Ceci n'est pas un blog

A. Edward Newton (via bookaddict24-7)

ᶦⁿˢᵗᵃᵍʳᵃᵐ

I know I’ve seen one of these pictures before, but I hadn’t known there were THIS MANY pictures of this adorable cat, with rubber duckies!

The Dothan Eagle, Alabama, July 18, 1937

How can I fit into so many of these? Isn’t the point of these charts to find which one you fit and not how many?? Now I - characteristically - feel both accomplished and like a failure at the same time.

The Palmyra Spectator, Missouri, September 19, 1945

Made by Futurism

The truth is out there!👽✨

I’m missing my pet theory. The one where they are watching us to see if they can afford to let us live or not based on which one of these we develop first:

1) a more peaceful and cooperative nature, or

2) enough technology to become an actual threat.

Chris vT

Cosmology professor (via mathprofessorquotes)

And yet the more I learn about it, the more I cry.

– Impracticaldemon

(via impracticaldemon)

The Waco News-Tribune, Texas, June 10, 1935

Negligee

1918-1921

United States

Hillwood Museum

When you’re so fancy that your sleepwear has a train...

Boston Post, Massachusetts, December 14, 1903

You win this round cheese

actually that is a rectangle cheese

[oxford comma laughing in the distance]

[vocative comma wondering what oxford comma thinks it’s doing here]

I already reblogged this for the pun but I’m reblogging again for the sick punctuation banter

it’s wild times on tumblr tonight

My friends who speak British English are always making fun of me for the coriander/cilantro thing, but maybe y’all could redirect your attention to getting my supermarket to sort it out? 

Japan usually calls cilantro パクチー pakuchii, which comes from Thai, but some places sell it by its Chinese name 香菜 xiāngcài, which is pronounced シャンツァイ shantsuai in Japanese.

If you want to buy cilantro at my local Inageya supermarket, you have a choice between the following two herbs: 香菜（シャンツァイ） Xiāngcài (Shantsuai)  香菜（パクチー）　　Xiāngcài (Pakuchii)

Both are ¥198, but Shantsuai gives you nearly twice as much for your money. Longer stems, which I know some people don’t like, but still very much the same thing. It makes me -a little- insane.

Finally, for the record, Japan also calls the seeds コリアンダー koriandaa. And I always kinda figured that the US got dried coriander seeds from Asia by way of Europe. Then dishes using the fresh leaves would have worked their way up from Mexico, and the Spanish culantro would have cilantro. Because I’m from a cold place, it makes sense that the seeds might not have grown well and that they might miss the connection, but I can’t find anything to back this up and am just theorizing wildly.

@shoku-and-awe

This is very interesting, I didn’t know they called it coriander in the UK. I’d recently discovered that English ‘cilantro’ was just Norwegian ‘koriander’. (Sometimes you can go a long time recognizing and knowing the name of some plant/animal/fish in another language and just not realize what it actually is. And then you are surprised it was something mundane all along.)

Also difficult to remember is that ‘corn’ is ‘mais’, since ‘korn’ = ‘grain’.

Also Norwegian ‘paprika’ is ‘bell pepper’ and only powdered bell pepper is paprika to you? But we still use the word chilipepper. And then you think that the inclusion of the word ‘pepper’ must mean ‘bell pepper’ something spicy. Super confusing.

I think those too are words that is divided in different languages using different etymological versions. Others are pineapple/ananas and orange/appelsin. Orange has a bunch of ones too..

And sometimes the meaning just shifts and creates false friends and that’s just frustrating:

Beef is storfekjøtt, and steak is biff. That took me a while to realize.

And ‘fløte’ is ‘cream’, but ‘krem’ is ‘whipped cream’. I still keep messing that one up.

Also very fun: stumbling across a Japanese loan word that I understand due to Norwegian and not English. But this post is long enough already.

The Topeka Daily Capital, Kansas, November 14, 1905

St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Missouri, August 18, 1919

Ball Gown & Cape

Jacques Fath

c.1948

National Museum of Scotland