this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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

In the defense of the ancients who were naming things like other things they sort of looked like.... what OTHER substance was around at that time that was both white and liquid?

...

Because maybe we should be grateful for the milk metaphor instead of the option that only nuts would choose...

\ >.> Would you rather it be called after dough?

[–] ZILtoid1991 15 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

I don't know, I prefer butts. Tits are nice, but only half the population have them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 minutes ago

I've never seen a perfect butt though. I've seen a great one, but it had a crack in it.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 hours ago

an amendable issue

[–] gofsckyourself 25 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

"fastfouriertransfem" is a great username

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 hours ago

You just know she wears programmer socks

[–] [email protected] 36 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

In German and Dutch it's way worse: "Säugetier" and "zoogdier". Both can roughly be translated to "sucking animals". I was taught in school that it's called that because babies suck on the mother's breasts to be fed and this is a unique trait to mammals. So in conclusion, we all suck.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

in swedish it's basically that except we say "nursing animals", which is more specific

[–] [email protected] 1 points 33 minutes ago

That sounds like a porno where nurses go wild.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Same in Slovene. Sesalec - Sucker.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 hours ago

I've always thought my defining characteristic was my nipples.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 12 hours ago

In polish mammals = ssaki, and ssaki = suckers

[–] Im_old 115 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

I had to scroll back in my saved posts to a million years ago to resurrect this.

[–] roguetrick 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

That metaphor (breasts as fruit) transcends language though. Whatever you call fruits you'll end up calling breasts. Here's the song of Solomon which was semetic.

I said, ‘I will go up to the palm tree; I will take hold of the boughs thereof.’ Now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy nose like apples.

Instead of viewing things like this etymologically, it's better to see them as universal metaphors that transcend language and culture. Similar to light and darkness.

[–] Im_old 3 points 5 hours ago
[–] lordbritishbusiness 14 points 13 hours ago

Thanks for surfacing this one, it's always fun to get the older perspective and realising they're very human.

[–] pocopene 12 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

Just wait till you know the etymology of mastodon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon

Edit to save a click: "A mastodon, (from Ancient Greek μαστός (mastós), meaning "breast, and ὀδούς (odoús) "tooth")"

Edit 2: the "mast" in "mastodon" is the same one as in "mastectomy"

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In 3 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Because

Mastodons are considered to have had a predominantly browsing-based diet

?

[–] pocopene 4 points 12 hours ago

"A mastodon, (from Ancient Greek μαστός (mastós), meaning "breast, and ὀδούς (odoús) "tooth")"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 35 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Ackshully, "galaxy" (or rather, "galaxias") means "Milky Way" already, it's just a translation. It was less ambiguous when the only galaxy we could see was the Milky lights that covered a lot of our sky.

Of course, we realize there's more than one galaxy now, so the meanings have diverged.

[–] shalafi 9 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

And we didn't realize there was more than one galaxy until the 1920s (I think?)

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In 4 points 12 hours ago (2 children)
[–] Gradually_Adjusting 10 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

There are people alive today who will tell you the moon is a hologram. Never respect human intelligence more than you have to.

[–] shalafi 2 points 4 hours ago

My great aunt explained to me as a child in the 70s that the moon was round because gravity pulled it into a sphere. This woman was born around 1890, educated in a one-room schoolhouse and lived on a Civil War-era farm in bumfuck West Virginia.

And then ya got what we have here today.

[–] ByteJunk 7 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

May I suggest reading Carl Sagan's Cosmos? Or watch one of the TV shows.

While your average human is about as smart as a brick, there are so many minds throughout history that were able to pull humanity out of our dark caves and into space.

What we need, to survive as a species, is to nurture people, give them (proper) education, and more will come up.

[–] Gradually_Adjusting 2 points 9 hours ago

I grew up on Sagan. I'm not saying we should accept anything the way it is or not take inspiration from our achievements, just that we should not be prideful or expect any greatness from anyone.

We're currently smarter than we've ever been in a lot of ways, but I find the smarter you are it only changes the kinds of mistakes you make.

I do agree that humans increase in value the more you value them, and vice-versa. Society should be structured around maximising "human capital", so to speak.

[–] Cornelius_Wangenheim 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Just looking at them, they appear fairly similar to nebulas within our own galaxy. It took sophisticated spectroscopic measurements to realize they're actually much further away.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 16 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 45 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

My son just called it "the tittieverse" and now I hate ALL of you.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

This new naming scheme sounds like a great contribution to societitty.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 hours ago

Contriboobtion

[–] [email protected] 34 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

And then she breasted boobily down the stairs.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 21 hours ago (4 children)

To be fair, tits are pretty awesome.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 hours ago

Even heterosexual females enjoy a nice pair of boobies.

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[–] Majorllama 78 points 22 hours ago (8 children)

If y'all could please direct me to the thighs and calves galaxies I'll be on my way. I enjoy boobs as do most humans, but I am a legs man.

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