this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
473 points (98.8% liked)

Today I Learned

17517 readers
999 users here now

What did you learn today? Share it with us!

We learn something new every day. This is a community dedicated to informing each other and helping to spread knowledge.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must begin with TIL. Linking to a source of info is optional, but highly recommended as it helps to spark discussion.

** Posts must be about an actual fact that you have learned, but it doesn't matter if you learned it today. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.**



Rule 2- Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your post subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding non-TIL posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-TIL posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.



Partnered Communities

You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.

Community Moderation

For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Raiderkev 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

My grandpa's name was Larry. I had always assumed it was short for Lawrence. I just found out recently like 8 years after he died that it wasn't even short for that. Apparently my illiterate great grandparents wanted to name him Larrington (which I'm 90% sure isn't even a first name in the lexicon). Apparently my great grandmother wanted him to grow up to be Larrington the Lawyer. My guess is that was a name of a local law firm she had heard of something because it definitely sounds like a surname that you would hear on a law office advert, (i.e. call Larrington and Mitchell). Turns out they couldn't spell Larrington and just decided to name him Larry for short. So his fucking birth certificate has a nickname on it for a name he wasn't even born as. My mind was fucking blown hearing this.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 56 minutes ago* (last edited 56 minutes ago)

My dad's name was the shortened version of a longer name and he said teachers in the prestigious British high school he went to (he went on scholarship, he wasn't rich himself) continually insisted that his name must be the longer version no matter what he tried.

He was also told, "children at this school go to Oxford or Cambridge" by his headmaster when he asked for a letter of recommendation when applying to Sheffield. He got into Sheffield anyway. Eventually got a PhD. Fuck that guy.

[–] 11111one11111 9 points 4 hours ago

I'd tell people my middle name was "S" too if I were a boy middlenamed Sue. How do you do?!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 hours ago

Harry "Cool S" Truman

[–] bravesirrbn 12 points 9 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 33 points 14 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

S and a dot is just for when you want to abbreviate the S by adding an additional character.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 hours ago

Have an old friend/colleague with the last name Oh, share the same first name, so at work we would always say, John S., John D, John O type of deal, for some reaosn it would keep me wondering if we were really saying Oh or O. For him. (John isn't really the first name, just an example)

[–] [email protected] 48 points 16 hours ago (4 children)

I had a friend like this in college. His name was AJ. That's it. Just the letters.

Everyone in the department spent ages trying to guess what it stood for. I managed to glance his ID when we got lunch together once. His name was just AJ. There weren't even periods marking it as an abbreviation.

Still haven't told anyone though

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Now I want to name a kid Ay-Jay.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago

Did you call him Aj or A.J?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of the character BJ in M*A*S*H. Named after his parents, Bee and Jay

[–] FlyingSquid 1 points 1 hour ago

That was a fun episode. I love M*A*S*H. We need a good anti-war show like that today.

[–] mrsemi 37 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

My stoner friend's incredibly, unbelievably stupid girlfriend has kids from a previous relationship named AJ, BJ, and CJ.

you have now made me suspect they are not abbreviations.

[–] Podunk 5 points 4 hours ago

Names only an ancient roman could appreciate.

[–] peachfaced 47 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Assuming those are in sequence, sucks to be the middle kid

[–] NotInTheFace 28 points 15 hours ago

sucks to be the middle kid

I see what you did there.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] radix 76 points 20 hours ago (6 children)

There's also Ulysses S. Grant. The "S" was apparently just a mistake on his enrollment at West Point. His birth name was Hiram Ulysses Grant. He tried to switch his first and middle names, but ended up with the initials USG instead of UHG.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ulysses-S-Grant

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] linearchaos 19 points 16 hours ago (5 children)

I used to work with a guy that was from China. He only had a first in a last name. He was going to college here and the college required everyone to have a middle initial as part of their login. They just used his last initial as his middle initial.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 13 hours ago (7 children)

Wait does everyone there have a middle name? I'm Dutch and I don't have a middle name. I figured that was quite common also in the English speaking world

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 hours ago

I don’t have either. Maybe it’s a murican thing

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

My grandfather and father dont have a middle name.

Both Sicilian (Father born in the U.S though)

[–] UniversalFlamingo 3 points 9 hours ago

I have two. You can borrow one for a while.

[–] DontRedditMyLemmy 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

The famous poet Edgar Poe also didn't have a middle name

[–] olafurp 2 points 4 hours ago

He does, it's Allan

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

I knew that middle names are common in the US but I didn't know it's so deep in the culture

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

One of those things that’s just normal so we don’t talk about it I guess.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

Is a middle name mandatory for you?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

What else would your mom call you when she's pissed off?

[–] JusticeForPorygon 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

I think so, when immigrants get IDs in the US I believe they choose/are given a middle name

[–] ylph 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Not true, I am a naturalized US citizen, and don't have a middle name - it was never an issue and I was never asked to come up with one. My son was born in the US and also doesn't have a middle name.

[–] raef 3 points 4 hours ago

My cousin was given his mother's maiden name as a middle name when he joined the navy

[–] linearchaos 7 points 12 hours ago

I don't know that it's absolutely mandatory but it's definitely pervasive.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Crazyslinkz 59 points 19 hours ago (3 children)

Homer Jay Simpson Or Homer J. Simpson

If his name is S why is there a period... like an abbreviation.

[–] TOModera 32 points 19 hours ago (4 children)

People are used to adding periods so they just add it in.

Source: My middle name is a letter.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Phoenix3875 22 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

J Moore, the Moore in the wildly used Boyer-Moore string search algorithm, has a first name of a single letter, J. It's not an abbreviation.

[–] OlinOfTheHillPeople 12 points 15 hours ago

Moore enjoys rock climbing.[6]

This might be the most concise paragraph I've ever seen on Wikipedia!

load more comments
view more: next ›