"Obvious" Things People Didn't Know . . . Like the Origin of "Howdy"
Let's face it, we've ALL failed to notice something "obvious" . . . like that the piggy in "This Little Piggy" probably didn't "go to the market" to go SHOPPING. (???) But that doesn't mean we can't laugh about it.
There's a thread online where people are talking about the "obvious" things they didn't pick up on until someone else pointed them out. Here are a few . . .
1. How the judicial bail system works. Someone said they thought it was a fee that you paid to avoid jail . . . they didn't realize that it was basically collateral, and that you got the bail money BACK if you showed up for your trial.
2. Someone said, "That it's called 'metal' because it's harder than rock music." (It's actually debatable how the term "metal" rose to represent the genre, but this is amusing, and we couldn't definitively dispute it.)
3. That hundreds of years ago, "goodbye" was born out of a shortened form of "God be with you."
4. That hundreds of years ago, "howdy" came out of "how do ye?"
5. That pipe cleaners aren't just for childhood crafts, they're also . . . well . . . a tool for cleaning tobacco pipes.
6. That reindeer actually exist, and aren't just mythical, magical creatures.
7. That the "Mad" in "Mad Men" stood for Madison Avenue.
8. That "felix" is the Latin word for "lucky" (or "happy"), and that since the cartoon character Felix the Cat was a BLACK cat . . . the name is ironic.
(This one may also be more of a coincidence after the fact. Some people say Felix was named as more of a play on "feline.")
9. That bats are NOT actually blind, like the phrase "blind as a bat" would suggest. No bat species are blind.
Microbats "see" differently than humans, particularly in low-light conditions.
But megabats have eyesight as good as humans, if not better. Their sight is adapted to both night and daylight, including some color vision.
10. And some of the comments were far MORE obvious than others. Like, someone said they were in their 20s before they realized that Mickey Mouse was . . . a mouse.
They said they somehow always thought Mickey was a dog, until they asked someone why Mickey had such a skinny little tail. (???)
(Buzzfeed)
Originally posted on February 8th, 2024