal naming like First, Second, Third, etc. Japanese is a good example of this. If an object is flat one uses a special "counter" appended to the number to indicate what it is. In this case "mai". If the object is round you would "pon". For example, say you are counting pencils. The count would be ippon, nippon, sambon, yonbon, gopon, etc. There are about 10 common counter words. The individual numbers for counting are ichi, ni, san, shi, go. For various reasons, the counting words change somewhat in construction. 

This also happens in a few instances in Gaelic. Gaelic adopted the decimal system some time back. But, traditional counting is based on 20, not 10. A real joy to learn!

Leith

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