this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 97 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Shhh! Nobody tell them about "inside out."

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

Don't tell them about insid-- dang! Too late

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Why isn’t it outside in?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It could be to do with something called “ablaut reduplication”. Very basically English has a - kind of - untaught sound order that native speakers inherently apply to the language. Wikipedia will have an article to explain it better. Specifically the vowel order I-A-O. A great example is the phrase “Bish bash bosh” which is getting coverage recently. (One notable exception is “shit, shower, shave” but that is probably down to the chronology of the actions.)

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 4 months ago (3 children)

How else would one interpret it?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (5 children)

It's not really that I interpret it in another way, but I never really thought about the structure of the word 😅

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Go further. For example, people say 'gypped' without knowing it's a pejorative reference to the word 'Gypsy' which is itself a pejorative of the Romani.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

My favorite recently is sophist from the pejorative Platonic definition. It really puts words like sophisticated in a different etymological light and subtle contextual meaning.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I’ve had similar realizations about words like “across” and “again”.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I get "across", but what about again?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

A gain. In addition to.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I think the pronunciation, specifically the blending of the end of "upside" and beginning of "down", turns it into one of those compound words that your brain interprets as an independent word, rather than a combination of its composite parts.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Unused to wonder if the radio announcers that are always reciting the station call letters found that the letters stopped sounding like individual sounds, and the whole recitation became a sort of "word" for them. Like "You're listening to 102.9FM WBLM!" Did it stop being "double-you bee ell emm," and turn into more of a mashup of "dubbleyabeeyelmm"?

True, the difference is pretty subtle, especially to a listener, but I wonder strange things sometimes...

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Now explain why some people are "down for things" while others are "up for it"

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wait until you find out “bottoms up” isn’t about a group of people taking an elevator to get mimosas

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

Brave of you to post this

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago

Good grief...

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Wait until you learn the news is new.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

TIL that people didn't get this. I had a similar situation where I would pronounce unleaded as unleeded

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I used to do this all the time. You see a word in print, but you never hear anybody say it, so you wind up pronouncing it wrong.

I think the best was when I pronounced "misled" as my-seld because I thought it was the past tense of "misle".

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Well, yeah. That's.. how words work?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (6 children)

Does "right-side up" mean the right side is up or the "right" side is up? English does not make sense

also hi binette

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

Right = correct

"The correct side is up"

I agree, English is a mess.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Right as in correct.

hi nww :D

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Always funny to see native speakers discover trivial facts about their language

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (7 children)

I'm my language it's "bottom up" (ondersteboven).

Also came to a similar realization in my language with "averechts", which means the other way around.

Rechts = right (side, from my pov)

Averechts = ave ( dialect for "your") right side.

You're basically communicating "my right or your right". Asking for right or left can be done by saying rechts or averechts.

Also besides ondersteboven and averechts, we have achterstevoren, which means back side in front.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

We say something like "legs up"

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This reminds me of the time I had a co-worker tell me "That's why they call it 'work'. 'Cause you're working!"

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The opposite of "upside down" is not "downside up", but "right-side up".

The opposite of "right-side up" is not "left-side down", but "upside down".

Ladies, gentlemen, and all in between. The English language.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The up side is the right side. The down side is the wrong side. Quite logical to me

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Once you get a handle on inside out you can check out this ok go song

https://youtu.be/LWGJA9i18Co

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The letter W is both called "double-U" and looks like two letter Us combined (in some curvy fonts at least)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

In my language it's called double-v, which makes so much more sense to me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Apparently "W" was originally written as "uu" as early as ~600AD, hence the name, however it still used Latin/Roman letters which hadn't yet distinguished between u and v as letters. For at least 700 years, u and v appear to have been considered the same and interchangeable (so "Double U " could look like "uu" or "vv") but it depends on your language whether it was verbally called a "U" or a "V" until the first recorded distinction between the two in a Gothic era alphabet written in 1386. The two apparently did still see some overlap in use until about the 1700s with the turning point appearing to be when the distinction between their capital forms was accepted by the French Academy in 1726.

tl;dr: "Double U" predates the distinction between "U" and "V" so it's up to chance which letter a language called it before it stuck.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Even moreso if you consider the old Latin alphabet that used V and didn’t have U.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Thank God, another stupid person like me. We are strong in numbers.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Holy shit does that mean that inside out means the inside is out? 🤯

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

And then someone tries that again with "Just realized that "downside up" means "the down side is up", making it downside up" to see if it makes anymore sense.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Heh good insight.

(Ps I also have these thoughts about breaking words down (unicorn is uni-corn) and some people get really snarky about it. Don't let bad comments get to you.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Glad you finally made it to the party! Meaning we’ve all been having a party that you just made it to.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Wonder if OP thinks "right side up" means the left side is down

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Walking backwards is also called “penis-side butt” in some languages.

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