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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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This space reserved for odd stories you discover that may fuel new thinking.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Woman Without a Vagina Impregnated
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Fish help keep you sane
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Dinosaur extinction linked to Swiss Army knife:

The ejected debris can be seen in rocks from 65 million years ago


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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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Chad wrote:
Dinosaur extinction linked to Swiss Army knife:


A link would be good.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Just my warped sense of humour
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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The opposite of Autism.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Williams syndrome [is] a rare genetic disorder with a number of symptoms. The children are often physically small and often have developmental delays. But also, kids and adults with Williams love people and are pathologically trusting: They literally have no social fear.

Ah, the innocence of youth.

Isn't there a law against posting URLs without interpretation or commentary though?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Yes but Ishmael has a a Certificate of Immunity because
a) he is the kind of unthinking toe-rag who is the first to abuse others for offences he commits himself without hesitation and
b) he very nobly offered to pay for the site when I could no longer do so, even though his own circumstances in the lower levels of an advanced capitalist society are similar to my own .

I know from experience you won't but those of you who get benefit from these proceedings should consider lobbing some dosh his way. Or at any rate feel a modicum of guilt.
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Ishmael


In: Toronto
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This is the Cabinet of Curiosities. It's the one area where you can post up something odd and fascinating without commentary. It's a place to come to get inspired to think new thoughts.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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So there's this historically significant peninsula with two smaller extensions at the end, forming a grasping hand or heel-and-toe surrounding a semicircular bay. Just to the west is the island of Sicily.

And there's this historically significant peninsula with two smaller extensions at the end, forming a grasping hand or heel-and-toe surrounding a semicircular bay. Just to the west is the Isles of Scilly.

What gives?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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A quick squint at Wiki failed to reveal the meaning of either "Scilly" or "Sicily". Some mention of the Odyssey, though. Reminds me of Scylla.

Wilkens places Scylla and Charybdis around Land's End. Everyone else places them at Italy's end.

"Charybdis was once a nymph-daughter of Poseidon and Gaia who flooded lands for her father's underwater kingdom until Zeus turned her into a monster" [Encyclopedia Mythica] Sounds more like the Celtic Shelf than the Med.

Is there a "Land's End" in Sicily/Italy?
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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What gives?


Etymology online gives silly
Old English gesælig "happy, fortuitous, prosperous" (related to sæl "happiness"), from Proto-Germanic *sæligas (cognates: Old Norse sæll "happy," Old Saxon salig, Middle Dutch salich, Old High German salig, German selig "blessed, happy, blissful," Gothic sels "good, kindhearted"),from PIE base *sel- "happy" (cf. Gk. hilaros "gay, cheerful," L. solari "to comfort," salvus "whole, safe").

Perhaps salt-related? At any rate it's clear that 'silly' is one of those words like nice that has changed beyond recognition.

[the happy connotations of silly reminds me of Cecilia, patron saint of music in Catholic tradition. Music and sea-faring seem to go together].
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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Etymology online gives silly O.E. gesælig "happy"...

NSOED agrees silly is a version of sele, seely: happy, fortunate, lucky; favoured or blessed by God, but the first thing it says of silly specifically is "deserving of pity, compassion, or sympathy".

"Isles of the Blessed" or "Isles of Poor Sods All But Washed Away By Rising Seas"?

The Isles of Scilly are never in the frame for the Fortunate Isles, apparently, although "the islands are said to be two in number separated by a very narrow strait and lie 10,000 furlongs from Africa" fits them* at least as well as any part of Macaronesia.

And I'll bet "these islands, however, are greatly annoyed by the putrefying bodies of monsters**, which are constantly thrown up by the sea" probably fits the Scillies better now and much better in the years following the inundation of the Celtic Shelf.

* And Great Britain + Ireland.

** Loch Ness Monster types were all stirred up some years ago by pictures of a rotting basking shark(?) picked up by a trawler that, once its jaw and most of the flesh of its head had dropped off, looked somewhat like a plesiosaur. And the mystery element was enhanced because they dumped it again: too foul to hang onto.

the happy connotations of silly reminds me of Cecilia

Cecilia: Latinate feminine form of the Roman family name Caecilius, which was derived from Latin caecus "blind".

Blind as in "doesn't go through, dead end": Scilly/Sicily = Land's End? Or blind as in "without light, in the dark": Scilly = the (farthest) West?

Cecil: From the Roman name Caecilius. This was the name of a 3rd-century saint, a companion of Saint Cyprian.

A companion of Saint Copper!?

in the 19th century it was given in honour of the noble Cecil family [whose] surname was derived from the Welsh given name Seisyll, which was derived from the Roman name Sextilius, a derivative of Sextus.

Dunno how they know that, but sex(tus)/seis(yll) = six = sex: divided, cut off. (Creation is done in six, then comes sever.) Cut off, the end: it still says Land's End and/or the last bit, isolated from the rest.

Cf. cease, sessile, session, cede, sedate, sedentary {S = T, T = D} all meaning sit, stay put, remain. {"Isles of Remains" in more than one sense?}

Is Sicily a name transferred from "the Old World" to the Eastern Med, as Wilkens would have it?
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Sill: beam forming the foundation of a wall OE.; lower horizontal part of a window opening XV; threshold XVI. OE. syll(e) = MLG. sul(le), MDu. sulle, rel. to MLG., MDu. sille, ON. svill, syll, and MHG. swelle, OHG. swelli, swella (G. schwelle threshold), Goth. gasuljan found, establish, sulja sole.


Isles of the Sill? -- threshold -- continental shelf?
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