#english spelling is weird anyway because of I guess the french influence

[wesavegotham]

Unless the post is completely incomprehensible I feel like other people should be forbidden from correcting grammar and spelling on the internet.

A lot of people are not native speakers, typing is different than writing by hand and of course there is also auto-correct messing things up.

My own posts would probably be better if I used my native language. But I doubt there are many dc comic fans here on tumblr who would understand me so I'm kind of forced to talk about comics in a language that is not my own.

I probably sound arrogant quite often too, but man, how pretentious can people be.

And I'm the daughter of a teacher for german in Germany! I have corrected spelling and grammar in exams for my mother for years! I was raised to care about this stuff!

I'm still not going under anyone's post going "actually it's you're not your, huh huh". Like fuck off. How much of a pretentious prick can someone be. Get a hobby or something.

[shaanks]

So. This semester has been unpleasant from start to midterm and looks as though it’s going to be unpleasant all the way to the bitter end. I’ll make a separate post about it later but tl;dr the only real bright spot in a sea of needless unpleasantness and tedium is my German class. The teacher is a lot of fun, attentive, and knows how to balance group work and guided work so that we’re engaged but not left adrift in a language none of us speaks.

I really like my German teacher. 

However, there was a bit of an incident yesterday that’s left me stewing ever since. Partially because of the abrupt and incorrect nature of it and partially because this is the not the first time I’ve been around this circle. 

We were discussing silent letters in words in English. Specifically, we were discussing why words like “knight” and “knife” have the letter K in them if they’re not spoken and do nothing for the word. 

Now, I’m not saying my explanation was the gospel truth, but it went a little something like this. I raised my hand, she called on me, and I started to suggest that perhaps it was due to legacy impressions on our language made by French, as French has a HIGH prevalence of words with letters included that serve no purpose in pronunciation. (See here: Connaisaient, pronounced Connay. That’s six whole ass letters on the end you better fucking put in the right order but never ever say.)

Before I could get through the end of the word “French,” she jumped all over me. “English is a Germanic language.” She said. 

Which is factually accurate. English and German are definitely sister languages and definitely share a lot of linguistic and grammatical behaviours. 

“French has had no influence on English, neither has any other language. English is Germanic, and the only language that has ever influenced it or that it bears any resemblance to is German.” 

...Not factually accurate, even vaguely. 

“Nice try, good guess, but you’re still annoying anyone trying to learn your language with the  K in knife.” she jokes. Everyone has a good laugh, the class moves on, and honestly, she didn’t mean anything by it so I wasn’t gonna flex linguistic anthropology on her. (it was a little embarrassing to be laughed at about something I wasn’t actually wrong about, but that was my button that got pressed, not her problem, not the time or place, ya know?)

My big issue was mostly that this is the third professor I’ve had with a Ph.D. in both their own first language and English that did not seem to have any objective history on my birth language. This German teacher, with a Ph.D. in both German and English, and TWO French teachers, with Ph.D.s in French and English, have all said with absolute certainty that the only language to have any linguistic influence on English is German (said by the German teacher) and French (stated separately by both French teachers.) 

Wrong...and wrong. English is the weird Frankenstein’s monster of languages, stealing bits of older languages like the flu steals pieces of a host immune system and stitching them together into an amorphous blob of viral, living tissue that is constantly shifting and changing over time. Anything that got close to English in its infancy and adolescence was sifted through, stolen from and left without one of its kidneys in the ice bath of history. There is no single source for its evolution, regardless of whether the person asserting so sources that singular influence as German OR French. While I’m deeply considering writing the only-partially abridged anthropological perspective, I will stick to listing a few examples of vocabulary that help to illustrate the--at the VERY least shared-- parentage of English. 

Pork. In German, Pork is called Schweinefleisch. You can see some familiar cognates here, schweine = swine, fleisch = flesh. Both fairly easily recognizable. In French, Pork is called...Porc. Funny how that’s one single letter off the English word. Couldn’t possibly be a legacy word from when French-English was considered the high English in the 1600s, a period where germanic-English was the low English. Just a coincidence, I’m sure. 

Letter (as in to write a letter to a friend.) The word for letter in German is “brief.” Again, an easily recognizable cognate as we use the term brief in English for professional write-ups, we call certain types of meetings “briefings,” etc. The word for letter in French is...lettre. Again, impossible they’re related, must be a cosmic coincidence. 

Hospital. In German, this is krankenhaus, which translates to “sick house” as krank is sick and haus, another easy cognate, is house. In French, the word for hospital is--wait for it--hôpital. Technically one letter off again, although the accent mark here is used to denote where a word in old-French used to have an s in it, which was later omitted as the language shifted towards modern pronunciations. 

Forest. In German, this is Wald. Not really an easily recognizable cognate this time. In French, the word for forest is forêt. Again with the accent mark to show the placement of a since-omitted s. 

I realize these are only four words. Am I suggesting that these four words make up a decisive thesis on the linguistic heritage of my birth language? Absolutely not. And hell, I could be wrong about why English has so many words that contain letters that must be present in the spelling but are never said, or a least never pronounced consistently. (Looking at you rough, through, thought.) All I’m saying--and really all I’m trying to illustrate here--is that the presence of a linguistic behaviour inconsistent with the Germanic roots of the language pretty thoroughly disqualifies the theory that English had a singular origin, and all other grammatical quirks must have developed spontaneously. We live on a tiny little planet all on top of each other. 

Languages definitely have stronger similarities with other languages that share their roots (which is why it’s arguably easier to learn French if your first language is Spanish or Italian, for example, and likely why I find German much more intuitive than French.) but that doesn’t mean languages not related by root have had no influence on each other. That would be like saying the only people that influence your personality in your life are your direct blood relatives. Do you get a lot of your basic physical and psychological traits from your blood relatives? Of course! But that doesn’t mean we don’t take on board the traits and lessons of the people around us, and language is no different. How could it be, when language is the vehicle with which we communicate with those other people around us?

Anyway, it’s 1:53 AM and I think I’ve gotten this mostly out of my system. Sorry for the long ass post on your dash in the middle of the night and for the unsolicited mini linguistics lecture, I just had to get this out of my head or I was gonna keep stewing on it. 

[dramallamadingdang]

Reply-o-palooza! :)

This is really long because blah blah blah, and it addresses numerous subjects. And some of these go back...*ahem*threeweeks*ahem*...because I’ve been a bad, bad blogger as usual. So these are for *deep breath* @princess-arystal21, @caticalcorrectness, @fuzzyspork, @digitalangels, @kayleigh-83, @holleyberry, @eulaliasims, @dunne-ias, @blackswan-sims, @didilysims, @webluepeace, @twofingerswhiskey, @deedee-sims, @declarations-of-drama, @getmygameon, annnnnnnnnnnd @freezerbunny-sims...

princess-arystal21 replied to your post “YAY, I AM FINISHED WITH MY SECRET SANTA GIFT!  …Unless I think of...”

Please keep the discussion about Sims. Your Tumblr looks so much better when you talk about them instead.

“It’s my blog; I’ll put what I want on it,” is the usual reply, I think. And it’s true, too. My blog is probably 97% about Sims because I do prefer it that way, but sometimes I do talk about other, personal things, often silly, sometimes informational, very occasionally serious and real-world. Regardless of subject, if it’s not about Sims, it’s either tagged as “nonsims” or it’s behind a cut. Or both. So, people who use extensions that block tags they want to avoid can easily avoid all of it, if they choose. And when it’s not tagged, then people have to choose to read or not, since it’s behind a cut. I think that’s a reasonable solution when I feel a need to say something not Sims-related. Generally speaking, I won’t censor myself just to make other people happy, not in real life and not on a blog. Down that road lies madness.

fuzzyspork replied to your post “Whenever I type the word “banana,” I pretty much always type at least...”

If it wasn't for spell check I'd still be writing "bananna" which I still do but the red underline tips me off to it. XD Unfortunately spell check doesn't stop me from writing (and just then I just typed wiring...) homonyms of the word I meant to use. :/

Oh, homonyms are EVIL! Especially when using the wrong one makes you look stupid. Like when you use your/you’re or there/their/they’re inappropriately. I KNOW the differences between those words, but sometimes I type the wrong one and don’t catch it until much later. MAKES ME SO MAD! *stamps foot*

digitalangels replied to your post “Whenever I type the word “banana,” I pretty much always type at least...”

For some reason I always type word soul as "sould" and sometimes instead of writing "one" I write "wan". When I was little I struggled with my own name, it ends up in anna and every time someone asked my name I would reply like annannannaa so my grandparents nicknamed me "Nanna" they kept calling me that till they passed away.

I would bet that the “sould” thing comes from your brain thinking that you’re typing a word like “should” or “would” or “could.” I have the same sort of problem when typing a word that ends in “ine” because my brain thinks I must be typing a present participle or a gerund, words that end in -ing. So, “fine” becomes “fing.” “Tangerine” (another color name in the palette I made; I bring this stuff on myself!) becomes “tangering.” Very annoying.

And, ahhhh childhood mispronunciations! When I was a preschooler, I always pronounced “animal” as “aminal.” It’s STILL a family joke. I will NEVER live it down.

kayleigh-83 replied to your post “Whenever I type the word “banana,” I pretty much always type at least...”

I do it while writing by hand sometimes, I always want to write “with” as “withe” for some reason! Unconsciously trying to make it look old timey or something?

Maybe you were Chaucer in a previous life? :) I don’t do these things so much when writing on paper, because I’m much slower at writing on paper. My fingers don’t fly on ahead of my brain like they do when I’m typing at about 100wpm. :) 

princess-arystal21 replied to your post “Whenever I type the word “banana,” I pretty much always type at least...”

I often accidentally type "teh" instead of "the," or "atmoshere" instead of "atmosphere," or "footprings" instead of "footprints." Not sure why *scratches head in confusion.*

The “teh” thing is pretty common, I think. I mean, it became lolcat language, after all. :)  Or, depending on your age, maybe the lolcat influences your typing. :) The “footpring” thing is probably your brain being stuck on participles/gerunds, too, especially if you generally type fast. I have no explanation for “atmoshere,” though, unless you also mistype other words that use “ph” for f-sounds? :) 

caticalcorrectness replied to your post “YAY, I AM FINISHED WITH MY SECRET SANTA GIFT!  …Unless I think of...”

Oh thanks for that reply! In fact I didn't know anything about your election, but am mad about these mediastampedes I watched again and again - and people following that without trying to look behind the scenes. - Excuse me to not resist commenting. (oh that sounds weird, apologize for my poor english) - I DO understand you're able to think for yourself and you're not a part of any kind of 'Hexenjagd'.

Yeah, well, I know you’re not American, so I wouldn’t expect you to be up on the inner workings of our bizarre politics. :) But really, I think the problem isn’t the media in general so much as there’s just so much “media” these days, thanks largely to the internet, and some of it has a very definite agenda, which is often, frankly, subversive. (Lookin’ at you, Breitbart! :P) I mean, the press has always had a slant, even when it’s NOT government-controlled. The idea of the press being “unbiased” is silly; it never has been and, frankly, was never meant to be “unbiased.” The idea is that you get your news from various sources, being aware of each one’s bias, and then you use the brain and critical thinking skills that God gave you as well as a dash of common sense to filter out the bullshit (because there is always bullshit) and arrive at the (probable) truth. 

The problem is that, more and more, people DON’T use their brains. They get their news from a single source -- one that agrees with their own biases, of course -- and swallow it whole and become part of the echo chamber that parrots and reinforces the unfiltered bullshit on a bunch of like-minded people. It’s quite ridiculous. And then, yes, the Hexenjagd begins. :) Critical thinking seems to have become a lost art these days, but I don’t blame the media. It just does what it does, at least when it’s not government-controlled. *I* blame people who don’t think for themselves and who willingly lock themselves in echo chambers, regardless of the slant of that echo chamber.

holleyberry replied to your post “Whenever I type the word “banana,” I pretty much always type at least...”

bananananananananana batman!

Hah! Well, I was a huge fan of campy Batman when I was a kid... :D

caticalcorrectness replied to your post “Replies!”

Just found your reply. - It's very interesting, because here it seems we germans not only stealing, but USING more and more english words instead of using our own. We're loosing our language bit by bit! - Btw. the french seem to love their own langage way more... but they (so far I know) using the word 'Waldsterben' :)

In truth, all languages borrow from each other. English has always been good at borrowing and incorporating words from other languages. It’s also flexible; it’s easy to create words in English by sticking together prefixes and suffixes in odd combinations that people will still understand. But it goes the other way, too. I mean, I’m pretty sure the word for “telephone,” an American invention -- in pretty much all languages is...well, “telephone,” just spelled phonetically in the local language. A quick glance at Google Translate bears this out, anyway. (Although... What’s up with Finnish? “Puhelin?” WTF? :) ) Of course, "telephone” is ultimately...Greek, I’m pretty sure, so... Well, anyway, English steals words from AND donates words to other languages. All languages do, really. 

But yeah, I’m thinking that as the world becomes more interconnected, if English doesn’t just take over completely, eventually a common world language that everyone speaks will develop. I imagine it will be English-based because English -- thanks mostly to British colonialization amplified now by the internet -- is already the lingua franca, but with words borrowed from many languages...or at least from the dominant non-English languages on the planet, so probably Spanish and...transliterated Chinese, maybe? Or perhaps Arabic? I guess we’ll see. :) Anyway, my bet is that eventually there’ll be a “world language” and that people will still speak their own local language amongst themselves. Such as thing only makes sense as the world becomes progressively less insular. Plus, it’s already much that way, with English being the general internet language.

eulaliasims replied to your post “hey, im not sure if you know but the word 'gypsy' is a racial slur...”

I always call her the matchmaker too. Works just as well, or even better considering that it isn't a slur.

dunne-ias replied to your post “hey, im not sure if you know but the word 'gypsy' is a racial slur...”

I think just calling her the matchmaker works well though.

blackswan-sims replied to your post “hey, im not sure if you know but the word 'gypsy' is a racial slur...”

For what it's worth, I just refer to her as "the matchmaker."

Frankly, I don’t refer to the character much at all because she doesn’t really factor much into my game. I don’t use either matchmaking or potions in my normal game-playing, so the only function she serves in my game is dropping off genie lamps. So perhaps I’ll call her “the LDO” from now on: The Lamp-Dropper-Offer. :)

didilysims replied to your photo “What happens when you’re a family of four living in a one-bedroom...”

In the dead of winter no less!

Right? So, that mod that Gummilutt on MTS made that makes it so that Sims don’t freeze/overheat when sleeping tents is a godsend for me. :) I often use tents when families outgrow their houses because it’s often just (relatively) temporary, until some/all of the kids grow up and leave. Unless it’s an age-modded hood that greatly extends the child/teen lifestages, I don’t want to bother with massive remodeling or moving to a larger house which will quickly become an “empty nest,” anyway, since I don’t generally do multi-generational households in my game. So....tents it is when there’s an unexpected overflow! :D (I honestly thought that Sage would never marry, much less have kids! So, he just got a small, one-bedroom house.)

webluepeace replied to your photoset “Finished up this house. Have some interiors. There’s a furnished floor...”

Just curious, are you going to upload a furnished version? Because I really am in love with the interior!!

I don’t generally upload furnished houses because, frankly, I use a lot of Maxis recolors (98% my own) and repositoried sets (and don’t always use the master mesh on the lot) and custom objects of which I have a billion recolors. Maxis recolors don’t get included in lot packages. Neither do master meshes of repositoried sets when you don’t use that mesh on the lot. So for those, you have to hunt through your downloads and include a folder of separate files with the download. That is a time-consuming pain in the ass. And when you include a custom object on a lot, ALL of the recolors you have of that object package with the lot, too. So, for instance, I use Nengi’s rugs on pretty much all lots I build. I have about 200 recolors of those rugs. They all get sucked into lot packages if I include them and I then have to edit the package down to just the recolor(s) I used -- which, again, is time-consuming -- or else I’ll end up with 300MB lot packages full of unrelated object recolors, which I absolutely refuse to sic on downloaders. If I share a lot, I’m conscientious of including only what’s needed for that lot. Mostly because extra stuff pisses me off, when I download a lot from someone else.

That said, I have in the past uploaded a lot that is furnished and has custom meshes and walls/floors and such but that doesn’t include any recolors. So, it’s really ugly when you open it; it serves as a template of sorts to which you can apply your own recolors. If that would interest you, I could upload that house furnished, but you’d still have work to do to make it look exactly as I did it. That work will be easier if you generally download my recolors of things, but it’s not like you can’t do something equally as nice with entirely different recolors. Or maybe with no CC at all, who knows? I suck at CC-free, personally.

twofingerswhiskey replied to your photoset “OK, so the farmhouse I built turned out too big for the household it...”

this reminds me of tino's house in the weekenders!

I have no idea what you’re referring to, so I’ll have to take your word for it. :) And I have to hope that Tino’s house wasn’t an eyesore. :)

princess-arystal21 replied to your photo “What happens when you’re a family of four living in a one-bedroom...”

Reminds me of my first Asian family. Had them living in that tiny house that came with the IKEA expansion, and they ended up having 3 girls and a new floor being built.

Yeah, I rather enjoy cramming large families into small houses. :) I don’t really like playing large houses because the pixels get lost in them and I prefer to keep an eye on them. So, I’d rather cram a bunch of them in small spaces than let them spread out over a large space. They’re pixels; they don’t really care about personal space and privacy. :)

didilysims replied to your photo “Birthin’ time! And it’s another girl. Her name is Samantha.”

I may still call her Coconut. ;)

Thanks to you, that’s what I call her now, too. ;)

princess-arystal21 replied to your post “fuzzyspork replied to your post: I’m looking...”

I have issues with products popping up in weird spots outside the store, rather on the shelves where they belong. Then I find my stock person working way out in the street, or in the side-yards! Can't figure out how to stop that :/.

I can’t say I’ve ever had that issue, myself. But then, I don’t often have stores that sell stuff off shelves, mostly because I don’t like my Sims’ inventories becoming cluttered with a bunch of non-functional decorative crap. So, my owned lots tend to be venues or, if not, are things like salons, clothing stores, restaurants, electronics stores that sell video games and usable handheld devices, and grocery stores. Places that don’t sell useless non-functional crap, in other words. :)  

Are you using custom shelves? Perhaps they aren’t really OFB-compatible as far as being used as store shelves, so the restock functions don’t work properly? Or does it happen when you’re using the Maxis shelves, too?

didilysims replied to your post “Does anyone know...?”

Does the owner have to be townified? You could move her out and never play her again and she would retain ownership. Or even stick her in an empty lot in the corner of the map somewhere out of sight if you don't want a cluttered Sim Bin.

Nah, the owner doesn’t HAVE to be townified; I just want them to be. :) I know it doesn’t really make much of a difference in the grand scheme of things. The only real benefit is that when a playable ages up, the townified-playable will show up on the “Sims to age up with this Sim” screen. Non-played playables don’t. So, that’ll make keeping ages in sync a little easier. So I guess for my own purposes it’s really more of a symbolic thing than anything else. 

But I do like the idea of the hobby leaders owning lots. Then playables can visit and do the hobby leader interactions and hobby-related stuff without having a membership card (although I think the Visitor Controller can filter by OTH, now that I think about it, which will be useful for this) AND without having to use (or bother with the hassle of making over/replacing) the fugly and often nonsensical  Maxis stealth hood hobby lots. I can build better ones, keep them in my lot bin, and have the hobby leaders own them instead. :) Although I still have to test to see if that will work...

fuzzyspork replied to your post “Hey!”

omg I used to do cross stitch! So much so that I was part of a cross stitch forum online. I got rid of all that stuff the last time we moved since it had been about 6 years at that point since I'd picked up a project. Kinda miss it now...

deedee-sims replied to your post “Hey!”

I used to do cross-stitching too!

Oh, yay, fellow stitchers! :) I used to do it A LOT, and I’m having such fun with finishing this old project that I’ve ordered another little kit online, as a little XMas gift to myself. I don’t think it’ll consume me like it once did, but it’s fun to do when I don’t feel like...oh...Simming or doing Sims-related things.

declarations-of-drama replied to your photo “Pierre the Maid Dude earns his pay.”

I wish we had small terrariums in TS3 like this :)

Yeah, the ones in TS3 are kind of big, aren’t they? :\ I don’t know if that one has been/could be converted for 3 and still be functional rather than just deco, but it might be worth it to look? It’s basically the standard TS2 womrat cage without the stand, and it can be placed on any surface.

declarations-of-drama replied to your photo “Emmy popped with Vacation Baby. And then chilled in front of the nice...”

That's a lovely lounge! So many plants!

I have a tendency to overdecorate with plants. (And mirrors, being the child of the 70s that I am.) I think it’s because in real life I can’t keep plants. I like them, but I forget about them and kill them and then I feel terrible. So, most of the plants in my house are fake, the only exception being culinary herbs (including marijuana because it’s legal where I live) and giant aloe plants because they serve a purpose. (Respectively: I eat them and have an unfortunate tendency to accidentally burn myself. And I’ll also eat aloe -- and other cacti -- for that matter.) So, yeah, lots of plants in my Sims houses, where they can be pretty and I can’t kill them. :)

declarations-of-drama replied to your photoset “Random captured pics from Sage and Emmy’s Twikii Island honeymoon. 4...”

This makes me miss TS2 so bad! I used to love that charleton dude lol

YOU SHOULD PLAY IT! TS2 IS THE BEST! ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

Nah, I kid. :) TS2 is my main squeeze, sure -- and IMO its remaining online community is the best -- but I do cheat with TS3 on occasion. I have no interest in TS4, though...

eulaliasims replied to your photoset “It was time for the twins to teenify. I decided that Allison needed...”

That hair looks really good on Allison!

Yeah, I thought so! I’m always leery of using dreads on my Sims because frankly, while many of them are dark-skinned, none of them really look “classically black,” if you know what I mean, since I use just slightly altered Maxis face templates. And while in my head my Sims world doesn’t have a concept of races of people, the online community is touchy on the subject and I’m not looking for drama. So, I weighed things in my head and eventually went, “Screw it. That hair looks better on her than any other style I have, so it’s what she’s getting.”

kayleigh-83 replied to your photo “And the penguin showed up to have a chat with the twins’ snowperson...”

My penguin almost exclusively has conversations about mathematical formulae. He’s a really well educated fellow and Plumbbob knows he won’t get intelligent discourse out of my Sims!

Maybe penguins are like Douglas Adams’s dolphins, with a comprehensive knowledge of quantum physics. :) So, if the penguins all suddenly leave the planet with a “So long, and thanks for all the fish” in penguin language, perhaps we’d do well to follow them. ;)

getmygameon replied to your photo “And the penguin showed up to have a chat with the twins’ snowperson...”

Gotta love those random wtf speech bubbles 'Did I tell you the time I found a stale croissant. STALE! humans can't cook worth a damn I tell you! How do they survive ?!"

The penguins often have either very profound or very silly conversations. Both are signs of high intelligence, so there we go... :)

freezerbunny-sims replied to your photoset “I finished up the restaurant in GilsCarburg that will eventually be...”

The gallery looks so cozy and it actually reminds me of some restaurants in the beach towns of my province.

Oh, that’s good to hear, thank you! Because GilsCarburg is supposed to be a “beachy” community. Not in the tropical/Caribbean sense, though. More like a temperate “Northeastern US/New England” sort of “beachy,” the kind of place that people go to on summer weekends to lay on beaches like landed whales in order to escape the heat in nearby large cities. I fear I haven’t generally succeeded at that “feel,” though...because I often forget that that’s what I’m going for. So, it’s good when I (accidentally) do something right. :)

holleyberry replied to your photo “And then it was Gwen’s turn to age up. No party and no retirement for...”

Congrats on this accomplishment! It makes me want to go start a legacy.

I never really have success with standard legacies, at least not in the sense of just playing one subset (the “heirs”) of one family. That’s rather boring, to me. But I DO play whole neighborhoods for as long as I can, with multiple families over many generations. So I guess in that sense I DO play legacies. Legacies on steroids. And crack. Lots of crack.

didilysims replied to your photo “Cherry retired from firefighting. Luckily, they won’t be relying on...”

Ha ha, good to see she saved up for her old age! What was her job that pays such peanuts?

:D She was in the NPC firefighter career from the set of NPC careers that I have, which I guess were originally designed to be given to married-in NPCs in the various service careers. They are much less lucrative than the standard careers. The level one jobs all pay $50 a day. And since Cherry never rolled any wants for any skill points, ever, she never advanced past Level 1. Hence, her gigantic pension. :)

[kidsviral-blog]

The Terrifying True Origins Of Favorite Childhood Stories. YIKES.

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/the-terrifying-true-origins-of-favorite-childhood-stories-yikes/

The Terrifying True Origins Of Favorite Childhood Stories. YIKES.

As it turns out, children’s stories aren’t all puppies and sunshine (no matter what you thought growing up). As it turns out, most of the famous nursery rhymes and fairy tales have a really dark origin. 

1. Cinderella: Mutilation and Murder

Wikimedia Commons/Alexander Zick

“So, if I agree to feed you, you’ll totally blind my step-sisters, right?”

There are many different versions of the Cinderella story from all over the world, the earliest known variant being the Greco-Egyptian tale of Rhodopis. Most people today, though, know the story of Cinderella through Disney’s 1950 animated version. This version is based almost exactly on the 1697 version of Cendrillon by French author Charles Perrault, with some singing mice added in for fun. But this is the nice version. There are two others that were deemed unfit, and rightly so, for children. The Grimm brothers’ Aschenputtel features the wicked stepsisters getting their comeuppance by first slicing off bits of their feet to get into the famed slipper, which has been, over the years, glass, gold and fur. When that doesn’t work, they still attend the wedding, only to have their eyes pecked out by birds. The Italian version, Zezolla, or “Cat Cinderella,” by Giambattista Basile, finds the Cinderella figure killing her step mother by breaking her neck. 

2. Sleeping Beauty: Corpses and Sexual Assault

Wikimedia Commons/Gustave Dore

“Ugh, we really have to clean this castle out when you wake up.”

The Grimms’ Sleeping Beauty, also called Briar Rose, plays out similarly to Disney’s 1959 animated feature. Except for the hundreds of rotting bodies. See, everyone in the castle falls asleep for a hundred years and exists in a magical suspended animation. Outside, a thick forest of thorn bushes grow, preventing anyone from coming in and breaking the spell. That doesn’t stop people from trying, though, and as a result, they all die in the thorns. A century after the spell is cast, it expires and the briars simply turn into flowers by the time the lucky prince happens by. The flowers probably didn’t really help with all those corpses lying around, though. Going back farther, we find that, like with Cinderella, the Grimms borrowed heavily from a Basile story called “Sun, Moon and Talia,” in which Talia, the Sleeping Beauty figure, is raped by a king while she sleeps and gives birth to twins. The babies are born while she’s still sleeping, and wake her by sucking an enchanted splinter from under her fingernail. She marries the rapist king, but his jealous mother attempts to have the babies killed and served at dinner and to burn Talia, but everything works out and the queen is burned instead. Happily ever after!

3. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary: Torture, Religious Persecution and Political Upheaval

“Ha ha, where did you think I got those heads?”

Though there’s some dispute, this little rhyme is commonly associated with Queen Mary I of England, otherwise known as “Bloody Mary,” and who is possibly the origin of the mirror chanting tradition as well. She reigned for only five years, from 1553 to 1558, and was a fierce upholder of the Roman Catholic faith. During her short reign, she executed hundreds of Protestants. The “silver bells” and “cockle shells” are said to be torture devices, while “how does your garden grow” may refer to her lack of heirs. Conversely, the rhyme is also said to be about Mary, Queen of Scots or about Catholicism itself. 

4. Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe: Racism

Flickr/John Liu

“Eeny meeny…oh, isn’t there a rhyme that can help me choose that comes with less baggage?”

A favorite of indecisive schoolchildren everywhere, there’s nothing immediately about this rhyme. However, a tiger was not originally what they were catching by his toe. No, “tiger” is a relatively recent replacement for the original, which was the n-word. How charming. Even though most people don’t know this, it’s still an uncomfortable truth about the rhyme’s past and will probably leave a bad taste in your mouth. However, there have also been many similar “choosing” rhymes with origins in Ireland, England and Germany, usually using nonsense words and lacking blatant racism. That part came in with the American versions. 

5. Snow White: More Torture

Wikimedia Commons/Franz Jüttner

“Oh, you’re alive? Well…okay.”

If you thought the 1937 Disney version where the prince kisses what’s essentially a dead person in the middle of the woods was weird, you haven’t even begun to dig into this story, which, by the way, also has variants from all over the world. For one thing, the Grimm’s version, which the Disney one is based on, has the wicked queen trying to kill Snow White three times, and in the end, the wicked queen is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she falls down dead. The Grimms were really into cruel and unusual punishment. But wait. It gets better. Another Basile story, “The Young Slave,” has a young girl being poisoned and placed in seven nesting crystal coffins. However, she grows while in her magical coma. She’s wakened by a jealous aunt who beats her and makes her a slave until she is saved by her uncle, who helps her restore her health and marries her off to a baron. This story might have influenced both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. 

6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Even More Torture and Execution 

Flickr/universalstonecutter

“We’re in a Victor Hugo novel? Oh, this isn’t going to end well.”

In Victor Hugo’s original, Quasimodo is still in love with the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda, and acts as a liaison between her and her lover, the already-engaged Phoebus. Also, in the book, she’s not actually of Roma heritage, because racism, and was actually kidnapped as a child. Anyway, the lustful Archdeacon also desires Esmeralda, and when he finds out about her tryst with Phoebus, he stabs Phoebus and frames her for the attempted murder. Both she and Quasimodo are tortured, and Esmeralda is hanged for murder and her body tossed into a mass grave. Quasimodo crawls in after her and curls up around her corpse and dies. Many years later, the crypt is opened, and their skeletons are found wrapped around each other. Yeah, the Disney version is a lot happier. 

7. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush: Prison Workouts

Wikimedia Commons

“This is pretty nice for a prison yard.”

Legend has it that this rhyme originated in Wakefield Prison, and English prison for women, where the inmates were brought outside to exercise around a shrub or tree in the yard in the mornings. Mulberries, actually, grow on trees, not bushes, but it’s still an interesting theory.

8. Ring Around the Rosie: Maybe Not the Plague, but Subversion at least

Wikimedia Commons/Jessie Wilcox Smith

“Do we have the plague yet?”

The rhyme is famed for “actually” being about the Bubonic Plague, and I thought this, too, for a long time. “Ring around the rosie” was supposed to reference a skin rash that signified the onset of the plague, and “pocketful of posies” referred to the flowers people carried to mask the stench of death, which was believed to cause the illness. “Ashes” was thought to be a corruption of “achoo” as sneezing or coughing fits were the last symptom before “we all fall down.” You know, as in dead. However, historians highly doubt this. the rhyme first appears in writing in 1881, well after any major plague outbreaks. Early versions of the rhyme don’t even include lyrics about ashes or falling down and mainly seem to be about literal flowers. More than likely, the rhyme was simply rhythmic and charming, and was used by teenagers to subvert religious bans on dancing in the nineteenth century. Like with the Mulberry Bush rhyme, it’s possible that these have no “hidden meanings,” but rather that people just like to dance in circles.

9. The Little Mermaid: Suicide

Wikimedia Commons/Edmund Dulac

“Okay, maybe I didn’t think this through.”

Hans Christian Andersen was not a cheerful guy, and his best known fables, this and The Little Match Girl, are evidence of this. In the original mermaid story, the mermaid, in love with a human prince, has her tongue cut out to become a human and, hopefully, win him over. Being a human is painful, though, and it feels like she’s walking on knives. But her love is so great, she dances for the prince anyway. The prince, though, ends up marrying another girl, who he really loves, and the mermaid is heartbroken. The only way for her to return to the sea, though, is to kill the prince. She can’t bring herself to do it, though, and hurls herself into the ocean, where she turns into sea foam. Later, Andersen amended the ending and had her become a “spirit of the air,” because I guess that’s more cheerful?

So, can you still look at your favorite childhood stories and rhymes the same way? Don’t worry, there are plenty more messed-up fairy tales from all over the world, some that stem from actual historical issues, and some just speak to the weirder parts of the human psyche.

Read more: http://viralnova.com/mary-mary-no/

[kidsviral-blog]

The Terrifying True Origins Of Favorite Childhood Stories. YIKES.

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/the-terrifying-true-origins-of-favorite-childhood-stories-yikes/

The Terrifying True Origins Of Favorite Childhood Stories. YIKES.

As it turns out, children’s stories aren’t all puppies and sunshine (no matter what you thought growing up). As it turns out, most of the famous nursery rhymes and fairy tales have a really dark origin. 

1. Cinderella: Mutilation and Murder

Wikimedia Commons/Alexander Zick

“So, if I agree to feed you, you’ll totally blind my step-sisters, right?”

There are many different versions of the Cinderella story from all over the world, the earliest known variant being the Greco-Egyptian tale of Rhodopis. Most people today, though, know the story of Cinderella through Disney’s 1950 animated version. This version is based almost exactly on the 1697 version of Cendrillon by French author Charles Perrault, with some singing mice added in for fun. But this is the nice version. There are two others that were deemed unfit, and rightly so, for children. The Grimm brothers’ Aschenputtel features the wicked stepsisters getting their comeuppance by first slicing off bits of their feet to get into the famed slipper, which has been, over the years, glass, gold and fur. When that doesn’t work, they still attend the wedding, only to have their eyes pecked out by birds. The Italian version, Zezolla, or “Cat Cinderella,” by Giambattista Basile, finds the Cinderella figure killing her step mother by breaking her neck. 

2. Sleeping Beauty: Corpses and Sexual Assault

Wikimedia Commons/Gustave Dore

“Ugh, we really have to clean this castle out when you wake up.”

The Grimms’ Sleeping Beauty, also called Briar Rose, plays out similarly to Disney’s 1959 animated feature. Except for the hundreds of rotting bodies. See, everyone in the castle falls asleep for a hundred years and exists in a magical suspended animation. Outside, a thick forest of thorn bushes grow, preventing anyone from coming in and breaking the spell. That doesn’t stop people from trying, though, and as a result, they all die in the thorns. A century after the spell is cast, it expires and the briars simply turn into flowers by the time the lucky prince happens by. The flowers probably didn’t really help with all those corpses lying around, though. Going back farther, we find that, like with Cinderella, the Grimms borrowed heavily from a Basile story called “Sun, Moon and Talia,” in which Talia, the Sleeping Beauty figure, is raped by a king while she sleeps and gives birth to twins. The babies are born while she’s still sleeping, and wake her by sucking an enchanted splinter from under her fingernail. She marries the rapist king, but his jealous mother attempts to have the babies killed and served at dinner and to burn Talia, but everything works out and the queen is burned instead. Happily ever after!

3. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary: Torture, Religious Persecution and Political Upheaval

“Ha ha, where did you think I got those heads?”

Though there’s some dispute, this little rhyme is commonly associated with Queen Mary I of England, otherwise known as “Bloody Mary,” and who is possibly the origin of the mirror chanting tradition as well. She reigned for only five years, from 1553 to 1558, and was a fierce upholder of the Roman Catholic faith. During her short reign, she executed hundreds of Protestants. The “silver bells” and “cockle shells” are said to be torture devices, while “how does your garden grow” may refer to her lack of heirs. Conversely, the rhyme is also said to be about Mary, Queen of Scots or about Catholicism itself. 

4. Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Moe: Racism

Flickr/John Liu

“Eeny meeny…oh, isn’t there a rhyme that can help me choose that comes with less baggage?”

A favorite of indecisive schoolchildren everywhere, there’s nothing immediately about this rhyme. However, a tiger was not originally what they were catching by his toe. No, “tiger” is a relatively recent replacement for the original, which was the n-word. How charming. Even though most people don’t know this, it’s still an uncomfortable truth about the rhyme’s past and will probably leave a bad taste in your mouth. However, there have also been many similar “choosing” rhymes with origins in Ireland, England and Germany, usually using nonsense words and lacking blatant racism. That part came in with the American versions. 

5. Snow White: More Torture

Wikimedia Commons/Franz Jüttner

“Oh, you’re alive? Well…okay.”

If you thought the 1937 Disney version where the prince kisses what’s essentially a dead person in the middle of the woods was weird, you haven’t even begun to dig into this story, which, by the way, also has variants from all over the world. For one thing, the Grimm’s version, which the Disney one is based on, has the wicked queen trying to kill Snow White three times, and in the end, the wicked queen is forced to wear red-hot iron shoes and dance in them until she falls down dead. The Grimms were really into cruel and unusual punishment. But wait. It gets better. Another Basile story, “The Young Slave,” has a young girl being poisoned and placed in seven nesting crystal coffins. However, she grows while in her magical coma. She’s wakened by a jealous aunt who beats her and makes her a slave until she is saved by her uncle, who helps her restore her health and marries her off to a baron. This story might have influenced both Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. 

6. The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Even More Torture and Execution 

Flickr/universalstonecutter

“We’re in a Victor Hugo novel? Oh, this isn’t going to end well.”

In Victor Hugo’s original, Quasimodo is still in love with the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda, and acts as a liaison between her and her lover, the already-engaged Phoebus. Also, in the book, she’s not actually of Roma heritage, because racism, and was actually kidnapped as a child. Anyway, the lustful Archdeacon also desires Esmeralda, and when he finds out about her tryst with Phoebus, he stabs Phoebus and frames her for the attempted murder. Both she and Quasimodo are tortured, and Esmeralda is hanged for murder and her body tossed into a mass grave. Quasimodo crawls in after her and curls up around her corpse and dies. Many years later, the crypt is opened, and their skeletons are found wrapped around each other. Yeah, the Disney version is a lot happier. 

7. Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush: Prison Workouts

Wikimedia Commons

“This is pretty nice for a prison yard.”

Legend has it that this rhyme originated in Wakefield Prison, and English prison for women, where the inmates were brought outside to exercise around a shrub or tree in the yard in the mornings. Mulberries, actually, grow on trees, not bushes, but it’s still an interesting theory.

8. Ring Around the Rosie: Maybe Not the Plague, but Subversion at least

Wikimedia Commons/Jessie Wilcox Smith

“Do we have the plague yet?”

The rhyme is famed for “actually” being about the Bubonic Plague, and I thought this, too, for a long time. “Ring around the rosie” was supposed to reference a skin rash that signified the onset of the plague, and “pocketful of posies” referred to the flowers people carried to mask the stench of death, which was believed to cause the illness. “Ashes” was thought to be a corruption of “achoo” as sneezing or coughing fits were the last symptom before “we all fall down.” You know, as in dead. However, historians highly doubt this. the rhyme first appears in writing in 1881, well after any major plague outbreaks. Early versions of the rhyme don’t even include lyrics about ashes or falling down and mainly seem to be about literal flowers. More than likely, the rhyme was simply rhythmic and charming, and was used by teenagers to subvert religious bans on dancing in the nineteenth century. Like with the Mulberry Bush rhyme, it’s possible that these have no “hidden meanings,” but rather that people just like to dance in circles.

9. The Little Mermaid: Suicide

Wikimedia Commons/Edmund Dulac

“Okay, maybe I didn’t think this through.”

Hans Christian Andersen was not a cheerful guy, and his best known fables, this and The Little Match Girl, are evidence of this. In the original mermaid story, the mermaid, in love with a human prince, has her tongue cut out to become a human and, hopefully, win him over. Being a human is painful, though, and it feels like she’s walking on knives. But her love is so great, she dances for the prince anyway. The prince, though, ends up marrying another girl, who he really loves, and the mermaid is heartbroken. The only way for her to return to the sea, though, is to kill the prince. She can’t bring herself to do it, though, and hurls herself into the ocean, where she turns into sea foam. Later, Andersen amended the ending and had her become a “spirit of the air,” because I guess that’s more cheerful?

So, can you still look at your favorite childhood stories and rhymes the same way? Don’t worry, there are plenty more messed-up fairy tales from all over the world, some that stem from actual historical issues, and some just speak to the weirder parts of the human psyche.

Read more: http://viralnova.com/mary-mary-no/