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1418

TIL in the Karajá language, only women generally pronounce the sound /k/. With time, the extensive weakening of the /k/ sound became associated with masculinity while its preservation was seen as a sign of femininity. This is an example of a socially motivated phonological rule.

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VMp1p TIL that farmers in USA are hacking their John Deere tractors with Ukrainian firmware, which seems to be the only way to actually own the machines and their software, rather than rent them for lifetime from John Deere.
4kDBg TIL of the 2006 Dreamspace V Incident. A giant inflatable art piece by Maurice Agis that you could walk around in, it would later fly into the air following a wind gust killing 2 and trapping 20-30 others.
gMaZW TIL That when Christopher Reeve (the man who played Superman) was about to receive the surgery to reattach his skull to his spine after falling off a horse, Robin Williams cheered him up by dressing as his character from Nine Months and proclaiming that Reeve will be getting a rectal exam.
Y7YrW TIL that after learning about the atrocities committed during the Battle of Manila, dictator of Spain Francisco Franco considered declaring war on Japan and joining the allies, 40 years after the Philippines became independent from Spain.
4X4Y6 TIL that up until the 1600s, a “black swan” was a metaphor for something that did not exist. Then a group of Dutch explorers became the first Europeans to see black swans in Western Australia in 1697, and the phrase was amended to mean “a perceived impossibility that might later be disproven.”