SWTK: Why...?

[Spartacus]

It's a funny old world when you think about it.

Why do we call jam made from citrus fruit marmalade?

Why do we need a special word - defenestrate - for throwing someone out of a window?

Why is blue metal not blue, and not made of metal?

Questions, answers, and opinions, welcomed.

[sathid]

Why not?

[Desmo]

Why do we call jam made from citrus fruit marmalade?

Because Marmalade is from Portugal and wasn't originally made from oranges but from quince. Quince is "Marmelo" in Portuguese.
This then transferred into the French "Marmelada" and then in to English as "Marmalade".
When growing citrus became viable in England, this word was then borrowed to encompass all citrus based preserves.

[filbert]

Finestra is Italian for window from a Latin root, once you know that definestrate makes perfect sense

[SilentBob]

Why do we need a special word - defenestrate - for throwing someone out of a window?

It's no more special than a lot of other words derived from Latin like eviscerate comes from viscus (“any internal organ of the body”).
Origin:
Defenestrate is derived from Latin de-, "out of" + fenestra, "window."

[Professor Redfern]

[Spartacus]

Oh dear I'm so sorry PSB, sometimes I forget to explain myself slowly and clearly for the 98% of the population who have a lower IQ.

Quinces are related to apples and pears, which aren't citrus fruits, so why did marmalade become the term for citrus jam,? Why are there over 2 million hits when you google quince jam, but less than half a million hits when you google quince marmalade?

I was under the misimpression that defenestrate strictly referred to the act of throwing a person out of the window, and I was surprised that throwing someone out of a window was such a common occurrence that a special term was needed. I'll withdraw that one after a little research shows that defenestration doesn't have to happen to a person.

[devolved]

derp.

[Fastgirl]

Oh dear I'm so sorry PSB, sometimes I forget to explain myself slowly and clearly for the 98% of the population who have a lower IQ.

hahaha...prolly closer to 99.99% actually, but dont worry you'll get use to it

[Hewie]

Common misunderstanding coupled with the use of a langauge that draws from literally dozens of others = fail ?

[Phildo]

Why do we call jam made from citrus fruit marmalade?

Why do we need a special word - defenestrate - for throwing someone out of a window?

Why is blue metal not blue, and not made of metal?

Questions, answers, and opinions, welcomed.

Such concepts are the results of extensive discussion held by government committees.

[Stephan]

Spartacus, is that you Rob Johnson???

[resist]

Oh dear I'm so sorry PSB, sometimes I forget to explain myself slowly and clearly for the 98% of the population who have a lower IQ.

Hang on wait, you still think it's interesting or valuable in any way, shape or form to re-post a psuedo-intellectual chain email from 1995 and we're the ones with a lower IQ?

[Spartacus]

Hang on wait, you still think it's interesting or valuable in any way, shape or form to re-post a psuedo-intellectual chain email from 1995 and we're the ones with a lower IQ?

Actually I was just asking some questions after mulching my cactus with blue metal yesterday, I have absolutely no wish to post something that perhaps someone, somewhere may have posted 16 years ago. I was a bit pissy at 1am but I popped in now to tone down the unnecessary arrogance, but fuckit. (But while I'm here I'll just point out that it should be pseudo-intellectual.)

[Brougham]

Nah, you can keep digging your hole

[Stephan]

[devolved]

Regrets? I've had a few...

[Professor Redfern]

Oh dear I'm so sorry PSB, sometimes I forget to explain myself slowly and clearly for the 98% of the population who have a lower IQ.

No.............

















Im Spartacus.

[filbert]

It's a funny old world when you think about it.

Why do we respond to someone who starts threads asking questions they could have answered with google?

Why do we need a special word - troll - for someone who starts these threads and tries to get into an argument over it?

Why is it when they ask a stupid question they could have answered with google or word a simple question poorly everyone else is the stupid one for not giving the answers they want?

Questions, answers, and opinions, welcomed.

[Spartacus]

I had mondayitis today so I did poke around a bit - I've found out that to 'metal a road' means to surface it with gravel, so that explains the metal part. I still can't work out why blue means grey, perhaps an Aussie was talking to a Scot who for some reason had never heard the word....and the Aussie said "you know, blue, like the sky and the sea". Unlikely, I'll grant you.

Regrets? Yes, I have three. My biggest regret is not learning to ride a pushie when I was young - I'll never be as comfortable on a bike as I am at the bottom of the sea. Of lesser concern is the fact that I never learned to whistle or click my fingers as a kid either, but after having a housemate with a pet cockatiel the whistling is slowly getting there.

Now I want to know why three is usually the roundest of numbers, for me.