What Common, Everyday Occurrence Do You Find Strange?

[escargot]

This is a nice thread.

 

[escargot]

Books. They're like a kind of telepathy.

I see an image in my head and, instead of drawing it, I put symbols on a page in such a way that the Receiver conjures the same image inside their own head.

I can see all those Neolithic people slapping their knees, rolling about laughing and going 'you what? Never, you're having us on! Here, draw us that time you went on that mammoth hunt....'

Came across this, it seems apt here.

 

[skinny]

Prior to about 1992, almost everyone stopped writing meaningfully upon leaving school. Now we never stop. Everyone is a lifelong creative writer, and yet 90% of bookshops are gone.

 

[Kondoru]

Marvellous, I never saw it that way.

 

[catseye]

I find clouds odd. Water, up there in the sky, all getting together and deciding to rain on my picnic - well, yes, I know there's no conscious decision involved, but they are still weird things.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I find clouds odd. Water, up there in the sky, all getting together and deciding to rain on my picnic - well, yes, I know there's no conscious decision involved, but they are still weird things.

How do you know that?

 

[pandacracker]

I'm rather baffled how a cow can eat nothing but grass yet it grows to be huge, it's flesh is so dense... and filling when eaten.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I'm rather baffled how a cow can eat nothing but grass yet it grows to be huge, it's flesh is so dense... and filling when eaten.

I am also baffled by this.
It could be that the cows are able to extract various sugars from the grass, but there wouldn't be much else in there.
They may also eat dirt that contains calcium (because they need it to produce milk). AFAIK, farmers give them supplements for this.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I am also baffled by this.
It could be that the cows are able to extract various sugars from the grass, but there wouldn't be much else in there.
They may also eat dirt that contains calcium (because they need it to produce milk). AFAIK, farmers give them supplements for this.

Well, rhinoceroses aren't noted for a meat based diet either. And I absolutely guarantee that no matter how many burgers you eat, if you pick a fight with a gorilla you're going home in an ambulance.

 

[brownmane]

The question about how people decide that a colour they are seeing is the same one you are seeing. This question has been with me since a kid.

Children learn the colours by others pointing them out and saying "this is red. This is blue. The sky is blue."

Ok. But then colourblindness just confuses this. If I am told that the grass is green, how would I not see something that is the colour of the grass as green?

Kids name colours wrong all the time until they learn to differentiate them. How do we learn colours? As an earlier post stated that it is difficult to describe a colour other than light or dark (usually in contrast to black and white).

Also that the true black is an absence of light and true white is all colours. Amazing. We can, in theory, see all and nothing.

 

[charliebrown]

In our location Dogwood and Magnolia tress are common.

I am always amazed that these trees when they bloom, that all these trees bloom exactly at the same time not off more than a day.

How is this possible ?

 

[escargot]

The question about how people decide that a colour they are seeing is the same one you are seeing. This question has been with me since a kid.

Children learn the colours by others pointing them out and saying "this is red. This is blue. The sky is blue."

Ok. But then colourblindness just confuses this. If I am told that the grass is green, how would I not see something that is the colour of the grass as green?

Kids name colours wrong all the time until they learn to differentiate them. How do we learn colours? As an earlier post stated that it is difficult to describe a colour other than light or dark (usually in contrast to black and white).

Also that the true black is an absence of light and true white is all colours. Amazing. We can, in theory, see all and nothing.

Different cultures have varying colour perception. Can't remember where I came across that.

 

[Xanatic*]

Not necessarily different colour perception but different colour definition. Such as is turquoise it's own colour or just a weird blue?

 

[Tunn11]

I can't remember where it was but one SF author's aliens were a particularly intelligent shade of blue. (Douglas Adams? Jack L Chalker?)

Edit to add Douglas Adams, The Hooloovoo

https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Hooloovoo

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

.... you're going home in an ambulance.

That's always struck me as a strange expression.
Surely you go to hospital in an ambulance and then you go home in a friend/family member's car or a taxi?

 

[escargot]

That's always struck me as a strange expression.
Surely you go to hospital in an ambulance and then you go home in a friend/family member's car or a taxi?

You startin'?

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

You startin'?

You dancin'?

 

[Victory]

Barbeque.

I have never had any food that tasted nicer when barbequed than when it was cooked in a kitchen by grilling, baking, roasting, frying etc.

I include burgers hot dogs, chicken, lamb chops, mushrooms.

I understand why cooking outside can avoid the smell of food inside a house, and barbeque sauce is generally nice, but otherwise I just don't get it.

 

[Spookdaddy]

That's always struck me as a strange expression.
Surely you go to hospital in an ambulance and then you go home in a friend/family member's car or a taxi?

As an expression of idiomatic rhetoric, literal accuracy is neither essential - or even particularly common.

And after a couple of rounds with a gorilla I doubt you'd have a clue where you were anyway.

Barbeque...

I have to agree.

What a nice day - let's cook some meat in it, seems to me to be a very odd response to sunshine.

 

[Erinaceus]

I have to shut the windows whenever the neighbours have a barbecue or the house smells of charcoal and burnt offerings.

 

[escargot]

You dancin'?

Ye're askin'?

 

[Delightful]

Dreams
Death
Reports of the supernatural
How people can be so blase about their own mortality
How people can be so cruel, violent and unemphatic
Why there is something rather than nothing
The internet

 

[PeteS]

Barbeque.

I have never had any food that tasted nicer when barbequed than when it was cooked in a kitchen by grilling, baking, roasting, frying etc.

I include burgers hot dogs, chicken, lamb chops, mushrooms.

Funny that - I've not been to a barbeque or done one myself for years, but I always thought that food did taste better than being cooked in an oven or grille or pan. Perhaps it was simply the social element.

 

[Delightful]

I'm the opposite. I always found BBQ food really bad. The smell was good, the food was generally bad. I guess it's all about who does the cooking.

 

[maximus otter]

Would everybody please stop talking about barbecues. l haven’t had my breakfast yet.

Thank you.

maximus otter

 

[Floyd1]

Funny that - I've not been to a barbeque or done one myself for years, but I always thought that food did taste better than being cooked in an oven or grille or pan. Perhaps it was simply the social element.

Yes- certainly in South America. It can be an all day affair with friends and family. It's not only about eating and drinking.

 

[Floyd1]

Barbeque.

I have never had any food that tasted nicer when barbequed than when it was cooked in a kitchen by grilling, baking, roasting, frying etc.

I include burgers hot dogs, chicken, lamb chops, mushrooms.

I understand why cooking outside can avoid the smell of food inside a house, and barbeque sauce is generally nice, but otherwise I just don't get it.

You don't Mangal/Al-Haesh Vic?!

 

[Ronnie Jersey]

Nothing's better than a baked potato on the outside grill!!

 

[SimonBurchell]

The question about how people decide that a colour they are seeing is the same one you are seeing. This question has been with me since a kid.

Children learn the colours by others pointing them out and saying "this is red. This is blue. The sky is blue."

Ok. But then colourblindness just confuses this. If I am told that the grass is green, how would I not see something that is the colour of the grass as green?

Kids name colours wrong all the time until they learn to differentiate them. How do we learn colours? As an earlier post stated that it is difficult to describe a colour other than light or dark (usually in contrast to black and white).

Also that the true black is an absence of light and true white is all colours. Amazing. We can, in theory, see all and nothing.

As I recall, the ancient Maya did not distinguish between blue and green, and used one word to describe them both; I believe this has continued into modern Maya languages, such as K'iche' (which I studied, many years ago, and have pretty much completely forgotten since I don't use it any more) and Yucatec.

 

[AmStramGram]

As I recall, the ancient Maya did not distinguish between blue and green, and used one word to describe them both; I believe this has continued into modern Maya languages, such as K'iche' (which I studied, many years ago, and have pretty much completely forgotten since I don't use it any more) and Yucatec.

Interesting. In the Chinese language, we encounter the same phenomenon : there is a word, 青 (Qing) which means both "green" and "blue".

Source : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/青#Chinese