ozoneocean
Yeah, it's all just a teeny bit silly and subjective on our part really. If you examine it ;)

But as things go, Ravens are currently at the top of the list currently. :)

currently........

Yeah but don't expect to see tons of cute ravens as characters in animated movies. Rats, monkeys, lions, mice, three toed sloths and mammoths but no ravens.

I miss Heckyl and Jeckyl the talking magpies.

Quoth the raven... nevermore.

When Roger Corman finished his movie version of The Raven he came in under budget and ahead of time. In the leftover time he made another movie; A Comedy of Terror with such a cast; Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Basil Rathbone. They don't make movies like that anymore.

when you bite into a fruit, you bite into a plant's overgrown ovary.

If you go swimming in a public pool, every day for a year, you end up drinking about 5 gallons of urine, collectively.

I have no statistics to prove this. Just one of those urban legends I was told once.

ParkerFarker
when you bite into a fruit, you bite into a plant's overgrown ovary.

When you eat and egg you are eating a chicken's period.

Because of a number of attributes such as large brain size, feathers, porous bones and elongated time spent with their young-- features of mammalian and avian features, a number of paleontologists theorize that a number of dinosaurs were actually warm blooded.

"Myrddin", later "Merlin" was the name of a bard in poetry who fled to the old Scottish forest of Cellydon for solitude.

Human's a have a useless third eyelid. It's the clear thing at the corner of your eye near your tear ducts. It's similar to the third eyelid of a crocodile. But of course, for us, it's completely useless.

Monstro
Human's a have a useless third eyelid. It's the clear thing at the corner of your eye near your tear ducts. It's similar to the third eyelid of a crocodile. But of course, for us, it's completely useless.

A nictating membrane? Most animals have one of those, not just crocs. Your cat or dog has one. They don't do anything for most animals, except make their eyes look weird when they wake up. I didn't know that humans still had their's :)

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"The Bridge" is a relative modern thing on ships. It came in with steamships when it was literally a bridge between the big paddle wheels. Before that ships didn't have a bridge, they were commanded from the poop deck at the stern.

Of course modern ships don't have a literal bridge any longer, even though the command centre is still traditionally known that way, but many still have enclosed platforms extending out of the sides of the superstructure called a "flying bridge"

ozoneocean
A nictating membrane? Most animals have one of those, not just crocs. Your cat or dog has one. They don't do anything for most animals, except make their eyes look weird when they wake up. I didn't know that humans still had their's :)

We still do.... technically. It's almost completely gone and is unable to cover our eyes at all. It's that small piece of bump, located at the inner edge of our eyes, that usually ends up collecting that crap, that we rub out of our eyes in the morning.

seems like we're going in the direction of "every year, you eat ten spiders."
i wish i could come up with something actually cool, but for now how about this:
"know that rattle when you shake up a can of spray paint? that's a kid's tooth!"

Sharks and snakes have two penises

A hyena's laugh indicates aggression rather then humor. They may sound like they are laughing to us but they're really telling each other to %^*$ off.

Ai Ais were originally thought to be related to squirrels rather then primates when they were first discovered

Ai Ais have the longest sexual intercourse of all primates with copulation lasting 45 minutes.

Turtles are not reptiles because they are anapsids rather then diapsids.

All mammals have a bone in their penis except humans and hyenas.

A duck's penis is longer then it's body.

Interesting facts on penisology!
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-Being overweight shortens your overall lifespan.

-Restricting your caloric intake increases your lifespan.

-Old people who are obese have a 30% greater chance of dying sooner than someone who is old and normal weight.

-Old people who are underweight have a 70% greater chance of dying sooner than someone who is old and normal weight.

-Old people who are overweight have a 26% greater chance of living longer than someone who is old and normal weight.

Among primates human females have the largest breasts. :)

"Flying bridges" were often open to the elements to get ensigns and midshipmen wet and cold when they are sent outside for no apparent reason with a pair of binoculars. --US Navy Tradition. ;)

When the age of the Egyptian civilization was first calculated it predated the supposed creation of the world in 4004 BC (The Ussher Chronology)

The word for the stereotypical Muslim sword "Scimitar" is now known to not be of Turkish or Arabic origin.

Moose are not allowed to have sex on city streets in Fairbanks, Alaska.

There is a gland in the mouse's nose which warn it in case of danger (pretty much like spider-man :D). Other mice will secrete an odorless molecule of calcium that can move freely into the air and be absorb by that gland.

In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.

Asrtonauts cannot cry in space, because there is no gravity so the tears can't flow.

Kotex were first used as bandages during World War I.

A South African antelope is almost the same color as grape juice.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing her hands in Jello.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo. Poor thing, truly.

Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.

There should really only be 6 colours in the rainbow, but Isac Newton was a very religious man and 7 was considered a somewhat holy number (7 days of creation). When he split white light and described the colours it formed he was looking for something religiously significant so he saw something religiously significant and included indigo.

Polliwog
In 1983, a Japanese artist made a copy of the Mona Lisa completely out of toast.

I've seen this thing in person. That makes me pretty classy! >:D

Many words with "sk" in them are derived from Old Norse, which England picked up when Alfred the Great established the Danelaw (870s) that allowed for Viking settlement beyond a specific boundary. The Vikings and English who mingled in the region had similar words for the same objects sometimes, so the similar words with "sk" ended up reassigned to other objects.

If memory serves, "skirt" once meant "shirt," but eventually shifted to the meaning we now use.

Ochitsukanai
If memory serves, "skirt" once meant "shirt," but eventually shifted to the meaning we now use.

That makes sense. In Icelandic, shirt translates into skirta. Icelandic is essentially old Norse since the settlers of that country spoke that language and geographical isolation protected their language from outside influence.

They say that the term "Berserk" comes from Viking warriors who were Odin cultists. "Berserk" meaning "bear shirt", i.e. a bear skin, which they'd wear into battle.

...There's also a theory it came from some mighty Roman fighter as well...

English and Old Norse were related through old Germanic, since most English comes straight from the Angles and Saxons, hence that made up "racial" classification for "white" people. :)

Ah, English may be a Germanic decent but it's considered to be one of the most corrupted Germanic language, after Danish. They have so many borrowed words from other language groups (particularly Latin) and it's changed so much over the time that you'll have a hard time recognizing Old English from Medieval from Modern.

What about Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans?
Studies have shown that for most modern English speakers, 60-80% of the words they use every day are still from Anglo-Saxon.

The Norman French, Latin, old Norse, and Celtic components aren't that strong, and only make up a bigger par when people are speaking in a more "formal", technical, or scientific way.

ozoneocean
What about Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans?

There's even a dash of Japanese. ^^

Product Placement

ozoneocean
What about Dutch, Flemish, and Afrikaans?

There's even a dash of Japanese. ^^

No, what I meant was that those are also based on old Germanic too, like English. You said English was the most degraded of the ones based on Germanic but didn't mention them. I bought them up to so you could widen the comparison :)

Oh OK. I thought you were saying that those languages had affected English. I stand corrected.

But at least I did say "One of the most", not "the most". Dutch definitely seems to fall into that category.

The majority of the English vocabulary is not Old English, even if much of our spoken language is. French, Latin and Greek influences are fairly strong regardless of whether one speaks formally, although formal, technical, or medical speech does ensure more usage of words derived from those languages...

Why the negative connotations implicit in describing English as "corrupted" and "degraded," though? English's structure easily takes loanwords; its importance and ubiquity ensures that it will. Even hundreds of years ago during Middle English, the idea of English as linguistically pure was ludicrous. But what's wrong with that? Language isn't pure; even a conservative language changes. Even Icelandic will surely gain nouns at an increasing rate, especially with the progression of technology, globalization, and the Internet. :)

Ochitsukanai
The majority of the English vocabulary is not Old English, even if much of our spoken language is.

Spoken was my point though. And not even Old English, but the Anglo Saxon root words. It makes up the highest proportion of everyday spoken and written informal English- regardless of what's in the entire collected lexicon.

-"degraded" is a relative term, especially in this context. It's not describing English, but English as descended from old Germanic.

Most one syllable words in English are from Anglo-Saxon. Except for syllable all the words of previous sentence have Old English origins. Anglo-Saxon for all intents and purposes is Old English (with some regional dialect differences).

If you read Beowulf in Old English you are reading Anglo-Saxon, at least according to the professor teaching the class in Rutgers University. :) One Medieval Studies professor at Rutgers did an entire lecture on the Danelaw in words originating from Old Norse (which came into English through the Danelaw.)

English is a polygot language because like it or not England was invaded a lot. Then like it or not English speakers went around the world making empires and borrowing words as needed.

As for Berserk, in Go a Viking The Sword of Kings the name of the character Ivar Bearskin refers to that origin. Write a comic about Vikings and you better know that. ;)

Old English! Thats where I'm a Viking! (despite the fact that... okay, well obviously the Vikings had their Old Norse and... Yes. I only did that as a segway, and I'm not proud. u_u )

And I would argue that if you hold your mouth funny and tilt your head you can read some Old English with some time and a basic understanding of grammar. "The Fall of Adam and Eve" is fairly easy if you speak what you see. If you're interested in learning I highly suggest you look for the name "Peter Baker".

The Good Stuff!:

"The more the merrier" is a carry over from Old English where "tha", as the tongue should want to pronounce what we precieve as articles, actually made for a term of degree. Thus "the (more/less there are) the (more/less) merrier" one can expect to be!

English has seen three waves of Latinate linguistic emergence, first with the Romans, then the Normans, and finally by the English themselves in the Age of Science when words such has 'pnuemonia' were introduced out of both necessity and in the case of having an alternative Anglo-Saxon equivalent, aestetic.

Since the time of the Norman invasion in 1066, Anglo-Saxon words have been replaced with Latinate forms because of the elite's (naturally) ethnocentric feeling that the commoners of Britain's language was not up to snuff. So it stands to reason that words which the elites would encounter have Norman-French roots and the peasantery tend not to. This is especially apparent with the difference in foods and farm animals.

Many words in Old English do survive scattered in regional dialects. In Edinburgh there a pub called the "Auld Hoos", which is perfect Old English, but it's also perfect Scots! (it also serves some terribly bland chilli, well... compared to what we have in Texas, at least.) ;)

Ochitsukanai
Why the negative connotations implicit in describing English as "corrupted" and "degraded," though? English's structure easily takes loanwords; its importance and ubiquity ensures that it will. Even hundreds of years ago during Middle English, the idea of English as linguistically pure was ludicrous. But what's wrong with that? Language isn't pure; even a conservative language changes. Even Icelandic will surely gain nouns at an increasing rate, especially with the progression of technology, globalization, and the Internet. :)

You've never experienced a conservative language until you've experienced Icelandic.

So far, it's gone above and beyond in resisting all outside influence. Yes, we do gain nouns at at an increasing rate but very few of them are taken from other sources, instead made up, using strict rules.

Take computer for example. Instead of directly incorporating it into our language, like many other languages did, the functionality of the computer was thoughtfully examined. At the time this peace of technology came to our attention, a computer had been used for the first time to accurately predict the outcome of a US presidential election (the Regan election if memory serves me right). Since it was apparent that this machine could predict possible outcomes by using data and numbers, it was decided that the new name for a computer would be a fusion of two. "Tala" meaning number and "Völva" which was an old word for a fortune teller = Tölva.

Television is Sjónvarp. A combination of the word "Sjón" meaning sight and "Varp" meaning display.

Elevator is an example where we took the verb "Lyfta" which means to lift and made the noun "Lyfta" which now means elevator.

Cell phones are "farsími" Sími is the word we chose for a phone (forgot why) and "far" is a prefix we put on things to mean that it's mobile. We also use it to explain lap tops. Fartölva. A mobile computer.

It's funny to watch as new items pop up and it's put through the trial and error of figuring out what it should be called. We're having a hell of a headache trying to figure out what we should call I-pods.

So Iceland has it's own equivilent of the Academie Francaise.

Regular German has often been the same way. Fahrzeug for vehicle? (travel thing) Everything in German seems to be a compound. Tanks are tanks in every other language (TAHK in Russian) but in German it has to Panzerkampfwagen a compound meaning "armored fighting vehicle".

bravo1102
Panzerkampfwagen

"Panda Camper-Van" :)

All these compound words make pidgin English sound less funny. :(

bravo1102
So Iceland has it's own equivilent of the Academie Francaise.

Regular German has often been the same way. Fahrzeug for vehicle? (travel thing) Everything in German seems to be a compound. Tanks are tanks in every other language (TAHK in Russian) but in German it has to Panzerkampfwagen a compound meaning "armored fighting vehicle".

fahr, short for fahren: v to ride or drive. so drive thing.

3 jahre von deutsch. i still remember the basics!
learning german, was easy, because many words are almost identical to english, or have some form that is recognizable.