#meaning that it’s entirely possible that when the first gravity driven wagon rails were invented in the 1500s | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

flareguncalamity · 2 years ago

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my toxic trait is that i saw a “fun fact” on a girl’s profile in a dating app, went this doesn’t fucking sound true, and spent over half an hour hunting through primary sources linked on wikipedia and learning the etymology and history of word-usage just to prove the very specific and meaningless thing she said was false and then tell her that through the dating app. she’s not even my type

#she claimed the reason we call trains ‘trains’ is because they’re named after George Train #who ran a prominent railway company in the mid-1800s #but not only is the earliest usage of the word train to refer to locomotives 4 years before train’s birth #(according to merriam webster)#but the usage of the word train to refer to a series of units being pulled along a path #actually dates back to referring to soldiers animals and wagons potentially as far back as middle english #meaning that it’s entirely possible that when the first gravity driven wagon rails were invented in the 1500s #that people were calling those shits trains too #because they were pulled. by trains of horses #train comes from an old medieval french verb meaning to draw or pull #it was used to describe things pulled along in linked succession long before steam locomotives existed #the idea that we could ever possibly attribute the naming of trains to one failed presidential candidate #who ISNT EVEN LINKED on the wikipedia’s history of trains page #is fucking preposterous. and frankly this person really should have fucking sensed that #like how do you hear a fact like that and just believe it whole cloth #you should have the sense. to know that we use the word train for other things #it’d be fucking insane if that man invented an extremely common use word and was never taught about in schools #like. what the fuck. that’s so intuitively misinformation #but you’re still???? sharing it?????? why?????#oc #if a girl was 100% my type and i really liked her and then she confidently shared this misinfo with me #it would like. sour my attraction to her a little bit

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