Current favourite useless pieces of information

[johncorrigan]

Yesterday I was listening to an episode of 'the Museum of Curiosity' and have since been completely taken with the idea of Ablaut Reduplication. Some of you will know this, I am sure, but Etymologist, Mark Forsyth, explained that reduplication is when a word uses the same syllable one after the other, for example bye-bye; or pom-pom; or wee-wee. It would seem to be more common in English than any other language. Ablaut Reduplication is when the words have the vowel changed as in 'chit-chat', 'clip-clop', 'tick-tock'...for some reason in all cases the central vowel order is 'i' followed by 'a' or 'o', so we would never say 'dong-ding' to describe the sound of a door bell. In a three-word ablaut duplication the order is always 'i' followed by 'a' then 'o' for example 'bish-bash-bosh' or 'tic-tac-toe'. Nobody knows why this has developed this way, yet it would seem that we all know it - I lay awake last night looking for exceptions, but couldn't think of any though Spike Milligan did play about with 'Ning-nang-nong'.

Just wondered if anyone had any current, favourite, useless pieces of information which are lingering around their brain.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yesterday I was listening to an episode of 'the Museum of Curiosity' and have since been completely taken with the idea of Ablaut Reduplication. Some of you will know this, I am sure, but Etymologist, Mark Forsyth, explained that reduplication is when a word uses the same syllable one after the other, for example bye-bye; or pom-pom; or wee-wee. It would seem to be more common in English than any other language. Ablaut Reduplication is when the words have the vowel changed as in 'chit-chat', 'clip-clop', 'tick-tock'...for some reason in all cases the central vowel order is 'i' followed by 'a' or 'o', so we would never say 'dong-ding' to describe the sound of a door bell. In a three-word ablaut duplication the order is always 'i' followed by 'a' then 'o' for example 'bish-bash-bosh' or 'tic-tac-toe'. Nobody knows why this has developed this way, yet it would seem that we all know it - I lay awake last night looking for exceptions, but couldn't think of any though Spike Milligan did play about with 'Ning-nang-nong'.

Just wondered if anyone had any current, favourite, useless pieces of information which are lingering around their brain.

All the time - and I often raise them on this forum - but none of them are current, or even particularly favoured. The fact that they are useless is evidenced in the responses they elicit, and translate into discussion - or rather, by the lack of any follow-up.

[johncorrigan]

All the time - and I often raise them on this forum - but none of them are current, or even particularly favoured. The fact that they are useless is evidenced in the responses they elicit, and translate into discussion - or rather, by the lack of any follow-up.