For all you who missed the “gorilla” reference. there’s a wonderful video that shows a group of kids tossing a ball around in a room and in the background a gorilla walks through…but most of the audience viewing the video don’t see it! I’ve done this with my students many times and a many (but not all) of the students fail to catch the gorilla. (And I’m watching them to make sure they’re all paying attention). When I re-run the video, they’re amazed that they missed it.
The original gorilla video, and the new one, are undeniably amusing. But what they show – that if you concentrate on one thing, you’ll miss other things – that’s exactly the point of concentration.
I solve technical problems at with by sitting there at my desk thinking about nothing else but the problem. The ability to block out everything else is what lets me solve those problems. That’s the point of concentration. (And it’s why I hate texting and instant messaging: they interrupt concentration and are hard to ignore.)
Laripu, we say “sittfläsk”.
A big bonus for negotiators doing all-nighters. Derogatory term: “betonghäck”. With just a little Germanic it is also self-explanatory.
I get bollocked all the time from my wife, for not listening to her blathering on about what her friends goldfish has done or summmat…I am engrossed in the maths universe book at the moment…rivetting stuff, enough to seal any hull rupture….
Because of cruelty to animals considerations. The Taipan, being camouflage coloured and lying on the floor, could easily be trodden on and hurt accidentally by one of the basketball players. A cat could easily weave between the legs of the players without being trodden on, as cats, being very agile, are well capable of.
Rrr, Google Translate translates sittfläsk as “pork” in three Scandinavian languages. And betonghäck is “concrete hedge” in all three too.
Two things annoyed me:
First, that the latest update of Google Translate on my phone has completely changed the look and feel.
Second: that I couldn’t figure out which Scandinavian language you’re using. So I’m going to conclude that it’s an unusual variety of Polish. 😉
No amount of concentration will fix a grumpy old man. 🙂
Laripu: Polish is a beautiful-sounding language, but mostly unintelligible to me.
My uses of diacritics should be a clue as to lingo. 🙂
Also, if you read German you will understand “heckantrieb” as in the old VW bug? (We would say “svansmotor”.) A term learned from Auto Motor & Sport magazine which I bought every month to drool over test drives of shiny new models and ads for used cars, most of which were “Liebhaberstück”. 🙂
You may have confounded “sidfläsk” which is indeed side of pork, a commodity commonly listed on the Chicago exchange I believe. (Rarely shop there.)
Sog. It was a ring of children stationary, bouncing a ball betwixt them. I would have definately seen a gorilla in a basketball game because it’s not really a spectator sport (the septics are going to hate me…) , I enjoyed playing it though…
I just showed the basketball video to my partner, and she told me she couldn’t possibly count the number of passes because some idiot in a gorilla suit distracted her! I’m not sure what that proves, but we know she is dyslexic.
Rrr, I guess I can’t completely depend completely on Google. So häck (like heck in German) would mean rear? So betonghäck would mean “concrete rear”. (Betonheck in German.) That’s some powerful sitzfleisch! I’d better not mention that to my wife or she’ll start using that about me!
I guess in sidfläsk, the “sid” acts like “side” in English. Oddly, in German siedfleisch is boiled meat. I remember when I was a child my parents made boiled beef which they called “rindern fleisch” and in German is rindfleisch. It was unappetizing in any language… neither my wife nor I liked it as children. Maybe I’ll give it another try.
I’m only a learner in German, but my wife comes from southwest Germany, near Konstanz. German is her first language. We often play around with puns between English/German/French/Yiddish.
“I’m SURE you sang a song about gaslighting last week!”
“No, we didn’t.”
“An audience member thought it was significant and recorded it for us.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“I have the recording here on my phone. Wanna see?”
=============
Yeah, yeah, I know, they’ll claim “deep fakes” or some other suchlike nonsense. Even in the presence of hard facts, gaslighters can be hard to break … but it can be done.
Laripu,
Yes, lingo is great fun to play with. Or to use, well.
You are on the right track. Concrete rear is spot on. Sid- has the same root as side or Seite, while sied- probably means simmer? (SE=sjud) We have a saying when things are going horribly wrong: “nu är det kokta fläsket stekt!” (you just had to go and fry the boiled pork, didja!) Rind- is bovine I think and Vieh is the same as fä=farm animal, so Rindvieh can be used as an insult (but don’t try it at home!) 😉
HaggisForBrains: I watched both versions of the video and tried to carry out the set task of counting the number of passes by the players in white. In both cases, I found the task extremely difficult – I never got as much as the correct number – but in my concentration I literally did not notice the gorilla, even with the prior knowledge it was going to appear! (As far as I know, I’m not dyslexic.)
Rrr, yes, sied in German means simmer or boil. A cognate in English is seethe, which isn’t much used anymore, in the sense of boiling.
Rind is definitely bovine, beef specifically. For a “dumb animal” insult, I like one that works in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Arabic, and can make sense in English too.
The English word, that came from ancient Hebrew, is behemoth.
In Yiddish and Hebrew that word became “beheyme”, pronounced be-hay-me, both e as in “let”. In both it means a big stupid animal (you’d use it for a cow) and when applied to a person, it’s a good insult. The Yiddish diminutive, used for a calf, is cute: beheymele.
In Arabic, I’ve been told, the word is beheem or beheema and means the same in both senses, animal or insult.
I was going to say: the way the insult version ought to be used is in a larger context. Like “That beheyme can’t count his fingers and toes and get the same result twice.” Or “That beheyme says he went to university because he delivered a pizza there once.” Or “He can’t eat anything without wearing it on his shirt. What a beheyme!”
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No Author, you didn’t.
Made me laaarf anyway….or did it?
So stop fannying about.
Yes I did, MarkyWarky.
Yes, Author, indeed you DID 🙂
My wife is always claiming I am messing with her head…
“We would like to apologise for the previous apology”
Did anybody notice the Gorilla?
Gorilla? Oh, a joke? Like elephant in the room?
@Anonymous
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
For all you who missed the “gorilla” reference. there’s a wonderful video that shows a group of kids tossing a ball around in a room and in the background a gorilla walks through…but most of the audience viewing the video don’t see it! I’ve done this with my students many times and a many (but not all) of the students fail to catch the gorilla. (And I’m watching them to make sure they’re all paying attention). When I re-run the video, they’re amazed that they missed it.
“Is this the right room for an argument?” “I told you once.”
It’s funnier the second time around. And I definitely remember it from last week.
M27Holts: There was no gorilla, but the Barmaid walked across the stage behind the boys, and took a bow halfway across.
The original gorilla video, and the new one, are undeniably amusing. But what they show – that if you concentrate on one thing, you’ll miss other things – that’s exactly the point of concentration.
I solve technical problems at with by sitting there at my desk thinking about nothing else but the problem. The ability to block out everything else is what lets me solve those problems. That’s the point of concentration. (And it’s why I hate texting and instant messaging: they interrupt concentration and are hard to ignore.)
In German and Yiddish it’s called “sitzfleisch”. https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20180903-to-have-sitzfleisch—its-a-professional-compliment
I’d be interested to know whether people who are really unable to concentrate always see the gorilla.
Laripu, we say “sittfläsk”.
A big bonus for negotiators doing all-nighters. Derogatory term: “betonghäck”. With just a little Germanic it is also self-explanatory.
Now, what was the other question? 😉
I get bollocked all the time from my wife, for not listening to her blathering on about what her friends goldfish has done or summmat…I am engrossed in the maths universe book at the moment…rivetting stuff, enough to seal any hull rupture….
I assume this “gorilla” would really be someone wearing a costume. Try the same experiment with a real cat.
Why a cat? Why not an inland Taipan?
M27Holts: “Why not an inland Taipan?”
Because of cruelty to animals considerations. The Taipan, being camouflage coloured and lying on the floor, could easily be trodden on and hurt accidentally by one of the basketball players. A cat could easily weave between the legs of the players without being trodden on, as cats, being very agile, are well capable of.
Rrr, Google Translate translates sittfläsk as “pork” in three Scandinavian languages. And betonghäck is “concrete hedge” in all three too.
Two things annoyed me:
First, that the latest update of Google Translate on my phone has completely changed the look and feel.
Second: that I couldn’t figure out which Scandinavian language you’re using. So I’m going to conclude that it’s an unusual variety of Polish. 😉
No amount of concentration will fix a grumpy old man. 🙂
Laripu: Polish is a beautiful-sounding language, but mostly unintelligible to me.
My uses of diacritics should be a clue as to lingo. 🙂
Also, if you read German you will understand “heckantrieb” as in the old VW bug? (We would say “svansmotor”.) A term learned from Auto Motor & Sport magazine which I bought every month to drool over test drives of shiny new models and ads for used cars, most of which were “Liebhaberstück”. 🙂
You may have confounded “sidfläsk” which is indeed side of pork, a commodity commonly listed on the Chicago exchange I believe. (Rarely shop there.)
Sog. It was a ring of children stationary, bouncing a ball betwixt them. I would have definately seen a gorilla in a basketball game because it’s not really a spectator sport (the septics are going to hate me…) , I enjoyed playing it though…
Here is the basketball video, for those who have not seen it before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo
I just showed the basketball video to my partner, and she told me she couldn’t possibly count the number of passes because some idiot in a gorilla suit distracted her! I’m not sure what that proves, but we know she is dyslexic.
Rrr, I guess I can’t completely depend completely on Google. So häck (like heck in German) would mean rear? So betonghäck would mean “concrete rear”. (Betonheck in German.) That’s some powerful sitzfleisch! I’d better not mention that to my wife or she’ll start using that about me!
I guess in sidfläsk, the “sid” acts like “side” in English. Oddly, in German siedfleisch is boiled meat. I remember when I was a child my parents made boiled beef which they called “rindern fleisch” and in German is rindfleisch. It was unappetizing in any language… neither my wife nor I liked it as children. Maybe I’ll give it another try.
I’m only a learner in German, but my wife comes from southwest Germany, near Konstanz. German is her first language. We often play around with puns between English/German/French/Yiddish.
“I’m SURE you sang a song about gaslighting last week!”
“No, we didn’t.”
“An audience member thought it was significant and recorded it for us.”
“He couldn’t have.”
“I have the recording here on my phone. Wanna see?”
=============
Yeah, yeah, I know, they’ll claim “deep fakes” or some other suchlike nonsense. Even in the presence of hard facts, gaslighters can be hard to break … but it can be done.
Laripu,
Yes, lingo is great fun to play with. Or to use, well.
You are on the right track. Concrete rear is spot on. Sid- has the same root as side or Seite, while sied- probably means simmer? (SE=sjud) We have a saying when things are going horribly wrong: “nu är det kokta fläsket stekt!” (you just had to go and fry the boiled pork, didja!) Rind- is bovine I think and Vieh is the same as fä=farm animal, so Rindvieh can be used as an insult (but don’t try it at home!) 😉
HaggisForBrains: I watched both versions of the video and tried to carry out the set task of counting the number of passes by the players in white. In both cases, I found the task extremely difficult – I never got as much as the correct number – but in my concentration I literally did not notice the gorilla, even with the prior knowledge it was going to appear! (As far as I know, I’m not dyslexic.)
Rrr, yes, sied in German means simmer or boil. A cognate in English is seethe, which isn’t much used anymore, in the sense of boiling.
Rind is definitely bovine, beef specifically. For a “dumb animal” insult, I like one that works in Yiddish, Hebrew, and Arabic, and can make sense in English too.
The English word, that came from ancient Hebrew, is behemoth.
In Yiddish and Hebrew that word became “beheyme”, pronounced be-hay-me, both e as in “let”. In both it means a big stupid animal (you’d use it for a cow) and when applied to a person, it’s a good insult. The Yiddish diminutive, used for a calf, is cute: beheymele.
In Arabic, I’ve been told, the word is beheem or beheema and means the same in both senses, animal or insult.
This explains it all: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/בהמה
That link might only work as https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%91%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%94
That anonymous was me, sorry.
I was going to say: the way the insult version ought to be used is in a larger context. Like “That beheyme can’t count his fingers and toes and get the same result twice.” Or “That beheyme says he went to university because he delivered a pizza there once.” Or “He can’t eat anything without wearing it on his shirt. What a beheyme!”
Laripu, well, if you called me that I’d be seething! 😉
It does sound more like a rhinosaurus though — oh sorry 😉