Sideswipe: May 18: NZ Parliament banned words

Here are some words or phrases that were verboten in New Zealand parliamentary debate:

1933: Blowfly-minded.
1943: Retardate worm.
1945: His brains could revolve inside a peanut shell for a thousand years without touching the sides.
1946: Clown of the House … Idle vaporings of a mind diseased … I would cut the honourable gentleman’s throat if I had the chance.
1957: Kind of animal that gnaws holes.
1959: Member not fit to lick the shoes of the Prime Minister.
1963: Energy of a tired snail returning home from a funeral.
1966: Shut up yourself, you great ape … Snotty-nosed little boy … You are a cheap little twerp … Ridiculous mouse.
1974: Could go down the Mount Eden sewer and come up cleaner than he went in … Dreamed the bill up in the bath … Frustrated warlord.

In brighter news, saying that a fellow member “scuttles for his political funk hole” was deemed allowable in 1974.

Being liked on Facebook

Business Insider rounded up various findings on what makes people dislike you, both online and in person. A 2013 study found that posting too many photos on Facebook can hurt your real-life relationships. “This is because people, other than very close friends and relatives, don’t seem to relate well to those who constantly share photos of themselves,” lead study author David Houghton, of Birmingham Business School, said in a release. Specifically, friends don’t like it when you’ve got too many photos of family, and relatives don’t like it when you’ve got too many photos of friends. Having too many, or too few, Facebook friends is also a problem. In a 2008 study, Michigan State University researchers asked college students to look at fictional Facebook profiles and decide how much they liked the profiles’ owners. Results showed that the “sweet spot” for likeability was about 300 friends. Likeability ratings were lowest when a profile owner had only about 100 friends, and almost as low when they had more than 300 friends. As for why 300-plus friends could be a turn-off, the study authors wrote: “Individuals with too many friends may appear to be focusing too much on Facebook, friending out of desperation rather than popularity.”

Pass-ag sign goodness

Did you know?

Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois discovered the first Homo erectus fossils in Indonesia in 1891. At the same time, he found an engraved mussel shell that then remained in a museum drawer for more than a century. In a 2014 study in Nature, researchers dated the engraved lines on the shell to between 430,000 and 540,000 years ago. The findings suggested that H. erectus was capable of sophisticated and complex ideas as well as abstract thought.

Wedding cringe

My dad’s friend’s son got married when I was a teenager. Anyway, the embarrassing story is about his bride. She decided that she wanted to sing to him at one point during the ceremony, so she chose the song Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler. Midler is an alto. The bride was a HIGH soprano. Unfortunately, she couldn’t sing very well, either. So for several minutes she squeaks this song out while he’s standing there with the most awkward look on his face.

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