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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago

My quick guess is that it is so dim, that our eyes are seeing it mostly with the rods (instead of the cones), which only see black and white. „In the night all cats are gray“

[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 month ago

Wait... Did you really just use the Benjamin Franklin grandma pussy quote for this?

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

Oh. I didn’t know this was a thing. In my mother tongue (German) it is like a normal expression.

[-] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nachts sind alle Katzen grau

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nachts_sind_alle_Katzen_grau

Apparently it was originally adapted from Don Quixote

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I'm sure it is, it's just because my first experience with it was through that letter, so now it's ruined for me.

[-] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago
[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago
[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

every Knack being by Practice capable of Improvement.

Well he's not wrong there!

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

From reading the text, I speculate that Franklin was alluding to the preexisting saying as well -- alluding to the cat in the dark as an accepted axiom.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

That would make sense, cleverly recontextualizing a regular saying. It would fit the tone of the letter to do that humorously

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I think a better example probably would just be the night sky (at least in places with non-optimal conditions). Where I'm at there is very little color even when it's clear enough to see galactic features (interstellar cloud/nebulae, clusters of dimmer stars etc).

this post was submitted on 11 May 2024
64 points (94.4% liked)

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