Thursday, January 30, 2014

Smelling Rosemary





This meme has been going around Facebook for a little while and links to some bullshit parading as journalism.  It is the perfect example of bogus "facts." I looked at the linked "article" (first saw it last month) and had to stop and bang my head on the table a couple of times. It keeps getting passed around and it's just meaningless nonsense with links to a bunch of actual scientific studies that say no such thing, I can't even see how you pry this "fact" out of the linked studies. Makes me crazy. My favorite part though is that it improves memory 75%... 75% of what? You can remember 3/4 more dates? 3/4 more musical notes? 3/4 more places where you stumped your toe? What does that even mean?!?!? Someone explain to me why anyone would write this nonsense, I seriously don't understand the drive to just make shit up. Do they sell rosemary oil or something?

Kiln

The word kiln is one of the oldest words.  Not oldest English words, oldest words.  Until American school teachers got their hands on it it was pronounced "kil."  Same goes with falcon (fokken) and palm (pom) and their until recent American English pronunciations.  And now you know.