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  #31  
Old Dec 15th, 2020, 11:40 AM
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Your drink's on me if that's the case, though!
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 11:46 AM
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Your drink's on me if that's the case, though!
Sorry about that. Send the dry cleaning bill to us, we'll take care of it. Hope it doesn't stain.
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 11:52 AM
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Spill the beans is a relatively new saying (20th century)... and honestly, there's no good reason for it.

Spill means to let out, or divulge for a long time in the English language.

But, why spill (let out) the beans? Who knows. It may have more to do with the idea of spilling as in knocking over a container, and making a mess. Spilling the beans may be more literal, as is "when Bob spilled the beans on his buddy's alibi, it made a huge mess".
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 12:14 PM
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Maybe the bean expression has to do with that sleight of hand trick, with the three cups and the bean? And then to spill the beans would be to reveal the secret, that you have palmed the bean and it isn't beneath any of the cups? Just spitballing.

I have one that I think is interesting, cuz no one really knows the answer, but there's a bunch of theories: Why do we yawn?
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 01:02 PM
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Do you mean "why do we yawn?" Or "Why are yawns contagious?" I thought the first one did have medical explanations having to do with the brain's demand for oxygen, and the second was an actual Imponderable, though I've forgotten the answer.
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 01:22 PM
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Either or, I think I remember one of the refutations for the oxygen demand theory was because then we would see people yawning after a race, which is not something we see outside of, like, an athlete bragging.

There's also something on whether or not yawning actually increases oxygen in the brain.
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 01:24 PM
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Does anyone know what the origin of the phrase 'spill the beans' is?

What do beans have to do with witheald information?
I thought it had something to do with voting and revealing the truth of what the result was for the vote. The result is secret until the beans are spilled.

It could be related to those "Guess the Number" jars though. You know, the ones where you have to guess how many beans are in a jar in order to win the prize? There's always some big hidden object in the middle that takes up a lot of space and makes the number significantly lower that the perceived volume would normally contain.
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 02:30 PM
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Either or, I think I remember one of the refutations for the oxygen demand theory was because then we would see people yawning after a race, which is not something we see outside of, like, an athlete bragging.

There's also something on whether or not yawning actually increases oxygen in the brain.
People wouldn't need to yawn after a race, since they're presumably already breathing hard, which performs the same function as a yawn...an extra large infusion of oxygen to the blood stream (not the brain directly). The blood does flow to the brain, though, and would be the means by which oxygen would get there.

What's interesting is perhaps the yawn (and heavy breathing) is related to a gasp. If we pant when tired to infuse the bloodstream with oxygen, and yawn when tired for the same reason, perhaps we gasp when shocked or afraid to give us a boost of oxygenated blood in case we need to fight or flee?
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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 04:16 PM
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Somebody has a hypothesis...

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Old Dec 15th, 2020, 10:27 PM
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If we pant when tired to infuse the bloodstream with oxygen, and yawn when tired for the same reason, perhaps we gasp when shocked or afraid to give us a boost of oxygenated blood in case we need to fight or flee?
Related but not related, but interesting nonetheless, did you know that the reason our eyebrows go up when we're surprised is that it actually increases our field of vision? Fun facts that are sorta semi-related, oh yeah!
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Old Dec 16th, 2020, 12:54 PM
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I'd like to know why it is that cat/dog dislike is so heavily skewed (in my experience) against the former. I regularly hear from dog lovers the many ways they would love to abuse/kill felines, but I have never, ever, heard a cat person wish harm upon dogs. (In a general sense; I believe there are certain breeds of dogs that draw the ire of either camp). I'm from a cat-loving family and know/have known dozens of similar persuasion, so it isn't for want of exposure. Yet it seems to me that when the cats vs dogs topic comes up, there's almost always a dog person in the room who expresses their vitriol towards cats. This suggests to me that a very high percentage of dog people feel this way. I think the correlation may be significant enough to indicate something about the psychology of dog people that engenders such disdain.

In any case, it's always made me uncomfortable and even a little threatened to hear such bluster. I've seen a cat be willfully harmed. I own and love several cats, and dread the thought of an encounter between one of them and such a person.

Came upon minutes after posting this; For those in question, Meowy Christmas!:
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Old Dec 16th, 2020, 05:50 PM
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Cause cats are evil...it's just that some people love evil. After all, nobody did a movie called "All Cats Go To Heaven".

All kidding aside, regardless of your pet-preference, actual violence against animals is never justified (unless you're defending yourself against someone's pet tiger or something).

It might have something to do with the stereotype of cats being witches' familiars. Or maybe resentment from the old Egyptian days where cats were worshipped as gods? I recall reading somewhere that part of the reason the Black Plague got so bad is because superstitious commoners would kill the cats in the village for fear of witches...the cats who were keeping the rodent population down. No cats -> more rats -> more plague-bearing parasites. I'm sure many people saw the ensuing plague as a witch's revenge for killing her cat, causing them to kill more cats (and "witches"), causing more plague, etc.
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Old Dec 16th, 2020, 07:43 PM
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I wonder if it's more of a societal thing, where people just expect themselves to say "I hate cats" as some form of ritual, or as some way of setting themselves apart as an interesting person (they aren't) or a bad-arse (they aren't).

I know exactly what you are talking about... my whole family was kind of "anti-cat", and growing up, I had dogs, never cats. It was always a thing that Dad hated cats, mom hated cats, so we didn't like them, etc..

After I was married, I had cats. Both my mom and dad visited me in my home, and sat on the couch and petted the cats, played fetch with one (I had a cat that played fetch), etc.. Dad enjoyed his time, mom not so much, but she did fine.

Honestly, for them, I suspect it was more the kind of cats they were around, than "hating cats"... a lot of their friends with cats allowed the cats run of the house, which included the kitchen counters, dining room tables, etc... and Mom certainly didn't want to be preparing food (or eating it) where dirty litter box paws had walked, where cats had licked spoons and bowls, or sat on utensils, etc.. It wasn't just cats, either... mom and dad hated our in-laws that let their tiny dogs do the same. Dogs were supposed to be on the floor, not on the table at dinner.

So... my final thought is that maybe we just get indoctrinated (through media, through family) that cat hating is "okay", and somewhat expected. I don't think everyone who says they hate cats actually DO, I think they just feel expected to say that or something.
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  #44  
Old Dec 16th, 2020, 09:10 PM
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I think the old superstition about cats (especially black ones) are a factor but like a lot of hate the self-justification for the prejudice changed. People will adopt the supposed attitudes of their self-imagined tribe and then rationalize it. Reasons I've heard for disliking cats include trespassing, damaging furniture, refusal to cooperate with owners and the like. But I've seen that behavior in dogs, too. I'm not saying the psychology of the animals are similar; they're not.

Dislike is one thing, hate another thing completely. I don't have any reasoning stronger than a few anecdotes, but it seems to me the main difference between dog-haters and cat haters is how the emotion manifests. A dog-hater will overreact to barking dogs and threaten lawsuits, call police, etc. They're afraid. A cat-hater will catch and torture cats. They're acting out of emotional illness.

But here is a flipside to the questions; is the preference, the love for either cats or dogs, really that divided? My experience is cat people usually love dogs too but don't want the greater time commitment to raising a puppy. I've been an urban/suburban guy for 55 years. Most people I've known are cat people, the ones who are dog-people seem to value the dependence of their fur babies on the human 'parent.'

In short, the difference between dog and cat lovers seem less pronounced than between dog and cat haters, and the haters and lovers don't seem to overlap. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
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Old Dec 17th, 2020, 07:44 AM
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There may be something there in that "size" difference you mentioned, @Sol.

Perhaps, somehow, humans are more often "afraid" of dogs because many breeds are larger, more potentially threatening. But they can "hate" cats because they are all smaller, and less threatening (as a species).

It may be a manifestation of human psyche... we can be boastful and proud of "hating" something/someone when we know that such speech really can't come back to bite us (pun intended), but it's tougher to be such a braggart if there's real fear in the mix. Maybe this is a little like bar talk, the old shout as the door closes and the threat leaves the bar in his car... "Yeah, and stay away if you know what's good for you!". They'd never say that to the person's face, but feel safer due to distance (or in our case here, size?).

As for why humans are cruel (to dogs, cats, etc.), that's just the wiring people have. I suspect that they are cruel to both (all) species, it's just that cats and small dogs are easier to be cruel to, than a 120 pound Rottweiler.
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