#limeys

[liberty-bacon]

Narwhal Tusk Surrender Bins Installed Throughout The UK

LONDON—Parliament announced Monday the installation of new narwhal tusk surrender bins throughout the UK after a citizen was seen attacking an austere religious scholar using one of the deadly weapons.Citizens are to return their dangerous narwhal tusks to the anonymous surrender bins immediately."Don't make a fuss -- surrender your tusk," …

[lowbrowanthro]

Fun Fact: Limeys

Ok so, I had previously thought this was something explained to all kids. But then a few weeks ago I found out my roommate hadn’t ever heard of it, so now I’m thinking maybe it was just that my mother was especially into any fun facts that would encourage us to eat our fruits and vegetables. (Trust me, if you knew my mother and our requisite plate-of-salad-a-day childhood....)

And then, once I actually looked into the explanation of sailors and limes, it turned out that I didn’t know the whole story at all!  (In line with that one Charlie Kaufman quote, everything’s always more complicated than ya thought.) So!  Where did “Limey” as a slang term for a British person come from?

Welp, in the 18th century, long sea voyages were causing major issues for sailors whose teeth were falling out (both gross and, coincidentally, the theme of my most commonly reoccurring bad dream--a theme so popular that it has a dedicated website, blehhh).  So leaders in the British Navy were (probably) like, “oh no something seems terribly wrong with our sailor dudes, let us investigate!”

(Their bad attitudes, bell-bottoms, and questionable impressment practices were another problem altogether.)

Surprise!  Not eating fresh fruits and vegetables (my mother is shedding a tear somewhere) because you’re stuck on a ship with only, like, hard tack and rum to consume (probably) can lead to vitamin C deficiency and scurvy!

Weirdly, this should not have been news to anyone in the 1700s.  British Navy surgeon James Lind gets credit for discovering the cure for scurvy because he did a scientific experiment about it, but including vitamin C-rich stuff like citrus fruits in one’s diet as a simple and easy way to prevent scurvy had been practiced for centuries (and arguably millennia) before the British Navy picked up on it and institutionalized the inclusion of citrus fruit juice in sailors’ diets.

But ok, eventually the Brits got with it and force-fed their naval crews lemon juice, and everyone was happier and healthier and had more teeth (yay!) But wait, you ask, lemon juice? Then why were they called limeys??? This is the part I didn’t know (read more here)! Turns out, the British harbored some citrus fruit confusion (citrusfusion? Sounds like a smoothie flavor) and “lemon” and “lime” were both used as collective terms referring to citrus fruit in general, kinda like how we consider red and green apples the same kind of fruit.

So as for the origins of “limeys”... the British sailors were often called “lime-juicers” (here we see the beginnings of the “limey” term). But more accurately, at first they were “lemon-juicers.” Aaand more interestingly, their citrus terminology confusion eventually ended up causing some major issues and setting medical knowledge back centuries.  Womp.

The story is this: some Royal Navy guy (we’ll call him Dave) in the mid-1800s was all, “hey guys, these lemon-limes are working out super!  But you know what would be better than importing the yellow kind of citrus fruit from our European neighbors??  Sailing to our own colonies in the West Indies and getting the green kind from there and using those instead!” And Navy leaders were like, “wow, growing fruit ourselves to trade to ourselves, it’s a win-win, great idea Dave” Except as it turns out, bad idea.  Bad frickin idea, Dave.  Using limes instead of lemons seemed all well and good at first, but it turns out that limes contain way less vitamin C than lemons (and the long cross-Atlantic shipping process wasn’t exactly beneficial to the lime juice’s healthy properties either).

God dammit, Dave.

No one really noticed the problem at first because technology and nutrition overall had improved to the point where scurvy was less likely anyhow, with voyages taking less time etc... BUT THEN at the end of the 19th century, long arctic and antarctic expeditions began... and scurvy reappeared. (oh no!) Even sailors who were drinking lime juice were getting sick on long arctic trips because the amount of vitamin C in limes wasn’t sufficient, and everyone was baffled and confused.

They started blaming scurvy on a host of other issues (including bacteria and rotten meat) since the whole idea of vitamins and vitamin deficiency hadn’t been developed yet.  It was back to square one for scurvy prevention.

And this confusion lasted through the early 1900s!  So many subsequent deaths could’ve been avoided with the extremely simple cure of just EATING FRUIT FOR GOD’S SAKE, a simple preventative technique that the Roman poet Virgil figured out back in like 25 B.C.E.  Seriously.

But alas. Due to insufficient fruit terminology and a lack of scientific rigor, scurvy was a mystery again.

So as it turns out: science is hard, and apparently learning from history is even harder, and colonialism leads to bad ideas (thanks, Dave) and ruins everything. Boo! (Read a more extensive history of the confusion surrounding scurvy here)

But on the plus side, British sailors (and later British people in general) gained a (kind of cute, right?) fruity nickname.  Moral of the story: when life (and your gross Navy diet) give you scurvy, make lemonade!  (... I’ll see myself out.)

Final thought: in some cases “Limey” is apparently a derogatory term, which might make the most sense of all, considering that the smart way to go would’ve been to be a “Lemony,” and the use of limes instead was an unfortunate development... ah. The intricacies of fruit politics.

[graypixllc]

Limeys at The Guinea, Moggerhanger, England. Nikkromat, 28mm. Kodak TRI-X. NIK Silver Efex Pro. 

[grimbeau]

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[zirschniitz-archive]

limeys replied to your photo “50s au b.abe h.effron or p.hil m.ccann we will never know”

omg i love it!! feelin a bit of a john byrne influence which is apt ;)

aww thank u! and yeah :^) i’ve been looking at his art a lot lately and being like ‘woah i like the way he draws” and i tried to do smth similar and now it’s just there

[penalty-boxes]

limeys replied to your post: “tumblr, there is a priest on this train who is SO HOT I am tempted to...”:

nice, that forbidden fruit

he looks like he might have become a priest because he was a rogue in his youth

[sodrippy]

limeys replied to your post “#22”

i am not intimidating, i am just weird n old lol! thanks this is lovely ~*~*

i mean, im just a tiny meme blogger so, lmao

zetterholms replied to your post “#115”

angel, you are SO sweet ^_____^ thank you shrey, miss you! i'm really glad we made new york happen <3

bye please its all so true <3 me too, i am so glad it worked out so nicely!

nickyoflaherty replied to your post “nickyoflaherty replied to your post “#11”shreya…………………pls………………….go...”

honestly this is too much omg let me eat my tacos in pEACE

um....where r my tacos tho.......rude

[sodrippy]

limeys replied to your post “olivia just saw a photo of her and charlie…i want…to perish…this is so...”

i always think abt his poor wife they wanted to have kids :__:

RIGHT, I RMRD HOW HE WAS LIKE ‘WE WERE TALKING ABOUT HAVING KIDS’ AND I M JUST SO ????????? SAD OKAY

vat-69 replied to your post “olivia just saw a photo of her and charlie…i want…to perish…this is so...”

here's the q limeys and i had...was the evil clone charlie f***ing his wife? if so...wow that is so rude

right lmao like just imagine that clone guy just chillin at home, havin dinner w the wife and stuff its so oddly funny? but also, seriously, are they gonna show her again?? are her and olivia gonna talk and be sad and stuff?? cmon fringe let me be extra emo