Things you have recently learnt

fenix

I only found out about the tabs on cling film the other week.

Oh I know one - have you seen the bear in the Toblerone mountain ?

kingstongraham

darkhairedlord wrote:

KingstonGraham wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

Get out of here. I even forget on my own car. This is the most useful thread on here.

you fill the car yourself?

Have to, a couple of times a year at least.

surrey_commuter

elbowloh wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I thought that was common knowledge.

Like the tabs on the end of a box of clingfilm or tin foil, that push inwards to hold the tube in place.

I may have to leave work early to check that

mr_goo

elbowloh wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I thought that was common knowledge.

Like the tabs on the end of a box of clingfilm or tin foil, that push inwards to hold the tube in place.

This is exciting news. Will be looking into this.

bompington

Most useful of all: to avoid that most frustrating of modern woes - opening the packet of pills and finding that you are always staring at the paperwork - just look for the embossed date on the end. See if you can spot the pattern.

rjsterry

Surrey Commuter wrote:

elbowloh wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I thought that was common knowledge.

Like the tabs on the end of a box of clingfilm or tin foil, that push inwards to hold the tube in place.

I may have to leave work early to check that

All for nought if the serrated cutting strip has failed YET AGAIN to be properly attached to the lip of the box.

chris_bass

bompington wrote:

Most useful of all: to avoid that most frustrating of modern woes - opening the packet of pills and finding that you are always staring at the paperwork - just look for the embossed date on the end. See if you can spot the pattern.

I learnt that a while ago and it is life changingly amazing!

chris_bass

In Outlook ctrl+2 takes you to your calendar, ctrl+1 goes back to mailbox, the other numbers do less useful stuff too!

kingstongraham

rjsterry wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

elbowloh wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I thought that was common knowledge.

Like the tabs on the end of a box of clingfilm or tin foil, that push inwards to hold the tube in place.

I may have to leave work early to check that

All for nought if the serrated cutting strip has failed YET AGAIN to be properly attached to the lip of the box.

https://www.bacofoil.co.uk/product/easy ... ling-film/

This is a lifechanging product. In a very small way, agreed.

kingstongraham

If you type "do a barrel roll" into google, it does.

keef66

bompington wrote:

Most useful of all: to avoid that most frustrating of modern woes - opening the packet of pills and finding that you are always staring at the paperwork - just look for the embossed date on the end. See if you can spot the pattern.

I'll look out for that; picking up my sack of prescriptions on Friday.

I'd love to know how many trillion tons of paper are printed, packaged, discarded / recycled without being read. I'm on various meds, some apparently for the rest of my life, but having read each leaflet avidly the first time I'm unlikely ever to do so again so they just go in the recycling every month. Seems a waste but I suppose the alternative is a new user not getting the info at all. Maybe as we stumble onwards into this increasingly digital age the leaflet could be accessed on a smart phone by scanning a QR code?

The ubiquitous foil / plastic blister pack is another thing that concerns me. Nearly every pill is packaged that way, but AFAIK the things aren't recycled so go to landfill. Surely somebody can come up with a more sustainable solution??

tangled_metal

Glass pill boxes? Used to get plastic ones but glass ones could be recycled. Deposit paid at pharmacist?

Stevo_666

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I'm going to check mine tonight - my car has a digital dashboard, so let's see if they programmed it in.

verylonglegs

That there are many different tie knots.

mr_goo

Stevo 666 wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I'm going to check mine tonight - my car has a digital dashboard, so let's see if they programmed it in.

I can confirm that my car from the Fatherland has its digital dash correctly programmed.

Stevo_666

Mr Goo wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Surrey Commuter wrote:

On a car fuel gauge there is an arrow that indicates which side the filler cap is on

I'm going to check mine tonight - my car has a digital dashboard, so let's see if they programmed it in.

I can confirm that my car from the Fatherland has its digital dash correctly programmed.

That's where my car is from as well, I just can't remember ever noticing the little pointer thing that SC refers to.

shirley_basso

In the centre of the fuel gauge is a little fuel pump icon with an arrow pointing < or >

PolderRider

Some grammar.
Apparently have been saying 'less' with countable nouns when i should have used 'fewer'.
Always thought fewer was for posh people but turns out my english grammar education was sadly lacking

robert88

PolderRider wrote:

Some grammar.
Apparently have been saying 'less' with countable nouns when i should have used 'fewer'.
Always thought fewer was for posh people but turns out my english grammar education was sadly lacking

Grammar schools, innit. There are less of them.

mouth

keef66 wrote:

In my world the priority boarders all have carry-on bags the size of a small fridge so by the time I get on the overhead lockers are all stuffed to capacity.

However, no more business flights for me now. I'm off! Hurrah!

Went on a stag a few years ago and flew from East Mids to Edinburgh with Flybe. A few of the guys teamed up and threw all our toiletries/non carry-on stuff in one checked case whilst each having a carry on. The crew ended up putting our case, along with one other in the cabin because there were only two checked onto the flight rather than in the hold, I expect to avoid ground handling fees on their end. We saw the bag come on board and we had access to it all the way through the flight, and even carried it off as hand luggage when we landed. Cue snotty email asking for a refund for the baggage fee, which was rejected. This turned into "either you refund us the whole ticket (guy in question had booked for 6 of us) or we report it to CAA" which was successful.

That bag contained at least one cut throat razor, barbering scissors, couple of bottles of spirits and many lighters/smoking stuff along with aerosols and other bathroom stuff. The potential for disaster could have been huge in the wrong hands.

chris_bass

PolderRider wrote:

Some grammar.
Apparently have been saying 'less' with countable nouns when i should have used 'fewer'.
Always thought fewer was for posh people but turns out my english grammar education was sadly lacking

It is almost like i mentioned this in the first post isn't it

It gets a little confusing with measurements - you can count units of time, weight, distance etc but generally the accepted word is less

"Less is also used with numbers when they are on their own and with expressions of measurement or time, e.g.:

His weight fell from 18 stone to less than 12.

Their marriage lasted less than two years.

Heath Square is less than four miles away from Dublin city centre."

https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/less-or-fewer

briantrumpet

Chris Bass wrote:

PolderRider wrote:

Some grammar.
Apparently have been saying 'less' with countable nouns when i should have used 'fewer'.
Always thought fewer was for posh people but turns out my english grammar education was sadly lacking

It is almost like i mentioned this in the first post isn't it

It gets a little confusing with measurements - you can count units of time, weight, distance etc but generally the accepted word is less

"Less is also used with numbers when they are on their own and with expressions of measurement or time, e.g.:

His weight fell from 18 stone to less than 12.

Their marriage lasted less than two years.

Heath Square is less than four miles away from Dublin city centre."

https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/less-or-fewer

Here's something I wrote elsewhere:

Do you care about the distinction between 'less' and 'fewer'? If you do, I suggest that you shouldn't.

Firstly, we have only one word for 'more' of anything, whether it's countable or not, and that confuses no-one.

Secondly, 'less' and 'fewer' were synonyms for countable things until some dictionary writers decided to make a distinction. The distinction serves no useful purpose whatsoever (see 'more'), other than pedants tut-tutting at people or supermarkets who 'know less'.

Thirdly, here's a thought experiment: would you say "That's one less thing to worry about!" or "That's one fewer thing to worry about!"?

It's a pointless distinction, and is mostly used by people to make themselves feel superior to those who don't bother to distinguish, either because they know that it's pointless, or because they were blissfully unaware.

Ask yourself this question, PolderRider: did you ever get confused or cause confusion because you weren't aware of the distinction?

chris_bass

isn't the same true of almost all grammar?

if someone says they're, there or their interchangeably does anyone really not know what they mean?
if someone says i "could of" done something is the person they are talking to left dumbfounded as to what they are talking about
if someone were to tell you "your right" would you ask "my right what?"

I completely agree though, grammar is kind of pointless but i still find it a little interesting and that is coming from someone with a maths degree who barely had to write a sentence during their whole degree!

Stevo_666

Shirley Basso wrote:

In the centre of the fuel gauge is a little fuel pump icon with an arrow pointing < or >

Yep, its there. Pretty small but definitely there. Been hiding in plain sight. Doesn't solve the problem of how fast the gauge goes down, mind

briantrumpet

Chris Bass wrote:

isn't the same true of almost all grammar?

if someone says they're, there or their interchangeably does anyone really not know what they mean?
if someone says i "could have" done something is the person they are talking to left dumbfounded as to what they are talking about
if someone were to tell you "your right" would you ask "my right what?"

I completely agree though, grammar is kind of pointless but i still find it a little interesting and that is coming from someone with a maths degree who barely had to write a sentence during their whole degree!

There's a difference between oral language and written language (well, lots of differences): in oral/aural language, not only is it (generally slower) than how most people read, you have several paralinguistic clues (context, intonation and gesture, for instance) to aid comprehension. Many of the conventions of spelling, punctuation and grammar come into their own in written language, where the conventions (not 'rules' - I think that's where pedants often are mistaken) are there to aid speed and accuracy of conveyance of meaning. So, aurally, 'they're' 'their' and 'there' are usually easily understood, in context, but if misused in written language, cause the reader to momentarily trip up, or to do a double take. Try 'bored of/with/by' on pedants, and you'll see how pointless some pedantry is, but how entrenched views are... the 'rules' to them seem to be more important than the comprehension.

If you enjoy this sort of stuff, this is a good book - it debunks some of the shibboleths of pedants. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-English-Hi ... 0399165584

antonyfromoz

It might be common knowledge but I recently realised that the clothing care labels on shirts are sewn on the left hand side (or only in the neck area) which helps with jumpers and tshirts that are otherwise pretty much identical front and back.

ballysmate

I always thought the term for a long time was "Donkey's Years" but it is in fact "Donkey's Ears"
Cockney rhyming slang innit.

veronese68

Must confess I didn’t know that one friend of Bally. The correct usage would just be donkeys, as the ears bit is inferred. Like you shouldn’t say dog and bone in the place of phone, it’s just dog.
The one people often get wrong is aris’ not arris. The origin being aris’ as an abbreviation of Aristotle, that rhymes with bottle. Which rhymes with bottle, that leads you to bottle and glass. Glass of course rhymes with a word not too far from aris’ but it got there by quite a tortuous route.

darkhairedlord

Someone may have posted this but the use of "waster" as a useless person when the correct term is waister.

briantrumpet

darkhairedlord wrote:

Someone may have posted this but the use of "waster" as a useless person when the correct term is waister.

I'm afraid you might be mistaken: the OED does define a waister as "Waisters, a name given to the men stationed in the waist in working the ship."

But, for 'waster':

One who lives in idleness and extravagance; one who wastefully dissipates or consumes his resources, an extravagant spender, a squanderer, spendthrift. Now chiefly dialect, with some notion of sense 6, a worthless person, ‘ne'er-do-well’.

Indeed, this usage has a long history, going right back to the 14th century. And in the 1970s, by a chemistry teacher at my school, who would frequently exclaim "You're a waster, boy!" to miscreants.