Did You Know

[normaM]

I just learned this morning that 0 Holy Night was written by an atheist, and one verse was long removed... I have never heard it included
https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/mu ... st-anthem/
SNIP
Verse three struck authorities as particularly activist, with lines like “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother” and “in His name, all oppression shall cease.”

[oneh2obabe]

[normaM]

[Lady tehMa]

"The Bugs Bunny Effect"

https://unrememberedhistory.com/2017/01 ... d-forever/

The Nimrod Effect: How a Cartoon Bunny Changed The Meaning of a Word Forever

Posted on January 9, 2017 Updated on May 19, 2021

text By Ken Zurski

nim·rod: LITERARY a skillful hunter. INFORMAL•NORTH AMERICAN an inept person (Oxford dictionary)

In 1909, British explorer and Antarctic specialist Earnest Shackleton became the first person to come as close to the South Pole as any human had possibly done. The goal of course was to reach the elusive Pole, but turning back shy by only 100 miles was an accomplishment worthy of another try at least. The fact that no one died in the expedition was even better.

Shackleton had christened the ship he chose on that journey by a term that reflected the mission’s quest. He named it Nimrod.

Yes, the Nimrod Expedition, despite its insinuation, was not a mission for dummies. That’s because the word “nimrod” at the time represented something very different than it does today. Back then, strength and courage was it’s core. A nimrod was someone who was held in high regard. The name demanded respect.

Shackleton’s hand picked ship, Nimrod, lived up to its moniker too, a reference to Nimrod, the biblical figure and “mighty hunter before the Lord” from the Book of Genesis. Nimrod was an older boat and needed work, but Shackleton had little recourse with limited funds. He would eventually praise the small schooner as “sturdy” and “reliable.”

Even before Shackleton’s journey, the term nimrod was being used to promote other noteworthy ventures. Financier and cutthroat ship builder Cornelius Vanderbilt named a steamboat Nimrod to compete with other commuter boats on New York’s Hudson River. It had to be built stronger and faster than others, Vanderbilt instructed. No doubt the naming of the ship reflected this too.

In 1899, composer Edward Elgar wrote a symphonic piece that had 14 variations each written for or about a personal acquaintance.

Edward Elgar

The ninth variation was titled Nimrod.

“An amusing piece,” Elgar said referring to his friend and subject, August Johannes Jagear, a music publisher and accomplished violinist. Rather than a slight, however, it was a compliment. Jäger in German meant “hunter.”


In 1940, however, everything about the word changed.

It’s widely reported that during a cartoon short titled “A Wild Hare,” a wise-cracking rabbit named Bugs Bunny called his nemesis Elmer Fudd a “poor little nimrod,” a sarcastic reference to Fudd’s skills as a hunter. Whether Bugs actually said it or it was Daffy Duck who called Fudd a “nimrod” is debatable. Bugs would get credit (it was after all a Bugs Bunny cartoon).

In context the use of the word meant to mock Fudd’s foolhardy abilities which kept the rabbit, Fudd’s prey, out of his cross hairs, so to speak.

Most children didn’t get the reference to Nimrod in biblical terms and the sarcasm went way over their heads. So the word became synonymous with a bumbling fool, like Fudd’s character.

At least that’s the story.

Today, as we examine the word’s usage more closely, a nimrod may have been the implication, but certainly not the description of Shackleton and his Antarctic crew. Those who wished to board the Nimrod, some might say, were playing a fools game. After all who was crazy enough to go?

Shackleton didn’t hide the discomforts and dangers of the mission when he advertised for a team of men and warned of a “hazardous journey” with “low, wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness.” If they made it back, which was “doubtful,” Shackleton expressed, “honor and recognition” would await them upon return.

Basically, only Nimrod-types need apply, he suggested.

Good thing Bugs Bunny wasn’t around to discourage them.

[seewood]

A Nimrod was also a British air force jet for surveillance purposes. A derivative of the British Comet airliner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Nimrod

[The Green Barbarian]

A Nimrod was also a British air force jet for surveillance purposes. A derivative of the British Comet airliner:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Nimrod

There was a price for being the first commercial jet liner - Comets had square windows, which led to stress fractures and mid-air break-ups of the plane. When you get on a jet airliner in 2023 have a look at the windows when you sit down, you will see they are rounded. You can thank the trial and errors of the Comet for that.

[Lady tehMa]

[Babba_not_Gump]

The origin of the international distress signal for ships and planes, MAYDAY.
When English officer-in-charge-of radio Frederick Stanley Mockford was asked to come up with a distress signal in the 1920s, he chose the phonetic version of the French word "m'aidez," or "help me." 

[Bsuds]

Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserable contains a sentence that is 823 words long.


Heck we have posters on Castanet that have beaten that.

[alanjh595]

Victor Hugo’s novel Les Miserable contains a sentence that is 823 words long.


Heck we have posters on Castanet that have beaten that.

[Babba_not_Gump]

....what diddly squat means?
The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, probably from American slang doodle (“excrement”) + squat, used in the sense of defecating.

[Bsuds]

....what diddly squat means?
The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang suggests that this is a variation of doodly-squat from 1934, probably from American slang doodle (“excrement”) + squat, used in the sense of defecating.

So Diddly-Squat means No Bleep!

I can agree with that.

[sobrohusfat]

-------

Violetta Szabo

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Violetta Szabo was working at a perfume counter in Brixton. Within a year she had met and married Etienne Szabo, a Frenchman, but their time was cut short when he died fighting at El Alamein in 1942, never having met their four-month old daughter Tania.

Already a member of the Land Army, the widowed Violleta decided to seek revenge and joined the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Szabo received intensive instruction in fieldcraft, night and daylight navigation, weapons and demolition. She learnt escape and evasion, uniform recognition, communications and cryptography, and had further training in weaponry. The final stage in training was parachute jumping.

Putting her ability to speak French to good use, she parachuted behind enemy lines, helping with sabotage missions. Widely considered one of the most courageous women of the Second World War, Violette brought back vital information from France to help with the war effort, but shortly after D-Day she was caught by the Nazis, iterrogated and eventually killed at Ravensbruck concentration camp in early 1945, aged just 23.

Her daughter Tania was two years old at the time.

----------

Tania (age 5) wearing the Brittish George Cross awarded to her mother posthumously.
She also recieved the French Croix de Guerre avec étoile de bronze.

[Babba_not_Gump]

Did you know a cruise ship can do a180 in about seven minutes?

I watched one today, slowly drifted away from the wharf with front and rear thrusters on lightly, then cranked up the rear thruster and shifted the front thruster to the opposite side.

As slick as snot.

[Catsumi]

Did you know a cruise ship can do a180 in about seven minutes?

I watched one today, slowly drifted away from the wharf with front and rear thrusters on lightly, then cranked up the rear thruster and shifted the front thruster to the opposite side.

As slick as snot.
20231004_152032.jpg

I hope you asked the captain if he’d consider himself and ship to be our Navy?