Strange things that you eventually understand

[Rocco]

That the way I think and process information is vastly different from most others. So many decisions folks make confused me for most of my life until I learned how diverse the mentality of others can be.

 

[Nervous Rex]

Up until the late 90s, I thought "Stayin' Alive" was sung by a group of women.

 

[Mia]

I thought "Stayin' Alive" was sung by a group of women.

Quite understandable, with the high falsetto's that the Bee Gees had. I thought the line 'squeeze my lemon' from the Lemon Song by Led Zeppelin, meant that they were describing fishermen eating seafood.

 

[Judge]

Point taken.

It is kind of funny to think of songs you've known for decades, but that only since the advent of search engines and websites where you discover the actual lyrics to them that weren't what you thought.

My mother always used to insist the lyrics to songs like "Wooly Bully" and "Louie, Louie" were obscene.

 

[Mia]

My mother always used to insist the lyrics to songs like "Wooly Bully" and "Louie, Louie" were obscene.

I don't think they meant much of anything. Both seem somewhat non-sensical to a certain extent when you look at the lyrics.

My Dad once asked me what, 'they were doing in the road?' as a Beatles song played. Having sex, was my reply. "I thought so", was his response, he didn't appear at all shocked by it.

 

[Nervous Rex]

My mother always used to insist the lyrics to songs like "Wooly Bully" and "Louie, Louie" were obscene.

When my mom introduced us to "Wooly Bully", she told us, "Don't even try to understand the words."

I used to think there were suggestive lyrics in "Hey, Mickey." I thought she said, "It's guys like you Mickey, I want to do, Mickey, do Mickey." She actually said, "Oh, what you do Mickey, do Mickey".

There are also a lot of songs I grew up listening to that I now realize were much more provocative and less innocent than I thought they were.

Being able to look up any random thing I want at any time I want has really spoiled me.

 

[LucyPurrs]

So if you arrived at Ellis Island back in the day, you would be subjected to various inspections. If you were marked with a "X" , you were sent to the mental room of about 100 waiting immigrants. You would be asked to count and do simple addition. Beginning in the mid-1910's,those suspected of being mentally challenged had to pass the Knox Cube test. This was one of the many tests developed by Ellis Island physician Howard Knox to measure intelligence without requiring any oral communication with the immigrant. The examiner moved a black cube in a certain pattern over four differently colored cubes attached to a board on a desk. The immigrant then had to copy the order. If you didn't pass, you were declared feeble-minded or insane, which included epileptics. Ellis Island officials turned away 1 in every 10,000 owing to mental defects from 1892 - 1090 and 1 in every 750 from 1910 until the end of WWI.

In 1903, Congress expanded the list of classified as mentally ill to include: epileptics, beggers, anarchists, and importers of prostitutes to the list of undesirables.

My grandfather, who was an immigrant himself, taught English to the immigrants on Ellis Island after he arrived in the US. His one rule was they were not allowed to go ahead of the class , because he was learning it himself! He was from Poland BTW. He went on to become the first prison psychiatrist in the US (at Sing Sing prison) and also testified at the Leopold Loeb trial. It all started at Ellis Island

 

[UberScout]

Mine:

1. Part of the reason objects go missing in your house is probably because you've left it in disarray so long that it's probably found it's way underneath or inside something.

2. Cats can actually understand human language and can associate certain words with their default meanings, believe it or not. This is because they rely on senses based on exploration and learning by doing rather than other methods naturally inherited from family, for example. If you put enough time and effort into it, you can even get a cat to learn their name! You'll know this was successful when you call their name and their ears perk up.

3. The reason Kirby can only say "Poyo" when he tries to have a conversation is because his creator had studied nonverbalism while researching Asperger's syndrome, and he thought that even though Kirby is about 2,300 years old (he traveled to PopStar from another galaxy, but a wormhole opened near his shuttle while he was sleeping, and he got there too early, and somehow didn't develop the ability to talk using words properly.), he thought that giving Kirby the intelligence of a young child about maybe 6 years old would better fit his playful, innocent nature. This is why when the town is not being attacked by a monster, he's usually somewhere in Dreamland Estate coloring in a book, sampling snacks or just taking a nap, but when the place is under attack, he snaps into a martial trance and gets ready to wait for an elemental projectile to come his way so he can gain a Copy Ability.

4. The reason there are no actual animals anywhere on the planet that Pokemon takes place is because it is actually an alternate version of Earth in which all "Earthlikec animals have gone extinct and when Arceus first created the planet, he noticed that in order to properly populate the world, he needed an idea of fauna to work off of, so before the animals went extinct, he observed their forms as closely as possible and thus we have Pokemon that resemble mice (Pikachu), kittens (Jigglypuff), marsupials (Mew, MewTwo, Hitmonlee, Machamp etc.) and dragons (Charizard etc.)

5. Pumpkins are technically fruit because they grow from a plant that belongs to the flower group of plant life.

6. In Japan, the reason people slurp so loud when they eat food such as ramen is to let the chef know that they like their food. If you eat without audibly slurping, you're actually being a little rude (although, don't worry about being scoffed at too much)

7. Google Translate's algorithm of going through all 64 languages and back to English being a library of hilarity is because it borrows word conjugations and grammar usage from about 3,000 sources of linguistic practice from everywhere on the Internet, but the English translation of all those languages being bizarre and nonsensical (and quite hilarious!) Is because GT looks through every single dialect and method of speaking that each and every language uses, and once the phrase typed in is filtered through all 64 languages and back to English, every single dialect, type of grammar usage and conjugation of words and particles is basically forcibly smashed together into one translation. The reverse is true for simply typing random combinations of letters.

 

[Mia]

There are also a lot of songs I grew up listening to that I now realize were much more provocative and less innocent than I thought they were.

I definitely had a similar epiphany at some point, especially when I began listening to early blues. A lot of blues based rock and roll writers used early blues code words in songs, describing sex, drinking and drugs. Words like jelly roll, killing floor, shaking that thing, yas yas, biscuit, to name a few. Harry's Blues Lyrics Online, Blues Language page

 

[Aeolienne]

Not sure if this counts as an 'age old' question - that needs to be defined - but: I finally understood why for the past five years or so January 2 is a public holiday, where it never used to be. It's because the shops have started opening on Sundays around Christmas and New Year. That means they take an extra day holiday on Jan 2.

Scotland has a bank holiday on 2 January (or the following Monday or Tuesday if it falls on the weekend), whereas the rest of the UK is back at work. I guess they need more time to recover from the excesses of Hogmanay...

 

[GrownupGirl]

That the reason that female birds are not usually as colorful as the males is because they would be too easily seen by predators while nesting.

I remember telling someone years ago that male birds are more colorful and flashy so that they can attract the females, and they said they thought it should be the other way around. But it's a good thing that it isn't.

 

[Gracey]

I went through an interest of keeping and breeding; mainly finches, many many years ago.
They were housed in a large, outside aviary. Choosing their own mates and nesting sites.

I believe the competition for females during breeding season made the male plumage and song spectacular.

Each advertising and showing off. Trying to out-do each other to attract a mate.

There's an Ike and Tina Turner song that contains the lyrics
"Bend over, shake your tail feathers"
Observing the birds gave those lyrics a literal meaning

 

[Nervous Rex]

My teenage daughter - who long ago stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus - just told us tonight that today she found out that jackalopes aren't real.

 

[Aspychata]

I am turning Japanese, sadden to find out that this isn't what l thought it was. Lol!

I found out about masking. Where men wear silicone headpiece and even complete bodies to emulate females. What a shock. Not sure if females would be inclined to don male masks.

 

[GrownupGirl]

Koalas sleep at least 20 hours a day because the eucalyptus they eat does not give them much energy. It's also kind of slowly poisoning them. The also carry and spread chlamydia from peeing on each other. Koalas may look like cuddly teddy bears but they're really pretty dumb!

 

[Progster]

I always thought that yew trees wre planted in old churchyards after the church was built, but that is not always the case. Many yew trees are much older than the churches. Before Christianity, yew trees were planted on pagan sacred sites. Churches were later often deliberately build round the yew tree because the early Christians often favoured ancient pagan sites to build churches on.

 

[GrownupGirl]

When I was a kid I would sometimes see dog poop on the ground that was white. Pretty gross. But I heard not long ago that reason for that was because dog food used to be mostly made with bone meal, and all that calcium would make dog poop white. You don't see it as often now because most modern dog food has actual meat in it. Except for that vegetarian dog food, give me a break.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

When I was a kid I would sometimes see dog poop on the ground that was white. Pretty gross. But I heard not long ago that reason for that was because dog food used to be mostly made with bone meal, and all that calcium would make dog poop white. You don't see it as often now because most modern dog food has actual meat in it. Except for that vegetarian dog food, give me a break.

The white stuff was the good stuff. If you were a 'pure' finder in 19th century London.
Big money in picking it up back then.

Used for tanning I think.

Not sun ! Leather.

 

[Vinca]

Whilst at other peoples houses and getting a glass of water, they would often say to "let the tap run" first, I never understood why, so never new how long to do it for, all of which I found stressful. Someone said something recently and it just seemed to make sense. It's done so that the water that has been sat in the pipes gets flushed out first, so what goes into the glass is fresher.

 

[GrownupGirl]

It's natural and normal for human beings to be xenophobic.
But just because it's natural or normal doesn't mean it's good.