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reasons i love my job

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This morning I did a research report on a famous man in the world of horse racing, and the SCANDAL that is his love life, which includes an ex-wife who owns a racing stable called the [Name Retracted] Stud Farm.

I just sent the report to my boss, who works across the corridor from me. A few minutes later I heard her voice drift hesitantly out of her office.

Boss: So....a stud farm...that's a...horse racing stable?
Me: Yeah, it's a breeding farm. Male horses of breeding age are put out to stud.
Boss: They're studs.
Me: I think it's where the term came from.
Boss: Oh...kay...
Me: You sound nervous.
Boss: No, I'm just...going to assume the high-level VP who's going to be looking at this report will know that...

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I was a little perplexed myself, but I've done a survey and about half my office was not aware of the original meaning of stud. IDK. I'd say they're just city slickers but well, so am I, and I knew that...

Because you are Sam and you know all.

Also, you were too quick for my ETA, as follows:

ETA that my icon is of the famous John Stubbs paininting of Whistlejacket, considered the most perfect racehorse of his day. A stallion, he retired to stud after his successful career on the track. (There's a whole story as to why his portrait has no background, but I won't bore you. Or rather, I won't bore you any further. *g*)

Wait, there's a story to that? I've been wondering that since I saw the painting when I was seven! TELL ME TELL ME TELL ME.

The story goes that Stubbs, as the foremost equine painter, was supposed to partner with the foremost portraitist and the foremost landscapist to paint a picture of King George III mounted on a rearing horse. Stubbs painted Whistlejacket first, and the others proclaimed it to be the most perfect picture of a horse ever painted, and they refused to do anything further to it. Recent scholarship has called this into question, but it is a perfect picture of a horse, so I choose to believe the story. :-)

Heh, shiny. Thanks. I did not know that. :)

That is a pretty awesome story, no lie. Though I could see how people would be skeptical -- I mean, I'm not super-up on oil painting but wouldn't one paint the landscape first? Otherwise you're landscaping around a horse...

On the other hand, you wouldn't want to paint the horse over the landscape, because it would mess up the texture. You'd get bumps and stuff where they didn't belong, because oils are so 3D, so you'd kind of have to leave a vaguely horse-shaped hole and paint up to the edges of the horse afterwards anyway.

And it makes sense that you wouldn't want to risk the horse by adding a landscape, if you think it's a really awesome horse *nods* gotcha.

I'd blame Texas, personally.

(Having lived there over 30 years.)

Yeah, but I didn't get to Texas until I was in my twenties, and I definitely knew what stud meant by then. I think it must have been avid reading as a child. :D

You are a city slicker, but you are well read and you have spent time in Texas. I have found that even when you live in a city, if you live in the deep south, you can't escape animal husbandry.

Well, yeah, but I'm fairly sure I've known what "stud" means since I was a kid, in the horse-breeding sense. It's pretty possible these days to live in an Austin suburb and not encounter that much agriculture. :D

We are mostly a self-selecting group of people more likely to know random stuff mot related to our everyday lives here: people who read for fun.

Yes! Word games are an interesting way to demonstrate this; it took me a while to realize that some of the words I play frequently are words that many other people aren't familiar with.

I only ever really play word games with other readers, but I've had that kind of situation in other situations like conversations where I assumed something is common knowledge and everyone else thinks it's esoteric (dude, I thought everybody knew what AM and PM stood for. They should!). I have had the "How do you know that?"/ "I dunno, I read stuff?" conversation more than once, I think.

wait... not everyone knows ante meridian and post meridian? *mind blown, not the least bit sarcastically*

Yeah, apparently not. Glad I'm not the only one who was shocked to find that it's not common knowledge. I can't remember how young I was when I learned that tidbit.

*nods* This is true. F'rinstance, I know where I learned about stud farms: reading Black Stallion books as a youngster, long before I ever saw a live horse. :D

That is exactly where I learned about stud farms. :)

I couldn't remember where I learned the 'stud' word from, but I read those books at a young age too so that's probably it :D

I completely agree! Also I'd also add being an avid movie/documentary watcher to that.

Yeah, I can see how that would help too.

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