Shower Thoughts

[OtheratheOtter]

Thank you Faust :3 the world is now a much more awesome place. I shall remember this. Hopefully the traffic sign fandom kicks off soon! I would like to have a Narrow Bridge Sign-Sona, then I can be always doing the cute ">.<" face:

Uff and thank you Rob as well! Public Enemy was not wrong when they said "Don't Believe the Hype". I feel less cynical and paranoid now, but also sad that human decency seems to be rare these days. Maybe indecency is just more prevalent nowerdays because we can uncover it more easily. Whatever the case, screw those bastards!

Is it just me or does the Narrow Bridge sign picture look like a pussy?

 

[Pomorek]

Reminds me of the two different Austrian towns called Fucking, both of which eventually changed their names to Fugging because people were making too many Fucking jokes and tourists kept stealing the Fucking road signs as souvenirs.

There was also Petting nearby, if memory serves.

Personally I've been in a town in Germany named Bad Orb.

I had a Greek friend once who was mightily amused by a seemingly-innocuous tobacconist's shop in London called 'Pouches and Pipes' (they specialised in pipes, baccy pouches and loose tobacco).

Apparently that's Greek slang for 'Dicks and Blowjobs'

There also used to be a stationary shop called 'Pen Island', but their website has since been changed to a porn site, on account of what happens when you remove the space from 'Pen Island'.

Just don't get me started on Polish vs Czech. It's as if these languages were composed mostly of mutual false friends. Despite many words being very similar, the level of mismatch in their meaning is absolutely wild.

 

[Faust]

Just remembered another one!

When Coca Cola wanted to expand into the Chinese market, they had to translate the name phonetically since the language was so very different. But every symbol has a meaning, so they had to find a combination of pictograms that didn’t mean something silly.

Apparently one of their first attempts literally translates as ‘bite the wax tadpole’.

I don’t think this version was ever used in practice though, and they eventually settled on symbols that mean ‘can mouth, can happy’.

Meanwhile, Pepsi mistakenly translated their slogan ‘Pepsi makes you come alive’ into Taiwanese as ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead’.

 

[Faust]

On the other hand, Vauxhall didn't change the name of the Vauxhall Nova when marketing it to Spain, in spite of the fact that 'No Va' means 'Doesn't Go' in Spanish.

Apparently this didn't actually affect its popularity at all.

 

[OtheratheOtter]

If protogens are Toasters, where does the bread go?

 

[Pomorek]

On the other hand, Vauxhall didn't change the name of the Vauxhall Nova when marketing it to Spain, in spite of the fact that 'No Va' means 'Doesn't Go' in Spanish.

Apparently this didn't actually affect its popularity at all.

Well, Škoda means harm or damage in Polish and IIRC in Czech as well (the word itself is spelled szkoda in Polish). Doesn't make it any less popular though.

 

[Faust]

Well, Škoda means harm or damage in Polish and IIRC in Czech as well (the word itself is spelled szkoda in Polish). Doesn't make it any less popular though.

That’s weird, my Czech dictionary gives the translation of ‘Skoda’ as ‘what a pity’!

 

[Pomorek]

That’s weird, my Czech dictionary gives the translation of ‘Skoda’ as ‘what a pity’!

Okay, my bad. But only partially because this use of the word exists in Polish too! And this doesn't make the car brand any less funny. I mean, how about having a car brand named "Alas" or indeed "Pity"?

I can also tell you that people here avoid pronouncing the name "correctly", as if it was a taboo. Instead we say it with plain s as the first sound. That way, it doesn't sound like your car is named "damage", after all.

 

[Pomorek]

Is car detailing called detailing because cleaning would sound too unmanly?

 

[Faust]

‘Making Love’ is an odd phrase. As if love were something that you had to assemble from a kit. People don’t ‘make’ love. Love makes you.

 

[Faust]

When I was very young, I thought the phases of the moon were new, crescent, waxy gibbons and full.

 

[Faust]

Having an open mind wouldn’t be so bad if people didn’t keep trying to put stuff in it.

 

[Faust]

If you play the intro song of 'SpongeBob Squarepants' backwards, the part where the kids sing 'Squarepants' sounds almost exactly like 'Squidward'.

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iBNX0VbqZc


Does this prove that Squidward is the Anti-bob?

 

[sleepy kitty]

What if... WHAT IF!!

What if fairy godparents were real, but we don't remember ever having any because we are too old for fairies and lost our memory of them?

(Fairly Oddparents lore)

 

[Icepaw]

if a werewolf was also a druid who could become a house cat..would their bite spread the werewolf curse still or turn people into cats? (based on a crazy idea my nephew and I discussed as he's a huge DnD fan)

 

[Faust]

if a werewolf was also a druid who could become a house cat..would their bite spread the werewolf curse still or turn people into cats? (based on a crazy idea my nephew and I discussed as he's a huge DnD fan)

You might be interested to know that the Werewolf 'Biting' curse may well be a recent addition to the legend. In most of the really old werewolf stories, the culprit is either a magical ritual performed by the werewolf themselves, a magical artefact such as a catskin belt or wolf's pelt, a curse placed upon them by a god or magic user, the result of bathing in certain pools, streams or suchlike, or through eating or wearing 'lycanthropous flowers' - nobody knows what species this is, but its description is similar to Datura Stramonium (aka Jimsonweed) the infamous 'Zombie Cucumber'. In a couple of stories you can even become a werewolf simply by being born on Christmas Eve.

My personal favourite though is drinking water from a wolf's paw print.

 

[Icepaw]

yeah there's a ton of different tales of werewolves these days, I personally prefer the anthro wolf ones over the feral wolf or the "Wolfman" version but sadly that too may be a newer one as older ones made it sound like people had lost their minds or changed by deities or magic items or curses. That said it..goes without question I hate the Twilight series as they show werewolves as people turning into giant feral wolves, Van Helsing however was one I like more as they did them beautifully.

I'd imagine the vampire stories started like werewolf ones

 

[Faust]

'Vampire' is kind of a catch-all term, to be honest. Most world cultures have myths about creatures that drink blood that are generically labelled as 'Vampires', but in truth those myths are often very, very different - i.e. there's a world of difference between the Malaysian Penanggalen, the African Obayifo or the Chinese Jiangshi. (Jentry Chau did a cracking job of that last one recently, along with several other cool Chinese myths.)