Post * 8AnP — Curious Curator

› added 11 years ago

92

TIL that in Turkish, the bird we call a Turkey is called “Hindi” (“from India”). In India, it’s called “Peru.” In Arabic, the bird is called “Greek chicken”; in Greek it’s called “French chicken”; and in French it’s called “Indian chicken.” The bird is indigenous to none of these places.

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AOr4 TIL there is a custom in Japan called “Namahage” in which men dressed up as demon-like monsters scare the living shit out of children who are “guilty of laziness or bad behavior” while parents smile and laugh while their children scream and cry in terror. (Video in comments)

rNNao TIL that until the later part of the 18th century, almost no one in western Europe washed their whole body with any regularity. This habit remains true for people of all classes, as even Louis XIV is said to have only taken three baths in his entire life.

ne1ZW TIL (According to Brent Berlin and Paul Kay's 1969 study Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution) Names for brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray will not emerge in a language until the language has made a distinction between green and blue.

mVdO TIL a woman was once fined and faced jail time for reporting her rape. The cops did not believe her until her rapist was caught raping another woman and had pictures of him raping the earlier victim

n8Jd TIL that if all the natural disasters and epidemics in Iceland since the 18th century hadn’t happened, the population of Iceland is estimated to have been 3 times larger today than it currently is.