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What Common, Everyday Occurrence Do You Find Strange?

I've always found people who whistle in public slightly suspect. I don't mind so much if they're walking down the street, but sitting in silence on a park bench or on a train and suddenly bursting into tune is only one step away from the quiet tramp who'll start singing loudly on a packed Tube.

Also, I was sitting on my own one night about a month ago when the entire street suffered a powercut. Two seconds after I was plunged into darkness someone in the flat opposite started to whistle, ominously....
 
Also, why is it if I'm whistling a tune and someone else joins in, I can't carry on and have to start laughing?
 
rynner said:
I tried Googling on 'Hallo Trees', and found several pages in Dutch and one in Italian (Sally and Ginoide, any comments?)
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Err.. Most of the Dutch hallo's are aimed at guys called Trees - foreign names, he?
 
Orbyn said:
I've always found people who whistle in public slightly suspect. I don't mind so much if they're walking down the street, but sitting in silence on a park bench or on a train and suddenly bursting into tune is only one step away from the quiet tramp who'll start singing loudly on a packed Tube.

Also, I was sitting on my own one night about a month ago when the entire street suffered a powercut. Two seconds after I was plunged into darkness someone in the flat opposite started to whistle, ominously....
Click to expand...

In the Rogers & Hammerstein musical, The King and I, there is a song that goes "Whenever I feel afraid, I whistle a happy tune ... so no one will suspect I'm afraid." It could be that that's where the street scene came from. I have never been able to whistle, but after hearing the song the first time, I got into the habit of singing it whenever I was afraid...
 
Molesworth!

Stu Neville said:
Yes - it's Nigel Molesworth in "Down with Skool" mocking Basil Fotherington-Thomas: "Hullo clouds! Hullo sky! he sa." (sic)

Fotherington-Thomas, you may remember, was the recipient of the Mrs Joyful Prize for raffia-work.

There are at least two other Molesworth books - Back in the Jug Agane, and Whizz for Atomms (caused a bit of a Fortean lexilink when RAF Molesworth was chosen to host US nukes in the 80's).
Click to expand...

You forgot 'How to be Topp', Stu. And it was Grabber, 'head of the skool, captane of everything' who was the prizewinner at rafia!

Carole, who has been a Molesworth fan since her skool days
 
Thanks Stu and Carole for the Molesworth stuff.

I had been wondering about the Diary of Adrian Mole - except I know I haven't read it! (Close, but no cigar!)
 
Re: Molesworth!

carole said:
You forgot 'How to be Topp', Stu. And it was Grabber, 'head of the skool, captane of everything' who was the prizewinner at rafia!

Carole, who has been a Molesworth fan since her skool days
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Yes, it was, wasn't it!

Glad to see my literary references are as inaccurate as everything else!

There was one more, written in the early eighties, called "Molesworth rites agane", by (I think ) Nigel Rees and illustrated by Willy Rushton. It wasn't bad: it was a grown-up Molesworth dealing with work.
 
Don't think I'll bother with that one, Stu - the Ronale Searle drawings cannot be bettered . . .

Carole
 
has anyone ever said a normal word so many times that it sounds really weird? Also has anone ever written a common word and it just doesn't look right I'm always getting this and its very annoying!!!:mad:
 
carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot, carrot . . . . yeh, I see what you mean, boo!

Carole
 
Supercalafragalisticexpialidotious, Supercala.....oh bugger that, take it as read.
 
Back to the subject at hand.....

There are a few everyday things I find wierd:

1) As was mentioned earlier in this thread, how do we know if we are seeing the same colors as everybody else? As far as I know color is about the only truely anecdotal thing we learn in life(that I can think of anyway). When we are young, someone tells us, "This is blue" but how do we know ours "blues" are the same?
How do you descibe a color without using a color? Besides light or dark?

2)Something that really wierds me out is mirrors. And how you can stand next to one and see things reflected that are like off to the side that shouldnt be reflected. Yea, I know its just how light works but it always seemed to me like there was another world over there.

3)And to follow up on the everyday common words repeated thing try sitting somewhere nice and quiet and staring at your hand for about fifteen minutes. It'll start looking foriegn and alien. Wierd :)
 
Re: Back to the subject at hand.....

Gremlinclr said:
3)...try sitting somewhere nice and quiet and staring at your hand for about fifteen minutes. It'll start looking foriegn and alien. Wierd :)
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That's because we are all really lizards...

(Well, those of us with blue blood, anyway - except it's really green...)
 
boo said:
Also has anone ever written a common word and it just doesn't look right I'm always getting this and its very annoying!!!:mad:
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Such is the nature of the English language, I've found. There are plenty of words that do not look right written down, no matter how hard you look at them, and I don't mean surnames of the "Ramond Luxury-Yacht" variety.

Unfortunately, I can't think of any at the moment. (I hate that!)

Originally posted by Gremlinclr
As was mentioned earlier in this thread, how do we know if we are seeing the same colors as everybody else? As far as I know color is about the only truely anecdotal thing we learn in life(that I can think of anyway). When we are young, someone tells us, "This is blue" but how do we know ours "blues" are the same?
Click to expand...


Of course, we don't know. What we do know is that when I say something is blue, most people will agree with me that it is blue (unless it is a really dark navy, in which case a long argument will ensue about whether it's black or not). The fact that we agree on which objects are blue or green or pink with yellow polka dots means that the idea that we perceive them differently is largely irrelevant. Not that this stops it from keeping people like me awake at night (not for many years now, but when I was younger I often found philosophical concepts would keep me awake at night).

ibid
How do you descibe a color without using a color? Besides light or dark?
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We can of course refer to colours by the frequency of the visible spectrum they represent. Although, if you meet anyone who does so, I'd give them a wide berth.
 
Clocks definitely freak me out. Don’t like them one bit :(

As for strange yet common occurrences I find strange. Well this isn’t an everyday event but a yearly one. What I find strange is that parents all over the globe lie to their children about the existence of a gigantic fat man with a puffy white beard wearing a red suit who breaks into your house using magical powers leaving not a trace in the dead of night to deposit presents, only asking in return the pleasure of eating a few mince pies and getting blotto on your sherry. In any other circumstances telling young children about something similar would terrify them! Santa is pure evil! :devil:
 
Re: Re: Back to the subject at hand.....

rynner said:
That's because we are all really lizards...

(Well, those of us with blue blood, anyway - except it's really green...)
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We all have blue blood when it's till in our bodies. It doesn't change to red until it becomes oxygenated. But you probably already knew that....
 
Re: Re: Re: Back to the subject at hand.....

Glensheen'sGirl said:
We all have blue blood when it's till in our bodies. It doesn't change to red until it becomes oxygenated. But you probably already knew that....
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I would hope that the blood in my body was pretty well oxygenated.....:eek!!!!:
 
And you aint just been confused by the blue and red colors used on schematics of arteries and veins?
 
Re: Back to the subject at hand.....

Gremlinclr said:
2)Something that really wierds me out is mirrors. And how you can stand next to one and see things reflected that are like off to the side that shouldnt be reflected. Yea, I know its just how light works but it always seemed to me like there was another world over there.
Click to expand...

Speaking of mirrors... why do they look silver-coloured, even though they show the colour of what they are reflecting??

Did that make any sense?:confused:
 
Interneticia

What I find weird in everyday experience is how very much of the internet is dominated by people who seem to exist far below the Operational threshhold of intelligence. How do they do it? WHY do they do it?

Oh, right: Porn. I'd forgotten.

The most popular thing online is porn, by far. Second most popular? Paranormal discussions. Sex and ghosts. Posed nudes and UFOs.

If that's not weird...
 
Re: Re: Re: Back to the subject at hand.....

Glensheen'sGirl said:
We all have blue blood when it's till in our bodies. It doesn't change to red until it becomes oxygenated. But you probably already knew that....
Click to expand...

actually, the blood in arteries (leading away from the heart) is red, and the blood in veins (heading back towards the heart) is blue. this being because on the way round the heart and lungs the blood gets oxygenated, then that oxygen is carried round to the rest of the body and the de-oxygenated blood returned to the heart. so blood is only red when it's oxygenated, but that's not just when it leaves the body.

phew.
 
Ok ok, the oxygenated part isn't right (I was thinking that wasn't quite right when I posted it...) But I know there is some explanation that states it's blue in your veins, but red when it hits the air. Must be some other compound that reacts with it...
 
Of course, we don't know. What we do know is that when I say something is blue, most people will agree with me that it is blue (unless it is a really dark navy, in which case a long argument will ensue about whether it's black or not).
Click to expand...


But that doesn't prove that our blues are the same. Everyone "knows" the sky is blue(i know its not really just water reflected stay with me)but that doesnt mean I'm not seeing it as green. *shrug* Theres no way to prove or disprove it either way, darnit. :)
 
Glensheen'sGirl said:
Ok ok, the oxygenated part isn't right (I was thinking that wasn't quite right when I posted it...) But I know there is some explanation that states it's blue in your veins, but red when it hits the air. Must be some other compound that reacts with it...
Click to expand...
But you can see the blood through your skin if it's pale enough, so if that were the case then you'd blush a pretty shade of blue. Trust me GG, it's not the case, Holly speaks the truth.
 
When you look at your veins through your skin they're always blue, but when you bleed, wherever on your body you're bleeding from, it always comes out red.

So if vein-blood is supposed to be blue, if you were bleeding from a vein the blood would come out blue . . .

Carole
 
carole said:
So if vein-blood is supposed to be blue, if you were bleeding from a vein the blood would come out blue . . .

Carole
Click to expand...

That's cos as soon as it hits the air the platelets absorb oxygen and turn red instantly. In veins blood is blue: if you were to bleed into a vacuum you'd bleed blue.

This is why people who have suffocated turn blue-ish - no oxygen in the sealed body, so most of the blood goes blue.

I'll see if I can avoid using the word "blue" again...Doh!
 
This must be why royals are kept in a strict vacuum -- they wish to make sure their blood stays blue.

Of course brain death is a regrettable necessary adjunct to this practice, but certain sacrifices are thought no great loss, considering what's at stake.
 
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