well yeah how is shakespeare gonna recognize a blue hedgehog when he’s dead

i have misunderstood the post

needle/pin sharpener.

no really, squeeze it. Does it feel like it’s got sand in it? is’s sharpening sand. Stab the tip of your needle into it back and forth and it’ll help put a sharp edge back on a pin or needle that’s been blunted by use, or has a little bit of rust on it. It can’t fix anything worse then a little of either, and won’t work on something REALLY blunted, but its a lifesaver.

also it is a pepper

It's not a pepper and it's not for sharpening!!

It may seem like it should be a pepper, since that would go better with the flavour of a tomato (and the mass produced modern ones are admittedly more pepper shaped), but it is and has always been a strawberry.
Here are some antique emery strawberries, which are much more strawberry shaped, and some of them have seeds.

(source)

(source)

(Home Needlework Magazine, 1899)

And it's for cleaning needles, not sharpening them. I can't imagine how jamming a blunt needle point around in a bunch of loose grit could possibly sharpen it in any significant way, and all the historical sources I've seen only talk about cleaning.

"Every sewer's work basket or work box should contain an emery bag, as shown in Fig. 2, through which to push a needle when it becomes rough, squeaks, or sticks in the material. An emery bag is usually shaped like a strawberry and consists of a rough denim bag filled with emery powder, which is a very hard material used for polishing metals. Such a bag may be purchased for 5 or 10 cents in any store that sells sewing materials. Needles often become rusted from the perspiration of the hands or from being left in damp places. The beginner may use a small emery bag to remove rust; or, a small piece of emery paper may be used instead."

-Woman's Institute Reference Library, 1916.

"Use an emery whenever your needle does not slip through the cloth easily."

-The Improvement of Educational Administration in Massachusetts, 1916.

"An emery bag is inexpensive and is useful to keep needles polished and smooth. If the hands perspire and it is difficult to push the needle through the cloth, running the needle through the emery will relieve the condition."

-Boys' and Girls' Clothing Club, 1915.

"It was very hot to sit and sew. The needle would get sticky in spite of all the little emery strawberry could give it, and Beth's fingers had never felt so clumsy and uncomfortable."

-The Unitarian Register, 1908.

"She polished her needles to nothing, pushing them in and out of the emery strawberry, but they always squeaked."

-Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, 1910.

This patent from 1873 mentions an emery slab for sharpening pins, which is quite different from a cushion, and which sounds like it actually would work for sharpening.

"C is a slab of emery or other sharp and fine grit, for sharpening needles or pins"

Then later down the page it also says

"E is an emery cushion, secured in the body of the holder A, and is used for polishing needles and keeping them smooth."

So. Strawberry for cleaning. Not pepper for sharpening.

Gentle reminder - modern sewing tools are made from treated or plated metal, or stainless steel. In terms of human civilisation, this is a wild advance of technology. Needles are some of our oldest tools; rust was formerly ubiquitous, and attacked every form of everyday metal. A rusty needle tears fabric, or worse, stains it. The luxury and technology of rustproof needles and pins - forgotten in a few generations of human memory - and yet it is remembered in the strawberry. Memory is stored in the strawberry!

#it IS of historical value#children's experiences are underrepresented in historical sources#it doesn't need well written or profound to be of historical value#comic#funny#art

ALT

there is a fucking statue of a kid who lived sometime in the 1200s, around 800 fucking years ago, because we have pieces of his homework that he doodled on while learning how to write. this is one of his drawings:

ALT

when I was googling him (because I couldn't remember his name), I stumbled across this twitter thread about him, which includes a different doodle by an italian boy in the 1400s of knights besieging a castle:

ALT

It's at the back of one of his schoolbooks for learning Latin.

ALL WE KNOW OF THESE KIDS IS STUFF THEY DREW WHILE THEY WERE BORED AND IT'S STILL HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT.

Apparently, based on various complaints I’ve seen, we’re lacking in the mundane when it comes to historical documentation.

@petermorwood has made several posts about cruet sets (and I am now similarly obsessed) because what goes into these little receptacles is periodically in hot debate. Salt, pepper. Solid. Vinegar? Oil? Sure. After that, things get hazy because then what? Sugar? Mustard? What format? How did they use it? etc. It helps when the containers are labeled, but when they’re not, lots of fun conjecture depending on the era and region. Go find Peter’s posts on cruet sets.

There are recipes (probably got this from Peter as well) for preparations of simple foods in different cultures that are lost to time because people assumed that this is common enough knowledge to not be worth committing to paper and you’ll see things like “we had fish for dinner” and the question would be, ‘But how fish?’ Was it steamed, fried, or poached? Were there seasonings? What sort of fish? We can hazard a guess based on what is available geographically, but at the same time that information isn’t really complete because fish species documentation wasn’t as thorough as it is now[1]. Were the aforementioned cruet sets involved in some way?

So ancient or historical journals/tablets/cave art that are seemingly dull because the author is reporting on what nosy neighbour did with their vegetable patch, and how much someone spent on a goat, or what they ate for breakfast (and what time of day they did it for example)[2], or written menus from mistresses of the house or the cook might seem really pointless at a glance, but it gives us neat info about how people lived day-to-day.

Look at how the complaint tablet about Ea-nasir has brought so much joy to the internet.

Or how garum, the ancient Roman fish sauce that fell out of popularity, had a resurgence in current times, but the original method of creating it isn’t really known, nor are they sure of the type of fish that was used, perhaps it’s now extinct (I saw a food show exploring this condiment and I think they suspected it might be whale?). There are variations, and approximations have been made, and they’re pretty sure it’s nothing like the fish sauce in Asian cuisine but the details are a bit hand-wavy at times.

Ultimately, be as boring and detailed as you like. It’ll probably have some value to some historian or anthropologist somewhere down the track.

–

[1] Even today we could be eating fish unknown to science.

[2] I was bored and decided to read up about what meal and snack times were like during the Victorian and Regency eras and the whole concept of dining out in these periods. Very interesting, have bookmarked to read in more detail later.

absofuckinlutely not

You’re just continuing a long line of retail tradition babey

Saw an interesting interview with Hugh Laurie talking about this (on playing House and 'getting away with' doing an American accent):

".... because they're much less interested...they don't have that 'Professor Higgins' ear for.... class and background and geography and the way the British are much more attuned to wait a second where are you from and what trick are you trying to pull on me by... with that particular choice of words. I think partly again because it's such a big country nobody really.... it doesn't bother people so much where you're from or why you sound the way you sound. America's a country that's too big to know itself. Someone living in Florida's got no idea how people behave or what they eat or how they dress in Oregon, it's just so far away - whereas we know, of course, we know absolutely everything about... every British drama we watch, we're like, well that's High Wycombe, that could never happen because it's a one way system there! whereas America's so mythically grand, it's too big to know itself, and that actually has an affect with things like accent. "

There’s a fascinating range of American accents though. But the request is usually for General American.

i see no one has reblogged my post. is it because you undeserving fuck llamas are afraid of the truth