Did you know...

Loads of interesting DYKs about Hitler, the nazis and the second world war.

*Hitler declared war on exactly ONE country in the second world war ...I'll not make a quiz of it - United States.

*Mechanisation aspect of Blitzkrieg is well overstated -German Army in WW2 used easily as much horse drawn ordinace as in WW1. (over half a million horses used in Barbarossa alone!)

*All those silent colour film reels you may have seen of Hitler in the Berghof? Ever wonder what they were saying? Well now they know. By using 3-D imaging to turn the characters ...Hitler, Goebbels, Goering etc... around to face the camera -German lip readers have been able to reveal their conversations ... and they were pig ignorant $%^&ers off the clock as well.

There are a huge number of expressions with their origins in naval terms. One that surprised me in particular is the instruction to "carry on". Most people picturing an old ship imagine all of the sails up, but in most winds, this wasn't the most efficient way to sail. Some of the sails would becalm the others, so the officer on watch would keep a careful eye on the wind and the trim of the sails to maximise the speed of the ship. "Carry on" was the order to lash everything up when the wind was just right. I'm not certain, but I think that this would usually occur when the wind was approaching from little behind the middle of the ship (abaft the beam, for you nautical types), though different ships handled significantly differently, and the way the load was stored and the degree to which the bottom of the hull was fouled also changed things a lot.

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Originally Posted by Lionel Ritchie

Loads of interesting DYKs about Hitler, the nazis and the second world war.


*All those silent colour film reels you may have seen of Hitler in the Berghof? Ever wonder what they were saying? Well now they know. By using 3-D imaging to turn the characters ...Hitler, Goebbels, Goering etc... around to face the camera -German lip readers have been able to reveal their conversations ... and they were pig ignorant $%^&ers off the clock as well.

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wow tx for that, fascinating stuff, any links for that last one?

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Originally Posted by Pauro 76

The longest one-syllable word in the English language is screeched.

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Wikipedia disagrees. ;)

And I found this while wikipediaing too - the longest word in English, at a mere 189,819 letters.

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Originally Posted by bennocelt

wow tx for that, fascinating stuff, any links for that last one?

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+1 for this. Without the actual details, this is just silly.

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

Wikipedia disagrees. ;)

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That's the worst list I've ever read. It's full of archiac words, dialect words, made up words in obscure games or fiction, and an Americanised pronunciation. How do you justify squirrelled on the basis of how Americans mispronounce it when you include strengthed, ignoring that it was pronounced with two syllables when it was last used (in 1614)?

Pauro wins this round by any rheashonable* definition of the "English language".

*Rheashonable (the 'h's are silent) is my dialect spelling of the word reasonable. It's pronounced "zə", and as such, I win.

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

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Originally Posted by smellyfeet

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

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http://mythbustersresults.com/episode8

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Originally Posted by pineapple stu

And I found this while wikipediaing too - the longest word in English, at a mere 189,819 letters.

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Seeing as it is the week that is in it, do you know what that is in Irish?

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Originally Posted by John83

There are a huge number of expressions with their origins in naval terms. One that surprised me in particular is the instruction to "carry on". Most people picturing an old ship imagine all of the sails up, but in most winds, this wasn't the most efficient way to sail. Some of the sails would becalm the others, so the officer on watch would keep a careful eye on the wind and the trim of the sails to maximise the speed of the ship. "Carry on" was the order to lash everything up when the wind was just right. I'm not certain, but I think that this would usually occur when the wind was approaching from little behind the middle of the ship (abaft the beam, for you nautical types), though different ships handled significantly differently, and the way the load was stored and the degree to which the bottom of the hull was fouled also changed things a lot.

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Another is 'you couldn't swing a cat [in here]'

The cat being the cat of nine tails, and it couldn't really be used in the confines below decks.

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Originally Posted by bennocelt

wow tx for that, fascinating stuff, any links for that last one?

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Originally Posted by dahamsta

+1 for this. Without the actual details, this is just silly.

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Let me do a little research later this evening when I've time. for now I know I was watching it only very recently on Discovery or History channel. Programme/series/weekend special may well have been called The Third Reich in Colour.

It did indeed have their conversations revealed, decoded, whatever and they were quite frank and explicit and rude, even about each other, at times. Why wouldn't they be? The camera filming them was 8mm film with no audio capabilities (usually Eva Braun, one of her mates or Albert Schpeer doing the filming). They weren't to know that 70 years after their words were spoken the technology would be out there to enable deaf mutes to tell the world what they were saying.

The moral of the story?

"And they'd have got away with it too, if it weren't for those pesky aurally challenged kids".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...off-guard.html

http://www.freshdv.com/2006/12/autom...ent-films.html

and the programme itself is embedded here...

from about 25mins in there's reconstructs of Hitlers comments.

Fab, thanks LR. Unfortunately the video isn't working though!

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Originally Posted by dahamsta

Fab, thanks LR. Unfortunately the video isn't working though!

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Odd -was working on the laptop at home but isn't here.

Kilkenny born architect James Hoban designed the White House and also the official residence of the Irish president, Aras an Uachtarain. Looks like US President Elect Obama will have another connection to Ireland in addition to his great-great-great-grandfather!*

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Originally Posted by smellyfeet

Kilkenny born architect James Hoban designed the White House and also the official residence of the Irish president, Aras an Uachtarain. Looks like US President Elect Obama will have another connection to Ireland in addition to his great-great-great-grandfather!*

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Except the Aras was built 7 years before Hoban was even born. ;)

He is said to have based his desgin of the White House on Leinster House however.

John Philip Holland (29 February, 1840 – 2 August, 1914) was an Irish engineer who developed the first submarine to be formally commissioned by the U.S. Navy and the first ever Royal Navy submarine, the Holland 1.

He was one of four brothers who may have been born in Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland to an Irish speaking mother, Máire Ní Scannláin, and John Holland, and learned English properly only when he attended the local English-speaking National School system and, from 1858, in the Christian Brothers in Ennistymon. Holland joined the Irish Christian Brothers in Limerick and taught in Limerick and many other centers in the country including North Monastery CBS in Cork City. Due to ill health, he left the Christian Brothers in 1873.

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Originally Posted by smellyfeet

Kilkenny born architect James Hoban designed the White House and also the official residence of the Irish president, Aras an Uachtarain. Looks like US President Elect Obama will have another connection to Ireland in addition to his great-great-great-grandfather!*

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Originally Posted by atfconline

Except the Aras was built 7 years before Hoban was even born. ;)

He is said to have based his desgin of the White House on Leinster House however.

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http://www.diddlyi.com/profiles/blog...d-did-you-know

"The Father of the American Navy" Commodore John Barry was born in Tacumshane, County Wexford, Ireland.

Probably the most famous person born in the same townland as me!