this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2025
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I find it crazy how much niche information that some people on the internet seem to know.
Xkcd I'm one of the 10000...
https://xkcd.com/1053/
It's also crazy to realize something you think to be common knowledge turns out to not be common knowledge. We learned about the four humours in high school English because it's relevant to analyzing older texts. I don't think I know anyone IRL who don't know what they are.
Well, lots of folks here, who speak English as a second language. I had my analyzing-older-texts classes in German, where these humours were not relevant to the best of my knowledge. I once heard about them in psychology class, but that's about it.
English is also my second language, but I still remember learning at least a little bit about it. Maybe it was in history class, or maybe it was as part of the introduction to germ theory in natural sciences class
You made me think about how (and in some ways more importantly who) we learn of them. I think I picked it up from mentions in philosophy and biology classes that started the greeks and then moved forward, and from a few fantasy books that used the concept. There may have also been some of those 'child education' type science books when I was a kid. You have the english classes, which to me seems an even more akilter way to pick them up. I would bet that many historians would get it, and people who take classics as their major.
That makes me think that most of my peers in the medical field and nerd section of the library should get the reference, and maybe some of the folks who would occasionally remember and remark on interesting historical works or times... but that must still be less than 2-10% of the population. Which, since I had thought it was common knowledge, really stuns...
My cowoker has no idea, I just asked him. I know of them through fantasy and possibly school. We are around the same age but had pretty different childhoods.
Actually I'm playing Do No Harm right now and they're a big part of the gameplay.
I also can't name all four off the top of my head right now but I have information retrieval problems because my brain sucks and I've abused it.
Meh, you watch enough television, movies, and play enough games nowadays you're bound to learn more than the average US education system.