So the young lad at work has just told me that Native Indians are so called because they popped on a boat one day and thought they had landed in india......
So i open this to the forum. What "facts" should i now offer to him after this gem!
When he's say 'they' does he mean the 'indians', i.e. Native Americans, or the people who 'discovered' them and called them 'indians'? Cos if it's the latter, he's basically right.
Christopher Columbus was looking for another way to India by sailing West rather than East, and basically had no idea that there was another continent in the way (i.e. the Americas). When they hit land, they thought they had hit India. This is also why the West Indies is so-called.
Once convinced a bike shop noob that orange valve caps were lighter, and only came on directional tubes.
the former.
Well, he's nearly right then
Once convinced a bike shop noob that orange valve caps were lighter, and only came on directional tubes.
You're a loss to the world of high-end audio equipment sales 😉
in further clarification he believes they (the people that were already there) called themselves native indians....
Hes also just discovered that a alaska and russia are fairly close together and not on opposite sides of the world "like on a map"...
Possibly hes destined for management.
Told my mum that one of the benefits of flying first class was having electric windows.
Visited New Zealand a few years ago. In Auckland there were some concrete Kiwi's about the size of sheep. I convinced the other half that due to the lack of mammals on New Zealand the birds had evolved to fill various niches that would normally be filled by mammals. Hence Kiwis were in fact about as big as sheep and wandered the fields of New Zealand grazing.
My cover was only blown when we visited the Natural History museum a couple of days later
That BloJo should be trusted ?
That'll keep him busy for a little while.
As a child, my mum convinced me that trains had pedals in so that passengers could help power it. On my first trip on a train I was observed to be very upset when a glance under the seat failed to show signs of pedals.
We once managed to convince someone that a haggis was an actual animal..with one leg longer than the other and ran around hills in Scotland.
[quote=IHN ]Christopher Columbus was looking for another way to India by sailing West rather than East, and basically had no idea that there was another continent in the way (i.e. the Americas).
All bollocks. The continent now known as America was well known in Europe before Columbus "discovered" it.
i had one lad thinking a gazebo was a bird on the moors.
Explain to him that Native Americans and Siberians are the same people and they only came to America once the short faced bear was extinct.
We all get things wrong. For example, "from the mouths of babes..." actually refers to a (usually) uncomfortable truth or piece of wisdom being delivered by a supposedly naive youngster.
with one leg longer than the other
Well obviously - they'd fall over on the steeper slopes otherwise.
It's actually quite a useful way if you need to determine the gender of said creature - females are turnwise (short right legs) and males widdershins (short left). If not for this, they'd never meet face to face.
Coal fired power stations are in fact cloud factories (I believed this for several years - thanks mum and dad).
It's actually quite a useful way if you need to determine the gender of said creature - females are turnwise (short right legs) and males widdershins (short left). If not for this, they'd never meet face to face.
It's for this reason that there isn't a sexual position called "haggis-style"
that's not what mrswithchips says
If not for this, they'd never meet face to face.
If that's true then how do they... [i]you know...[/i]?
All the way back round the hill and then reverse up to each other? No wonder there's not many of them. They can't be bothered with the hassle.
Well, as our bard has it:
horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.
If that's true then how do they... you know...?
It involves a great deal of intense negotiation. This process is known as "haggling".
So is the end result.
[quote=The Flying Ox ]All the way back round the hill and then reverse up to each other?
Presumably you're thinking it's impossible for them to move up and down the hill as they traverse around it?
Anyway, back to the OP, if it's a lad at work, is it the sort of work where you can send him to a shop to buy a "long weight", or to get tartan paint?
My daughter, who is 18 lives with her mum in Canada, has done since she was 7. She flies over every year for a few weeks
I have only just realised that so little contact over the years means every word I have said to her is, as far as she is concerned, gospel.
There is a deer farm on the edge of my local riding woods. When she was much younger I would suggest that we could go and check on Father Christmas's reindeer for him as a ruse to get her riding up the woods. Apparently she had a stand up argument with her mother when she was 13 about whether Father Christmas was real or not. All reason was dismissed because I had shown her his reindeer years previous.
When she was over this year we were taking a trip to Cornwall and going past Stonehenge as a result. I was telling her about lay lines and other nonsense stories of the area. Then I had Bill Bailey pop into my head with a favourite.
"Of course Little chefs were all built on lay lines in ancient times. The roads came later to link them all up."
Hard drives get heavier when they're full of data.
Heard from a work colleague objecting to a new wind farm, "what the hell are they building those things for, it's windy enough as it is."
Anyway, back to the OP, if it's a lad at work, is it the sort of work where you can send him to a shop to buy a "long weight", or to get tartan paint?
And five metres of fallopian tubing.
Remind him that the green bubble for spirit levels are not as accurate as the blue ones.
Batteries do get heavier when they're charged but not so you'd notice - E=MC^2 and C is very big!
I convinced the other half that due to the lack of mammals on New Zealand the birds had evolved to fill various niches that would normally be filled by mammals
Um, you do know about the Moa, right?
And the Weta fills the niche normally occupied by Mice....
You're a loss to the world of high-end audio equipment sales
😆
Wanna buy some vibration damping stickers?
I convinced the other half that due to the lack of mammals on New Zealand the birds had evolved to fill various niches that would normally be filled by mammals. Hence Kiwis were in fact about as big as sheep and wandered the fields of New Zealand grazing.
Replace Kiwi's with Moas and you would be right.
When the cycle to work scheme first started, we convinced a young lad at work who was really keen to take it up that due to work insurance restrictions,the scheme was only open to those who had passed cycle proficiency at school.
As he hadn't we "measured him up for trouser clips" before setting out some cones in the car park. He then had to complete a ridiculously complex course (which changed every time we demonstrated it to him) in under a minute.
He took the "test" on a ladies shopping bike while wearing a hi-viz vest. One of the bosses stood by and scored his performance on a clip board.
The word lunatic comes from NASA.
Some small flies that were aboard a rocket started jumping around like mad when they went into space hence lunar-tick.
Imbecile originates from an Eskimo tribe, called the Imbers.
They had pet seals that were quite stupid, hence imbecile.
You may joke, Cougar - I've convinced more than one adult before those mines were real...
Rachel
Unexamined childhood truths: my wife thought for a very long time that the family cat had gone to live on a farm. Deep down she probably still does.
(Emerged watching a comedy program where it was explained that a character's cat had not actually going to a farm. Whereupon another character says that's funny because our cat actually did. Laughter. Whereupon my wife says "that's funny...")
My son's colleagues managed to get someone their pallet truck (non motorised) training ( they set up a couple of cones and had him manouvere the truck about). They filmed it and sent it round their mates.
We almost managed to get the apprentice to go to the stores for two skin washers ... No just in case we break them ask for four.
Wee bugger googled it just before he went.
When the kids were younger the brother in law thought a breast pump was for putting milk in rather than extracting it!
I work with a guy who's 23 and very smart in some ways, but laughably daft in others. We used to keep a log of the funny / mental things he said. Below are a couple of genuinely idiotic things he's said.
How should I know who Ghandi is, I've not even seen Lord of the Rings.
Phill, do you believe in Dinosaurs?
I love that film Troy, especially that bit where they hide in a giant dog.
I'm in a different office to him now and miss him so much.
My finest wind ups...
Persuaded a colleague that if she was too hot and sweaty in her drysuit, leaving the zip *bit* open let air in, but not water.... 🙂
I also had a GP on the foredeck of wayfarer, anchor in one hand, chain and rope in other, ready to swim down, hook in anchor and swim back to tie rope back on boat. Only when his wife asked ' what if he comes up away from the boat' did I and watching safety boat full of sailing instructor colleagues collapse into hysterics...
All these 'facts' have come from the same (26 yr old) girl I work with.
Good AIDS is where you have AIDS, but it wasn't your fault, ie born with it, contracted through medical negligence etc whereas....
Bad AIDS is where you have AIDS, but you got it from sleeping around.
All the swans in the U.K. are owned by the queen (correct) but they can't fly. (Facepalm....)
'Mandarin is my first language'
'Really?'
'Yeah I was brought up in Singapore'
'But can you still speak it?'
'Well, no, but it was the first language I learned'
*has to explain what first language means*
As for people I've wound up, I got sick of telling new recruits in a bar what a lager top was/how to make it, so the next person that asked was told, deadpan, that it was a pint of lager with a load of squirty cream on top, ala the boddingtons adverts of the time. The chap who asked for it looked particularly bemused, but quickly cottoned on when he clocked us creased over laughing, even said 'by eck that looks gorgeous' as she presented him with it. 😆
Working with a woman whose surname was Gandhi, she introduced herself to the new girl with "Blah-Blah Gandhi, no relation" to which our new colleague replied, "Oh, were you adopted?"
A lass at work asked why bridleways are so-called. Without really thinking I told how they were the old paths that a bride would traditionally walk along to get to the church on her wedding day.
Reckon I would have got away with it, but for the office know-all who piped up with "No. Actually I think you'll find that..." (and then didn't believe me when I said I knew, and had said it for joke).
Imbecile originates from an Eskimo tribe, called the Imbers.They had pet seals that were quite stupid, hence imbecile.
That is fabulous.
(and then didn't believe me when I said I knew, and had said it for joke).
We don't believe you either.
See this,
[img] 
[/img]
(not my photo but have one similar to scan)
We were at an airshow years ago & my mate said, 'what's that'?. I said, 'It's a Canberra from the Irish air force confusion squadron' & he said, 'but It's got a German cross on it', so I said,'see, confusing innit'
On my kids lives, that is a true story.
Christopher Columbus was looking for another way to India by sailing West rather than East, and basically had no idea that there was another continent in the way (i.e. the Americas). When they hit land, they thought they had hit India. This is also why the West Indies is so-called.
True, dat. Also true is that John Cabot did know it was there, and landed with a crew from Bristol on the Matthew, up around Newfoundland way; the joke in Bristol is that the one bloke credited with being the first to land in (relatively) modern times was in fact the only man on board who [i]hadn't[/i] been there before*!
The Vikings beat everyone else, except the indigenous people, by a significant margin.
*Bristol fishermen fishing for cod off the Grand Banks obviously had to get provisions for the return journey, it was their knowledge he used.
Columbus?
[img]
[/img]
I love that film Troy, especially that bit where they hide in a giant dog.
Best so far, that's almost quote worthy.
😀
Good AIDS is where you have AIDS, but it wasn't your fault, ie born with it, contracted through medical negligence etc whereas....
Bad AIDS is where you have AIDS, but you got it from sleeping around.
Also true is that John Cabot did know it was there, and landed with a crew from Bristol on the Matthew, up around Newfoundland way
.. in 1497 according to Wikipedia....?
As a young newcomer to the Ford Dagenham Press Shop I had to minute an engineering meeting.
I dutifully recorded (and issued) minutes describing 'Spark Erode' as 'Sparky Road' which, unsurprisingly, I was reminded of almost daily.
All the swans in the U.K. are owned by the queen (correct) but they can't fly. (Facepalm....)
Ready for another facepalm?
[url= http://www.weirdisland.co.uk/behaviour/superstitions/the-queen-owns-all-britainsswans.html ]http://www.weirdisland.co.uk/behaviour/superstitions/the-queen-owns-all-britainsswans.html[/url]
And the Weta fills the niche normally occupied by Mice....
Holy cow. I wasn't ready for that google image search.
That wind is created by the swaying of trees.
Wife's cousin thought that clouds were blue (she came from Lancashire).
I tell this story to all the visiting Mercans in the office - some actually fall for it...
For those travelling on a shoestring budget, the London Tube may be the most economical way to get about, especially if you are a woman. Chivalry is alive and well in Britain, and ladies still travel for free on the Tube. Simply take some tokens from the baskets at the base of the escalators or on the platforms; you will find one near any of the state-sponsored Tube musicians. Once on the platform, though, beware! Approaching trains sometimes disturb the large Gappe bats that roost in the tunnels. The Gappes were smuggled into London in the early 19th century by French saboteurs and have proved impossible to exterminate. The announcement "Mind the Gappe!" is a signal that you should grab your hair and look towards the ceiling. Very few people have ever been killed by Gappes, though, and they are considered only a minor drawback to an otherwise excellent means of transportation. (If you have difficulty locating the Tube station, merely follow the sign that say "Subway" and ask one of the full-time attendants where you can catch the bumbershoot.)
https://www.ittc.ku.edu/~evans/stuff/americans_in_uk.html
There's some other good ones in there that I haven't been brave enough to try.