Tiffany problems

[Moose-tache]

If we assume Roentgen had a hand fetish, the time gap between the X-ray gun and the horny R-ray gun is zero.

[hwhatting]

Sometimes a hand X-ray is just a hand x-ray.

[Raphael]

I learned relatively recently that prefaces to books were already common in the first decades and generations after the introduction of movable type printing to Europe. Before I learned that, I would have guessed that they were a 19th century or perhaps an 18th century invention. Somehow, they "feel" so "modern" to me.

[bradrn]

Henry IV, Part 1, Act III, Scene 1:

GLENDOWER: Why, I can teach you, cousin, to command the devil.
HOTSPUR: And I can teach thee, coz, to shame the devil [...]

I never expected 'coz' to date back to 1597. (Wiktionary also has a quote from Romeo and Juliet, in fact.)

[hwhatting]

I never expected 'coz' to date back to 1597. (Wiktionary also has a quote from Romeo and Juliet, in fact.)

Yes, Shakespeare uses it all the time. I must say that I've probably seen it more often in Shakespeare than in modern texts...

[bradrn]

I just discovered the existence of Queen Roxana, died 310 BCE.

[bradrn]

I never expected 'coz' to date back to 1597.

And now, a year later, I have the reverse example: ‘sibling’ dates all the way back to… 1903.

(Well, it had existed in Old English, but by Middle English it just meant ‘relative’, before dying out entirely. 1903 was when the Old English / modern meaning was re-introduced. Wang 2004 offers this quotation from as late as 1931: ‘The word “sib” or “sibling” is coming into use in genetics in the English-speaking world’.)

[Ares Land]

I never expected 'coz' to date back to 1597.

And now, a year later, I have the reverse example: ‘sibling’ dates all the way back to… 1903.

(Well, it had existed in Old English, but by Middle English it just meant ‘relative’, before dying out entirely. 1903 was when the Old English / modern meaning was re-introduced. Wang 2004 offers this quotation from as late as 1931: ‘The word “sib” or “sibling” is coming into use in genetics in the English-speaking world’.)

I didn't know that!

[Raphael]

I learned recently that Fibonacci lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I would never have guessed that. I could have sworn he was a Renaissance or Baroque era figure.

[alice]

I learned recently that Fibonacci lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. I would never have guessed that. I could have sworn he was a Renaissance or Baroque era figure.

That surprised me too when I found it out. But it's not so surprising when you learn that in some cultures centuries ago mathematicians had already calculated complete tables of popular trigonometric functions.

[MacAnDàil]

To make it even more Tiffany, it was in the work of the Indian grammarian, Pingala, that it was first attested before Jesus was born.