Americans manage to pronounce “soldier” correctly, but their brains fail to fire properly for the word “solder”, a word with one letter difference. Why is this?
Leading experts agree that it's because Americans are stupid.
Friday 21 January 2022
Friday 4 March 2016
The chicken or the egg?
The chicken or the egg causality dilemma is commonly stated as "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" To ancient philosophers, the question about the first chicken or egg also evoked the questions of how life and the universe in general began.
Wikipedia
When asking the question, "Which came first: the chicken or the egg?" one may be drawn into a philosophical conundrum. It may go like this:
“If the chicken came first, then where did it come from, having no egg from which it hatched?”
“If the egg came first, then what laid it, having no chicken to lay?”
In the times of the ancients this seemed to be a very good question. Perhaps one that could not be answered. It seemed to create a paradox: one cannot exist without the other; then how can either exist at all?
The answer to this paradox suggests that one or the other, or both, had to have sprung into existence in some sort of creation event. Of course nobody alive today believes in anything quite as ridiculous as a creation event, save for a few of the most simple of our kind.
What, then, could be the answer?
Well, these are enlightened times and the answer is very simple. If you struggle at any point along the way during this explanation then please do take a long, hard look in the mirror.
As with all living things on our planet, the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) has been subject to some form of Darwinian evolution. In the case of domestic animals they have been bred selectively by people to increase the characteristics that are desirable. However, let us pretend it happened naturally...
When a mommy junglefowl and a daddy junglefowl love each other very very much... they have wild sex. It is believed that the ancestors of the domestic chicken are the red and grey junglefowl. The exact details of the cross-breeding aren't really all that important as it immediately answers the question posed in the beginning.
Q. Which came first: the chicken or the egg?
A. As the domestic chicken is a cross-breed of the red (Gallus gallus) and grey (Gallus sonneratii) junglefowl, and the red and grey junglefowl reproduce by laying eggs, then the domestic chicken had to have hatched from an egg laid by a female junglefowl. Her colour is not important.
So there we have it. Simple. Logical. Answered. The chicken, which is a cross-breed of two junglefowl, had to have hatched from an egg created by its two parents. The egg did indeed come first. The case has been cracked and the gooey innards are laid bare.
Ah, yes, but... what about the parent species... which came first: the Gallus or the egg?
All birds, including the genus Gallus evolved from lizards around the time of the dinosaurs. Indeed their ancestors could be said to be the dinosaurs. Lizards, like birds, lay eggs. So the egg still came first. We could regress with this question all the way back to the very first egg - now that is an interesting question!
If you really are new to this subject then, as always, you should start out on the Wikipedia page, which should lead you on to more interesting articles.
Thursday 15 August 2013
Saturday 7 April 2012
"Monkey Hanger" is not an insult
For those who don't know, the term "Monkey Hanger" is used to refer to a person from Hartlepool and is intended to be a derogatory term (despite what Wikipedia claims). The problem being that nobody in Hartlepool gives a rat's arse, and it was the residents that spread this rumour in the first place.
Smoggie, for example, is intended to be derogatory toward the people of Middlesbrough owing to its large polluting industry. Mackem, on the other hand, is not a derogatory term for the people of Sunderland.
One (of many) of the local rugby teams, Hartlepool Rovers, would hang a toy monkey from the goal posts during the game to spread the rumour, and to basically make Hartlepool better known (for better or worse).
Hartlepool United FC's mascot is H'Angus the Monkey, and the bloke who played this role is thecurrent former mayor of Hartlepool, Stuart Drummond.
Insult? Must try harder. Must learn to read.
During the Napoleonic Wars a French ship is said to have wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. Shortly afterwards a monkey who had survived by climbing on some floating timber washed up on the beach.
The poor, ignorant people of the town, who had never seen a Frenchman before assumed that the hairy little sod was "one of them", and immediately put it on trial. Unable to defend itself from accusations of being a spy in English and spending its time jabbering and screaming, the good town folk sentenced the sorry little bugger to death, building a gallows and hanging it.
What do you think?
As with most legends and nonsense, myths are created and embellished, and this is one that is so old that nobody can be certain of its true origin. The song that was supposedly created to commemorate this proud moment in the history of the town seems to have originated in Scotland... which is not in England... and Hartlepool is... in England, with a painfully similar story. I don't know if the people of Boddam have to put up with the same stupidity.
Apparently, a comic named Ned Corvan had been touring the east coast, spreading the rumour. In previous incarnations of Google's search results it was possible to find more information about this. It was said that he basically said it about any town that had a rivalry with the town he was in at that time. That's what comedians do when they don't have much material. Alas, thanks to misinformation overload the Google results are now insanely useless (though it is now mentioned on Wikipedia).
There's more than one book!
There is that song which was stolen from Scotland, along with many other things, including their women.
And then there is this, which some people have claimed is influenced by the story, but there's no evidence of that. Make your own mind up.
Fair point. Oh, if you're from the town and some "clever" dick tries to insult you with the story, remind him that he's a knobhead, cover him in shaving foam and laminate flooring, and piss on him. That's the only way they'll learn.
Smoggie, for example, is intended to be derogatory toward the people of Middlesbrough owing to its large polluting industry. Mackem, on the other hand, is not a derogatory term for the people of Sunderland.
One (of many) of the local rugby teams, Hartlepool Rovers, would hang a toy monkey from the goal posts during the game to spread the rumour, and to basically make Hartlepool better known (for better or worse).
Hartlepool United FC's mascot is H'Angus the Monkey, and the bloke who played this role is the
Insult? Must try harder. Must learn to read.
So what is the story?
During the Napoleonic Wars a French ship is said to have wrecked off the coast of Hartlepool. Shortly afterwards a monkey who had survived by climbing on some floating timber washed up on the beach.
The poor, ignorant people of the town, who had never seen a Frenchman before assumed that the hairy little sod was "one of them", and immediately put it on trial. Unable to defend itself from accusations of being a spy in English and spending its time jabbering and screaming, the good town folk sentenced the sorry little bugger to death, building a gallows and hanging it.
Is it true?
What do you think?
As with most legends and nonsense, myths are created and embellished, and this is one that is so old that nobody can be certain of its true origin. The song that was supposedly created to commemorate this proud moment in the history of the town seems to have originated in Scotland... which is not in England... and Hartlepool is... in England, with a painfully similar story. I don't know if the people of Boddam have to put up with the same stupidity.
Apparently, a comic named Ned Corvan had been touring the east coast, spreading the rumour. In previous incarnations of Google's search results it was possible to find more information about this. It was said that he basically said it about any town that had a rivalry with the town he was in at that time. That's what comedians do when they don't have much material. Alas, thanks to misinformation overload the Google results are now insanely useless (though it is now mentioned on Wikipedia).
Cultural influence?
Well, there is a book: The Hartlepool Monkey by Sean Longley.
There's more than one book!
There is that song which was stolen from Scotland, along with many other things, including their women.
And then there is this, which some people have claimed is influenced by the story, but there's no evidence of that. Make your own mind up.
So what?
Fair point. Oh, if you're from the town and some "clever" dick tries to insult you with the story, remind him that he's a knobhead, cover him in shaving foam and laminate flooring, and piss on him. That's the only way they'll learn.
Additional sources:
Image licensing:
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tees/7827332.stm
- http://hartlepoolmonkey.tumblr.com/thehartlepoolmonkeyhanginglegend
- http://ascottishstoryteller.blogspot.co.uk/2004/09/and-boddamers-hung-monkey-o.html
Image licensing:
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