Recent comments in /f/todayilearned

hornboggler t1_j9se2c1 wrote

Reply to TIL that the reason Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it 'macaroni' was because at one time macaroni was slang for something very fashionable or trendy by elephantsgraveyard

He "stuck" the feather in his hat like planting a flag, because he was claiming macaroni as the official American pasta, wresting it from the control of the eye-talians. And NOWadays, we make it better than they do! So we have done old Mr. Doodle proud, I reckon

−2

The_Linguist_LL t1_j9se1j3 wrote

Reply to comment by ALR3000 in TIL that there are more than 160 endangered languages in the United States alone. In addition to many Native American languages, Cajun French, Eastern Yiddish, and Martha's Vineyard, Hawaii, and Plains Sign Language are all endangered. by afeeney

Language loss isn't just a factor of connection, it's economic disparity, political, cultural, and linguistic discrimination and oppression, lack of institutional support, and ethnolinguistic genocide. People aren't just tossing their cultures to the side because they have neighbors.

−9

jrhooo t1_j9sb920 wrote

Reply to comment by backupKDC6794 in TIL that the reason Yankee Doodle stuck a feather in his cap and called it 'macaroni' was because at one time macaroni was slang for something very fashionable or trendy by elephantsgraveyard

I mean, the riding on a pony line is relevant too.

Riding on a pony with a feather in his cap seems like

Everybody in the upper strata is buying Maybachs and Rolls Royce,

Fuckin Colonial rides into town in a rented Chrysler 300 200

Stuck a diamond rhinestone hat pin in his baseball cap and thinks he's all red carpet ready

39

Bloomberg12 t1_j9s91b3 wrote

Reply to comment by fanghornegghorn in TIL that ligers (the offspring of a male lion and female tiger) are the largest big cat because, unlike lionesses, female tigers do not possess growth-limiting genes to counter the growth-maximising genes of male lions. by argh-ok

Very rarely, especially so for their size and life span.

They have 20 times the copies of a fairly common gene (P53) which targets cancer cells and this is seemingly pretty common for larger animals including blue whales but elephants specifically have another gene (LIF6) which is controlled by P53 and acts as another layer of defence. It's also a theory that it was a strong contributing factor as to why elephants got as big as they are because of the (extremely vague) timing.

1

The_Linguist_LL t1_j9s8sqj wrote

Reply to comment by samuelgato in TIL that there are more than 160 endangered languages in the United States alone. In addition to many Native American languages, Cajun French, Eastern Yiddish, and Martha's Vineyard, Hawaii, and Plains Sign Language are all endangered. by afeeney

I'm not claiming language loss is the sole cause of cultural homogenization.

First of all, language is part of culture. The mass eradication of human minority cultures including languages is what's horrifying.

These languages are not being lost because their speakers are throwing them away, they're being lost because economic inequality between cultures, political, demographical, and sociolinguistic discrimination and repression, lack of institutional support, and ethnolinguistic genocide are preventing speakers of these languages from maintaining their ability to choose whether their cultures survive into the next generation. The survival of a culture should always be an option for its members, yet it isn't in many cases.

Not to mention, every language represents a breadth of culturally specific knowledge, information, and stories, that die with it.

Not to mention that understanding human language in general, which is extremely important, requires research on the breadth of human languages.

There are thousands of reasons to protect linguistic diversity, and the only reason to want to decrease it is support of ethnolinguistic genocide.

7