Another example. Apparently when you run, you should try and land on the soles of your foot. I've always thought you should land on your heel. Maybe if someone had imparted this knowledge to me earlier in my life, I could have been an Olympic sprinter, or a marathon runner. And then narwhals. Do you know about narwhals? I didn't.
I was introduced to narwhals by 11-yo, who sings a song about them. (You need only listen to half of this - it just repeats. Go on, it's only 30 seconds of your life, and there's only one rude line. And it's not even that rude. Unless you count the word "kick-ass" as rude, in which case there are two rude lines. Oh, just listen to it and I'll stop apologising.)
It seems that narwhals really do exist, in the Arctic. They are whales, who are notable for their one long horn, which can be up to 3 metres long. Only the males have horns. I don't know why I never knew about narwhals. Maybe they're not real and wikipedia is having a laugh.
Did you know about narwhals? Did you know the narwhal song? Have you learnt anything else new recently? In your own personal accent, does 'narwhal' rhyme exactly with 'firewall'? So many questions.
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Your not the only one, I say ibruprofen too! and I have never heard of narwhals!! so I learnt something today!
ReplyDeleteUkmuminusa I was reading your name and trying to work out if it was Japanese or African...
ReplyDeleteThe Narwhal is totally new to me, as it its rather marvellous song for which I shall be rooting if it features on the Brits tonight.
xx J
For some reason I've always pronounced Ibuprofen correctly. In fact it's so often consumed in this house at the moment (my husband has just had an op on his wrist)that I've shortened it to 'Ibu', ie 'have you had an Ibu yet today?' (when he's moaning about the pain).
ReplyDeleteI may be wrong, but I think narwhals are the source of the unicorn myth. Their leftover / discarded horns were found by people years ago who couldn't work out what creature they came from so made up the unicorn. Or maybe I dreamt that.
I was quite an advanced age before I realised the word picturesque ended in an 'esk' sound and not 'skew' which was what I'd been saying. Pictureskew. It sounds better like that I think.
I alway thought it was iBRUprofen too! As they say you can learn something new everyday!
ReplyDeleteBeing married to a doctor I could not get away with saying ibuprofen incorrectly (although I had to think about how to spell it there). I think I've heard of narwhals, but no idea what they really were. My 5 year old sings a song about belugas sometimes.....it must be something about the American school system!
ReplyDeleteSince I have 2 boys, I did know about narwhals (large animals with a weaponlike horn? Of course) but here's my question about ibuprofen: Do you pronounce it Eye-byew-pro-fen, or Eye - boo - profen?
ReplyDeleteOh, so I'm not alone! Perhaps it was first launched as IbRuprofen, and then they changed the name.
ReplyDeleteNappy Valley Girl - the Beluga song is a Wiggles song, I think.
Ms Caroline - "byew", definitely.
Byu, for def. Did you know (by the way) Ibuprofen was invented by a lovely man who worked for Boots labs, and never personally made a penny (what don't you make in the US under these circumstances? Bean? Dime?) out of it?
ReplyDeleteJ x
How did that name take off? It's so tricksy to say Ibuprofen, whther as Ibu or Ibru. Must be to do with sequence of consonants or something, it just doesn't trip off the tongue so much as trip up the tongue. Added to which the concentrated effort required is enough to give me a headache as well as jaw ache. Maybe that was the intention....
ReplyDeleteI don't know how I used to pronounce Ibuprofin, but when I moved to Ukraine, I had to learn to pronounce it 'bu' instead of 'byu' in Russian. But it's one of those words that's so close to English that I have to concentrate to say it correctly :)
ReplyDeleteDon't they pronouce it 'bu' instead of "byu" in the USA too? After all they have "toona" fish, and "stoopid" idiots.
ReplyDeleteThose narwhals are weird. I never even knew about manatees until I came to Florida.
I'm obviously odd. Because I say Ibuprofen - with no R and no Y either. Where does the Y come from. Is everyone thinking I say it wrong now?
ReplyDeleteDoctors, apparently, just call it "brufen". Or at least the ones I know do.
And yes, I'm afraid I knew about narwhals too. Even before St David of Attenborough's most recent telly thing (Frozen Planet. Genius as always). The horn is actually their teeth, by the way. That's why it looks like it comes out of the wrong part of their head.
I, however, didn't know, until very recently, about the Wiggles. And even then, until this very moment, I thought they were just an antipodean thing. Clearly not, though.
Also, I have no idea what Cthulu is. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteI know how to pronounce Ibuprofen, but never entirely sure what drugs to take when I'm feeling ill. Is it a paracetamol or not? Always end up having to ask my wife.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how I found your blog... stumble trip...
ReplyDeleteNarwhals - yes, we have known about Narwhals since my daughter received a pack of animal alphabet cards when she was 2 and N was for Narwhal - we were narwhal? what the...? And then in the London Natural History Museum we spotted one in the display!!
No, in our pronunciation (Aussie/Brit) it doesn't rhyme with firewall! But I can imagine an American interpretation of farwall... We are expats too - living in China, and our kids speak with varying accents because of the international environment we are in!