Today I Learned

[Anke]

TIL Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at some point server on a whaling ship

https://ltwilliammowett.tumblr.com/post ... r-journals

[Bee]

TIL Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at some point server on a whaling ship

https://ltwilliammowett.tumblr.com/post ... r-journals

oohhhh that was so cool!! I love looking at old journals <3

[Bee]

TIL a lot of the English vocabulary was borrowed straight from Dutch

I had always assumed the similarities were due to their common Germanic origin but nope, there's more to the story!!

[Anke]

TIL that "seltzer water" is named for a region in Germany, where the spring from which the first naturally carbonated mineral water that became widely exported was found.

Also that the split of carbonated to still water sold in Germany is 80%:20%

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvj0MJw7z4

[Bee]

TIL that "seltzer water" is named for a region in Germany, where the spring from which the first naturally carbonated mineral water that became widely exported was found.

Also that the split of carbonated to still water sold in Germany is 80%:20%

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHvj0MJw7z4

...80 to 20? oh WOW

[Anke]

*nods* We like our carbonated water.
It confuses North American tourists to heck when they order water in a restaurant and get sparkling water instead of tap water. And it often confuses Germans to heck when North American tourists want to order tap water in a restaurant.
One of thoe cultural things XD

[Bee]

*nods* We like our carbonated water.
It confuses North American tourists to heck when they order water in a restaurant and get sparkling water instead of tap water. And it often confuses Germans to heck when North American tourists want to order tap water in a restaurant.
One of thoe cultural things XD

lmao

[thiskurt]

TIL a lot of the English vocabulary was borrowed straight from Dutch

I had always assumed the similarities were due to their common Germanic origin but nope, there's more to the story!!

So if Frisian is half-way between Dutch and English that means it's actually half-way between Dutch and Dutch? @Alex?

Frisian is the most closely related language to English still used by the way.

https://www.europelanguagejobs.com/blog ... et-brother

Another interesting thing is that there's also a bunch of Dutch loanwords in Japanese that people usually assume come from either English or German, but come from Dutch because for a long time they were the only foreigners the Japanese would trade/interact with.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_ ... tch_origin
https://www.the-low-countries.com/artic ... understand

[thiskurt]

*nods* We like our carbonated water.
It confuses North American tourists to heck when they order water in a restaurant and get sparkling water instead of tap water. And it often confuses Germans to heck when North American tourists want to order tap water in a restaurant.
One of thoe cultural things XD

I wonder if you drink that much more sparkling water or if a lot of that 80 to 20 is explained by people just drinking tap water rather than buying bottled still water?

Ooh, one time I saw this thing you could screw onto your tap to turn your tap water into sparkling water AS IT FLOWED FROM THE TAP!

[Anke]

I wonder if you drink that much more sparkling water or if a lot of that 80 to 20 is explained by people just drinking tap water rather than buying bottled still water?

Yeah, I wondered about that, too. But then, SodaStream and similar contraptions seem also quite popular; I'm one of the people who drink tap water, but carbonates it themselves. XD

Ooh, one time I saw this thing you could screw onto your tap to turn your tap water into sparkling water AS IT FLOWED FROM THE TAP!

My previous office had machines under the kitchen sinks that filtered, cooled, and optionally carbonated water. The tap had one lever for regular water on one side, and one rotating knob on the left.