Today, in the Upworthiest...
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1989 ‘Donahue’ interview with female cast of ‘Steel Magnolias’ shows how far we’ve come | ||
So many of these questions and comments simply would not fly today. | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
With a star-studded cast playing six strong, Southern women, the 1989 film adaptation of Steel Magnolias has long been hailed as a celebration of female friendship, empowerment, and resilience. | ||
And as resurfaced clips from the movie’s press tour show, those themes were rather timely. | ||
Cast members Sally Field, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Shirley MacLaine, and Julia Roberts sat on stage answering questions on the popular talk show Donahue. Host Phil Donahue asked his own questions and audience members asked theirs. Watching it now, though, one thing is clear: We’ve come a long way since the 1980s. | ||
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27 English words people have a hard time enunciating properly, even native speakers | ||
Say what? | ||
By Emily Shiffer | ||
The English language is hard to master, even for native speakers. With over an estimated one million words in the language, not only are English words hard to memorize, they can be hard to properly pronounce and enunciate. Getting tripped up with pronunciation can make your communication unclear, or worse, make you sound uneducated. | ||
As American English teacher Vanessa explains, many mispronounced words are common and used in daily conversation due to tricky consonants and vowels in English words. But by knowing the proper pronunciation, it can help you become a more confident speaker, which is why she shared 33 words that are hard for English language learners to pronounce, such as “probably,” “drawer,” and “sixth.” | ||
On the subreddit r/words, a person posed the question: “What’s a word you’ve noticed many native English speakers have difficulty enunciating even though the word is used fairly often?” | ||
Turns out, there are a menagerie of words people notoriously stumble over. These are 27 English words that people say are the hardest to enunciate. | ||
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A landmark moment in local neighborhood history! 🙌
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A hairstylist with no archaeology degree solved an ancient Roman mystery scholars got wrong for centuries | ||
She spent years recreating elaborate Roman hairstyles and discovered they were far more ingenious than scholars had realized. | ||
By Heather Wake | ||
For centuries, scholars believed that the intricately braided, gravity-defying updos synonymous with Roman hairstyling were achieved with wigs. Then a professional hairdresser turned bona fide “hair archaeology” specialist proved them wrong. | ||
Baltimore-based Janet Stephens had been fascinated with hair her entire life. But in 2001, she became particularly interested in ancient hairdressing. | ||
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An Upworthiest Quiz
Ringo wrote only two Beatles songs all by himself. Which two?
Friday’s Results
On the subject, we asked what the typical Upworthy reader’s bedtime routine looks like. Nearly half of you have your sleep routines down to an art form.
A 100-brush, silk-pajama, candlelit affair (8.2%)
Skincare, tea, book, lights out like a functional adult (49.2%)
Doomscroll until the phone hits me in the face (24.6%)
"Routine" is a strong word for passing out mid-episode (18.0%)
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Ringo Starr was convinced fans would throw literal tomatoes at him. | ||
Ringo made The Beatles change the lyrics of ‘With a Little Help From My Friends.’ Good call. | ||
“There’s not a chance in hell am I going to sing this line.” | ||
By Annie Reneau | ||
Ringo Starr is the Beatle least lauded for his vocals, having sung lead on only 11 of the band’s more than 200 songs. Two of those, “Don’t Pass Me By” and “Octopus’s Garden,” he wrote himself. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote the beloved Beatles single “With a Little Help From My Friends” for Ringo to sing—with a little help from Ringo himself on one particular lyric. | ||
As reported by Ultimate Classic Rock, John and Paul kept Ringo’s limited vocal range in mind while writing the melody and structure of the song. They even teased him about it when they introduced it to him. Ringo took those friendly jabs in stride, but when the songwriting duo shared the original line that followed “What would you do if I sang out of tune?” he firmly put his foot down. | ||
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