› added 6 years ago

72

TIL that older forms of English kept Latin’s gender specific suffixes -tor and -trix, -tor is for men and -trix is for women. So a male pilot is a aviator and a female pilot is a aviatrix. A male fighter is a gladiator and a female fighter is a gladiatrix

1am7P TIL Ken Livingstone was the last leader of the Greater London Council, which was abolished in 1986. He was then elected mayor of London in 2000, which included effectively the same job. He began his victory speech with "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted 14 years ago..."
pYNNA TIL about Sequoyah, a Native American of the early 19th centruy who, just seeing white people writing, understood what writing was and created, all by himself, an advanced syllabary system. After some years, more than 90% of Cherooke people were able to read.
dDpJQ TIL that Tony Lip (portrayed in The Green Book, 2018, as Dr. Shirley's bodyguard and driver through the Jim Crow South) was an Army vet, worked as a bouncer, and was a star in the Sopranos as Carmine Lupertazzi.
GlRE TIL that there is a completely unique English dialect spoken only on Tangier Island, Virginia. It is said to be almost the same as when the island was settled in 1686 and can be unintelligible even to native English speakers.
Me5pb TIL that in 1838, Poe wrote a novel in which 4 stranded sailors survive for a while off a turtle, but finally kill one of their own, Richard Parker, and eat him. 46 years later, 4 stranded sailors, after surviving for many days off a turtle, eventually kill and eat one of their own, Richard Parker.