this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
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Microblog Memes

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[–] [email protected] 156 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Also, it's only a true gargoyle if it comes from the gargling region of France. Anything else is just a sparkling grotesque.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 9 months ago

Gargouille.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Etymology of the word gargoyle, for anyone else who read the linked list in its entirety and found that gargoyle is not on it:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/gargoyle

Rather than the sound of water, it seems to refer to the throat of the statue through which water passes, which sounds like gargle in several languages. Several sites say it's an onomatopoeia for the statue gargling water but I can't find that reference specifically, except that the root words for gargle from Latin might be an onomatopoeia for the sound of gargling.

If the statue is purely ornamental without the function for water to pass through it, it's called a grotesque, chimera, or boss, so obviously I'm going to call them all bosses now.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Garganta means throat in Spanish, so I've learnt something about the origins of that word now :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

Haha, I really want to show someone around New York or some larger city and point up and just be like "and you can see four bosses up there" and then get to explain what I mean.

I wonder if those lions in front of libraries are bosses too, or if bosses have to be rooftop statues?

[–] [email protected] 64 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sandwiches are named after a Welsh peasant dish that originally consisted of witch meat between two bricks of baked sand. It was terrible and offered little nutritional value, but was very popular due to the great availability of witch meat and lack of any real alternatives for nourishment.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't know enough Welsh to refute this

[–] [email protected] 59 points 9 months ago

Additional fun fact: "sandwich" is a degraded version of the original Welsh spelling, which is "syynndwrrrccchhchch," and which was originally pronounced "klerb."

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Onomatopoeia is itself an onomatopoeia because that's the sound it makes when you say the word.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's how most words work though?

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Not in fucking english lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Welll my friend Tony goes by the nickname Ptoniegh, so he can probably back you up

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

All of the best ones

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Sandwiches are named after the Earl of Sandwich right? Have there been further developments?

[–] [email protected] 72 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago

Thanks butNext time please use the spoiler tag, sheesh 🙄

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We keep finding more and more variations to eat.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Like hot dogs and tacos, depending on your sandwich alignment.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

No, no! Salad Theory is clearly the only acceptable foodstuff categorization theory.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

lol I had a coworker show me this and we went crazy with it.

The only food I could think of that didn’t fall into any of the categories is Shepards pie. Starch only on the top. What do you think it should fall under?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

upside down/Australian toast?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

My headcanon is that Earl of Sandwich had a dream one night where some mystery people from Sahara, the Sand Witches, showed up, and went like "yesss, a slice of bread, yesss, now put some stuff on it, yesss, maybe more slices of bread and more stuff and so on but that is optional. But we must go. Bye!" And thus was born a simple delicacy known worldwide.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 39 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The sandwich is named for the sound of gargling dry white bread and overly processed deli meats that sandwich eaters made before the invention of garlic aoli.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Anyone else picture a drooling Homer Simpson?

[–] [email protected] 34 points 9 months ago (6 children)

The weird thing about the origin of the word sandwich is that everyone had been eating them for centuries, but one day the Earl of Sandwich orders one and they say, "it takes too long to say bread-and-meat, let's just call it a sandwich."

By the way, no one knows for sure the etymology of 'squid.'

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

Squid is a perfect description of a squid though. So whoever came up with that one, nailed it!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There are a bunch of animal names like that. Notably "dog" and "chicken" just showed up without any real source. In middle English we have hounds, and fowls/cocks/hens. It's strange for domestic animals that have been around forever to get renamed afor no apparent reason.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I could've swore dog came from the old Scottish word dug. Which was another word for dog

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Huh, I just assumed chicken was chick+hen

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'd heard the sandwich story before, but had no clew about some of the others!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Surely, the clew is the corner of the sail where the sheet attaches, but that isn't important right now

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

"Stop calling me Shirley."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

ostrachise

Huh? I thoght ancient greeks played with the idea of democracy but were mostly monarchistic?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Mmmm. Cheese from ostrich milk

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Athens was a democracy, at least for a little bit

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