there’s something really satisfying about the fact that sir arthur conan doyle was the most gullible motherfucker on the planet
sir arthur conan doyle: here is my oc, he is a super genius who solves all the mysteries using the power of deductive reasoning
also sir arthur conan doyle: i have deduced that these fairies are real as shit
sir arthur conan doyle: there’s only one way to determine if these fairies are real… i will give you girls these cameras, that i bought myself, and then i will develop the photos, so i know they haven’t been tampered with
some girls who took selfies in the woods with paper cutouts on hatpins: that seems reasonable
harry houdini, after showing his good friend how he got trickedby a con artist: so as you can see, anyone can make it seem as if they can talk to ghosts
sir arthur conan doyle: harry… i can’t believe you never told me you can talk to ghosts, for real, using actual magic
Doyle and Houdini’s relationship is the funniest thing in the entire history of the skepticism movement
Doyle was SO CONVINCED that Houdini had legit magic powers and could turn into smoke or some shit to escape things and Houdini was like “no seriously it’s a trick let me show you how it works” and Doyle was all “it hurts me that you won’t trust me with this secret”
If memory serves he eventually decided that Houdini was subconsciously magic and in denial
My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”
My last boss was Chinese, and she said when her parents came to visit her from Beijing they pronounced Chicago “A very nice village.”
This post keeps getting better
What I’m getting from this is both distance and time are Utterly Terrifying
persephone's corner 