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The Mandela Effect: False Memory

Don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have a funny memory around the word "opaque". I'm sure I remember a time when it meant the reverse of what it does now - i.e. transparent rather than not being able to see through something.

Though it may just have been me getting the meaning of the word wrong, I suppose!
 
Tribble said:
Pretty sure it's "Mythopolka".

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That ain't no polka!

You want a polka, here's one. A bit of background: The (American) ABC network fills up its overnight hours with a news headlines show that affiliates can tap into anytime they want. Since it's mostly insomniacs watching, it takes a lighthearted approach to the news, and someone (the guy with the accordion below) decided they needed a sum-up-the-news polka to usher in each weekend. Stick around for a very bad pun at the end, which is lessened by drawing attention to it.


AgProv said:
Somebody told me - and unless Mandela is at work, might have been on this forum - that the version on the CD is a remix of the song done exactly as Kate Bush herself wanted it ...

... sorry, Kate. Prefer the original.
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As much as I love Kate Bush, I absolutely hate her revisionist approach to rereleasing her music. She apparently hates the sound of her inexperienced, untrained voice on that first album, but to me it has a beauty separate from her later work. Kate, go ahead and make new versions if you want, but make them obvious makeovers, not replacements for the beautiful originals.
 
OrsonSwells said:
Don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I have a funny memory around the word "opaque". I'm sure I remember a time when it meant the reverse of what it does now - i.e. transparent rather than not being able to see through something.

Though it may just have been me getting the meaning of the word wrong, I suppose!
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I remember my mom, who had considerable artistic talent, used the word opaque to mean translucent. She had an old box of something called opaque white ink, if I remember correctly, which of course wouldn't be truly opaque if it was thinned down too much. I wonder if her confusion relates to artists' colors being referred to as "transparent" or "opaque", the former being truly transparent, and the latter being somewhat translucent unless you laid it on thick.
 
AgProv said:
I was 1984-88 in EAS (linguistics), spent all but a few weeks living on Fifers Lane, also took a year off when things started getting "uggh". We would have overlapped, Fred, in 84 - 85
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I was at Fifer's Lane in 81-82 and yes, "uggh" is a pretty accurate description of my state for a while, but I went back for the third year and had the time of my life having got my head together. There are some great pics online of Fifer's Lane when it was Horsham St Faith.

I was in E Block, the wooden structure behind A, B and C but it might have been knocked down by 84-85. There was also a building next door containing a single squash court, presumably from the RAF's days; it was the coldest squash court known to man, at least late at night in the middle of winter. It was impossible to get your balls warm. Arf!

AgProv, with you in EAS in 84-85 and meanest door in EUR there's a very, very good chance our paths crossed in the corridor, or Billings, or the bar, or at a gig etc.

I went to the UEA 50th anniversary celebration in 2013 as Mrs Cycleboy had never been to Norwich. UEA has changed out of all recognition and nothing of Fifer's was visible. I felt very old...

Do Different. I think I've spent the time since graduating doing that!
 
I'm very impressed that you UEA alumni remember your institutional motto. I've been a student at three different universities, and it never even occurred to me that they might have had the like...
 
Ah UEA was quite proud of theirs (maybe still is) - and it's in English so a bit more memorable than some motto in Latin.
And while the ziggurats still stand then it can never change out of all recognition?!
 
Eponastill said:
Ah UEA was quite proud of theirs (maybe still is) - and it's in English so a bit more memorable than some motto in Latin.
And while the ziggurats still stand then it can never change out of all recognition?!
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Messing about with Dog Latin of the sort used to generate mottos in Terry Pratchett's Discworld, I am finding after much experimentation with variants on a theme of "Do Different", that Male pervertari is quite an appealing motto to live by! (something like "behave in a contrary fashion")
 
cycleboy2 said:
I went to the UEA 50th anniversary celebration in 2013 as Mrs Cycleboy had never been to Norwich. UEA has changed out of all recognition and nothing of Fifer's was visible. I felt very old...

Do Different. I think I've spent the time since graduating doing that!
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A former resident went back for a look. Apparently while most of the site is now a characterless boxy could-be-anywhere-in-England Barretts housing estate, this little corner remains undeveloped and used to be P-Block. From the FB group "UEA Horsham/Fifers Lane Veterans"

1592573875602.jpeg
 
Comfortably Numb said:
Some time back, I was looking to buy a new guitar and duly had a look online for recommendations.

So, typed in, 'accoustic guitar best buy'.

I was puzzled there weren't more responses.

Nonetheless, made use of what was available and continued searching.

It was only later I noticed a Google message, 'did you mean acoustic?'

Why would I?

Followed this up anyway and suddenly a flood of new information.

What's that all about? I've been playing guitar for over 30 years and think I know how to spell the word correctly, thank you very much.

Eventually, merely to confirm said fact, I checked.

No... that's not right... can't be possible...it most definitely is spelled with two, adjoining c's... always had been and I stubbornly refused to accept otherwise.

Aside from anything else, it just doesn't look right...

'accoustic guitar' - yes

'acoustic guitar' - plainly no.

It wasn't until came across an online copy of, 'Acoustic Guitar' magazine, that I finally accepted.

Could not believe I was mistaken, would have wagered my life on it!
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Similarly, I once had a full on argument with someone about the spelling of vacum.
She pointed out that I'd missed out a "u".
I told her not to be so ridiculous; why on earth would it require two u's...?

One Google later, and I was profusely apologetic, though I still maintain that, in my original universe, it is vacum.
 
BaronHardacre said:
Similarly, I once had a full on argument with someone about the spelling of vacum.
She pointed out that I'd missed out a "u".
I told her not to be so ridiculous; why on earth would it require two u's...?

One Google later, and I was profusely apologetic, though I still maintain that, in my original universe, it is vacum.
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My late father pronounced it 'vac'm', with no 'u' song at all. When I took him up on this he said 'Well that's how I say it!'
Dunno how he'd spell it.
 
BaronHardacre said:
Similarly, I once had a full on argument with someone about the spelling of vacum.
She pointed out that I'd missed out a "u".
I told her not to be so ridiculous; why on earth would it require two u's...?

One Google later, and I was profusely apologetic, though I still maintain that, in my original universe, it is vacum.
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Nature abhors a vacum
 
Analogue Boy said:
It’s always been vacuum as I remember. Opaque was definitely ‘just transparent‘ however.
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Can't agree with that! Opaque, in my universe at least, has always meant completely unseethroughable (possibly not a real word, that last one...). "Translucent" is the word I'd use for your definition.

Vacuum has always had the double "u", though - I'm with you on that!
 
BaronHardacre said:
Similarly, I once had a full on argument with someone about the spelling of vacum.
She pointed out that I'd missed out a "u".
I told her not to be so ridiculous; why on earth would it require two u's...?

One Google later, and I was profusely apologetic, though I still maintain that, in my original universe, it is vacum.
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I have the same problem with the word remuneration. As it relates to income and thus numbers I always think it should contain numerate and thus be spelled renumeration.
 
XBergMann said:
I have the same problem with the word remuneration. As it relates to income and thus numbers I always think it should contain numerate and thus be spelled renumeration.
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"Renumerate / renumeration" means "to count or tally (enumerate) again" - i.e., to re-count.

The "mun" in "Remunerate / remuneration" comes from the Latin munus ('gift'). This word therefore means "to return / respond with equivalent or expected value."
 
The excellent articles on memory in the current FT only convinced me we see and remember what we want to and how we want to, and the stuff that doesn't fit our worldview is altered in the mind to make it easier to deal with. It's a terrible thing to admit your memory is fallible, but it is.
 
P
EnolaGaia said:
"Renumerate / renumeration" means "to count or tally (enumerate) again" - i.e., to re-count.

The "mun" in "Remunerate / remuneration" comes from the Latin munus ('gift'). This word therefore means "to return / respond with equivalent or expected value."
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There's my problem then, I went to a comprehensive and we didn't do Latin.
 
I learnt (some, not enough, switched to Spanish later, thought it would be more useful, doh!) Latin at my comprehensive in the 1980s, although it had grown out of an old grammar school, so maybe it was some weird hold-over. It wasn't taught to everyone, you could pick it as an option in the third year.

(Our Latin teacher's nickname was Bunny. In a pleasing synchronicity, I once read in the superb Barry Baldwin's column that he also had a Latin master nicknamed Bunny! How weird is that?!)
 
XBergMann said:
P

There's my problem then, I went to a comprehensive and we didn't do Latin.
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I had an awesome Grammar school/imitation public school secondary education and I remember 'remunerate' as sounding a bit like 're-money'.
 
Fluttermoth said:
I learnt (some, not enough, switched to Spanish later, thought it would be more useful, doh!) Latin at my comprehensive in the 1980s, although it had grown out of an old grammar school, so maybe it was some weird hold-over. It wasn't taught to everyone, you could pick it as an option in the third year.

(Our Latin teacher's nickname was Bunny. In a pleasing synchronicity, I once read in the superb Barry Baldwin's column that he also had a Latin master nicknamed Bunny! How weird is that?!)
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Wait. Did we go to the same school. I also took optional latin in the 3rd year. I cant remember the teachers name but she may have actually been born during the time of the romans! There was also optional Russian. The russian teacher was also the school librarian iirc.
 
Latin was taught at my school as well. I think it was pretty common to be taught in school. The kids who wanted to be doctors tended to study it.
 
OrsonSwells said:
I honestly thought it was renumeration!
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Sadly you are not alone. Many people have trouble even hearing remuneration as opposed to renumeration. I have even corrected University lecturers on this one if it makes you feel any better. It is a very common mistake. It is like the tendency of people to say "an amount of people" when it is a "number of people". That is, it is sloppy grammar but in wide abuse. As a linguist I understand these "shifts of convenience" and that language is a living thing that changes, but it still makes me want to flashbang a classroom full of epileptics and chihuahuas.
 
I tend to be a grammar cop, despite being sure I make more than my share of mistakes. I sometimes go overboard, just for fun. Instead of saying a student graduated in 2020, I will say he was graduated in 2020.

Don't get me started on "from whence".
 
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