Useless Facts

It's the original meaning, the other is the derivative.

 

It's also the name of a mine shaft in a small, Northern Canadian town.

 

The top line of that sign...

 

Winter tyres are different in different countries.

In middle Europa they use some strange "winter tyres that don't handle snow or ice well" -tyres.'

In Fennoscandia (Scandinavia + Finland) we use winter tyres someone else might call artic type or something like that. Most common type is studded.

I don't know what they use in USA and Canada. News and videos hint to the direction of soapy slicks or something like that.

Russia... Not sure, but I suppose that they use these Fennoscandia -types in north and something elsewhere. But you never know with Russia.

In Germany you can't use studded winter tyres.

 

Stay informed.....

 

Hey, Cobalt! That's where my people are from!

(Never been there, but it looms large in family tales. None of which involved the Glory Hole, thankfully.)

 

You realize this means we're probably related, right?

 

Are you a Cobaltian?

My Great-grandpa was a teamster there. Owned dozens and dozens of horses, apparently. But I think the family left... in the 40s, maybe?

 

My grandfather had a farm about 30 minutes north of there and when he and my grandmother were in need of care-taking, my family actually lived only a couple of houses from The Glory Hole. When I was a kid, me and my school friends used to sneak off without telling anyone and go spelunking in the shafts trying to find silver, but usually only came across dead animals, rusted equipment, and crates of soggy dynamite. I was a smart child.

 

What years would that have been?

My dad grew up in Timmins and played/worked in mines, but that would have been before your time, I'm sure. Like... the 40s, or maybe the 50s?

 

I was only there for a bit in the '90's, but my grandfather's family had moved to the area in the late 1880's after a bit of unsavouriness where they were in Southern Ontario. My Grandpa was birthed on the farm somewhere between 1904 and 1906, so my family has some roots in the area.

 

My family came up from the states, probably about the same time.

 

Legend tells that my great-great grandparents came to Canada from Virginia in the 1860's to avoid some of the troubles down there at the time. Though I can't really trace back too far, given it looks like my great great grandfather took his brides last name for some reason, and record keeping is spotty at best.

 

Cobalt had a population of 2,376 in 1941. If your (grand?)grandparents were really there around the same time, chances are not bad they at least ran into each other occasionally, maybe even knew each other...

 

I am watching a tube video about "why Finnish is so hard". (It is not. We all learn it when we are very young.)



The video talks about how to say we'll go or let's go. And my reaction is "hey, we don' talk like that".

So...

Different versions of a phrase "let's go" in Finnish:
- Lähetään.
- Lähdetään.
- Eiköhän mennä.
- Eiköhän lähdetä.
- Aletaas lähteä.
- Aletaas nyt mennä.
- Aletaas pistää töppöstä toisen eteen.
- Nonnii... Mennääs nyt.
- Liikettä kinttuihin niin päästään lähtemään.
- Koitetaas joutua.
- Aletaas laputtaa.
- Mitäs jos lähettäs?
- Vipinää kinttuihin niin päästään lähtemään.
- Aletaan painua.
- Nyt lähdetään.
- Mennään.
- Mentiin!
...

These are the first ones that come to mind. Every Finn understands that all these and tens of other version all mean "let's go".

 

No, it really is not so hard. For exaple... Conjugation in our dear, loved and so easy language....

You can easily learn them in no time at all. Our kids do.

https://media.riemurasia.net/albumit/mmedia/42/pz/ijh/441785/normal_1397871603.jpg

 

Seriously, language acquisition is what young minds do. English, Finnish, Chinese, the click language of the !Kung, it's all the same to a toddler.

 

Comedian Chris Rock's first film role was Person Standing Next to Phone During Fight in Club in the 1985 movie Krush Groove.

 

Looks like GI Joe wasn't the only GI.

 

Ammonium chloride is a chemical.

You get it if you mix ammonia hydrogen chloride or hydrochlorid acid.

In Finland we call it salmiakki. We eat tons of it - literally. To us it is a sweet.

(For some peculiar reason most foreigners does not seem to like it. Terry Pratchett wrote about it as something too dangerous to trolls.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonium_chloride

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salty_liquorice

We like salmiakki so much that we even bland alcohol with it.

https://www.alko.fi/en/tuotteet/154654/Koskenkorva-Salmiakki-muovipullo

 

I infer from all this that Finns do an awful lot of going.

 

You gotta get going if you ever hope to Finnish.

 

Well gotta to avoid all those social interactions.