Hidden Meaning of: Ring around the rosie
Posted by ashley @ 12:29 am on September 9th
Remember this old Children’s song… Ring around the Rosie. It may sound cute, but it isn’t. Many have associated the poem with the Great Plague of London in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the Black Death in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this; by 1951, however, it seems to have become well established as an explanation for the form of the rhyme that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie remark: “The invariable sneezing and falling down in modern English versions have given would-be origin finders the opportunity to say that the rhyme dates back to the Great Plague. A rosy rash, they allege, was a symptom of the plague, posies of herbs were carried as protection and to ward off the smell of the disease. Sneezing or coughing was a final fatal symptom, and ‘all fall down’ was exactly what happened.” The line Ashes, Ashes in alternative versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims’ houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme. In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_a_Ring_o%27_Roses
Were taller in the day then at night
Posted by ashley @ 12:35 pm on September 3rd
The body is taller in the morning than in the evening. How much varies from person to person, thanks to excess fluid between our discs, which is replenished while we sleep. As the day goes on, and our bodies undergo the strain of standing, the discs get compressed and the fluid seeps out, so the body loses that small bit of extra height.
Albert Einstein did not actually do badly in school when he was young
Posted by ashley @ 11:50 am on September 2nd
Einstein definitely did not fail at high school. Einstein was born on 14 March in Ulm, in Germany, in 1879. The next year, his family moved to Munich. At the age of 7, he started school in Munich. At the age of 9, he entered the Luitpold-Gymnasium. By the age of 12 he was studying calculus. Now this was very advanced, because the students would normally study calculus when they were 15 years old. He was very good at the sciences. But, because the 19th-century German education system was very harsh and regimented, he didn’t really develop his non-mathematical skills (such as history, languages, music and geography). In fact, it was his mother, not his school, who encouraged him to study the violin – and he did quite well at that as well.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2004/06/23/1115185.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience
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