We have been thinking for 50 years that lemmings are rodents that commit suicide. The guilt of everything has Disney

If they mention the lemmings we will immediately think of The legendary action video game and puzzles of Psychnosis of 1991. The mechanics of that game, in which the herd of creatures obeyed us blindly, even opting for sacrifice, have a specific origin: a Disney documentary. But … what if everything he told were not only false, but orchestrated by the filming team itself to obtain images of the lemmings suicide? What is a lemming (really). A Lemming It is a small rodent that usually lives in areas near the Arctic or in Biomas de Tundra. They are similar to field mice and musk rats. They measure between 13 and 18 cm in length, they have very short tail, chubonch and hairy snout, short legs and small ears. With a garrita on the front legs they dig into the snow. They are herbivores and live in large tunnel systems. And no, against what is said, they do not have a docile attitude and a flock behavior: although they move in a group by the very high demographic explosions they experience, they are aggressive even with the predators. What was believed to be a lemming. That demographic explosion (which actually obeys mere survival: The reproduction cycles are short and the very fertile females to compensate for the attack of predators and the shortage of food at certain times) is precisely what the 1958 documentary ‘white hell’ was inspired. Produced by Disney, this production talked about how, due to the multitude of offspring that they have since there are not enough resources to maintain them, the lemmings are sacrificed for the good of the population and threw themselves by cliffs, committing suicide. The film even offered images of the moment. The origin of the myth. Long before the filming of ‘Blanco Hell’, Rumorology around Lemmings was abundant: In the 16th century, the Bavarian geographer Jacob Ziegler defended that these rodents fell from heaven when there was a storm and died when the grass grew in spring. This thundered statement was based on local folklore: being the Arctic fauna, the native populations of Inuits or Yupiks had their legends around the lemmings, similar to those of the geographer. Little by little, science was denialing this almost celestial origin of rodents, although for centuries it was believed that the herds were traveling transported by the wind. In pop culture. Science fiction and fantasy was the one that possibly grabbed this idea of ​​the lemmings that moved by air and transmuted it into bugs that commit suicide throwing themselves into the void. Since the fifties we find precipitating Lemming in works such as the story ‘The march of the fools’ of Cyril M. Kornbluth, of 1951, where the lemmings with space travelers who march to Venus to die in a collective suicide are compared. A legend of Disney comics, CARK BANKShe drew in an adventure of the ducks to Lemmings jumping through Norwegian cliffs. And nothing less than Arthur C. Clarkein his story ‘the possessed’ explains with a case of alien group possession the behavior of rodents. What really happened in the documentary. The director of ‘Blanco Hell’, James Algar, I intended to record an authentic sacrifice of the Lemmingsbut he did not look like. So the photo director came up with a group of local children to hunt Lemmings, 25 cents the piece. Once they had enough, they were cleared them. A cruel resolution (nothing strange in Documentaries about animals of the time), but today is somewhat uncomfortable to see: ‘Blanco Hell’ went on to accompany other Disney films to which time has not treated very well, and was withdrawn from Disney+ together with classic cases such as The racist ‘Song of the South’. In pop culture. And thus the myth was founded, which gave us an extraordinary video game and a wrong belief in the popular culture that persists until today, as the same Begoña Villacís demonstrated, which in 2017 signed in the confidential an article entitled ‘Catalonia, an army of lemmings‘. Although few stories as fun around the nice rodents as an article of ‘Popular Science Monthly’ that, in 1877, said that suicide lemming what they want is to throw themselves into the Atlantic to immerse themselves in search of the lost continent of Lemuria. Damn rodents. Header | Wikipedia, Psygnosys In Xataka | The amazing video that shows an octopus by changing color while you think is dreaming

Spanish: 7 of the most common mistakes we commit when it comes to speaking and writing

Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Article information Author, Drafting Author’s title, There is festivalcartagena@bbcmundo January 27, 2025 If you receive such a message you can have several things for insurance, such as who writes it has confidence with you and belongs to the millennial generation. The phrase, which was originally part of a meme with a funny flame with chuecos eyes, is possibly the first with obvious errors that went viral. And it is more or less clear that, who writes it, knows that there are several spelling fouls – “Hello, what are you doing?” It would be the right phrase. But there are other grammatical errors that are also viral, only that they have sneaked in our day to day without being part of a meme. We talk to Mónica Helguera, better known in networks such as “La Profe Mónica”, a graduate in Castilian language and who is dedicated to the creation of educational content today With her we saw some of the most common mistakes we committed in Spanish, both when writing and speaking. 1. The verb to have If we could make a ranking of beaten and vilified verbs by the Spanish speakers, the verb would have won the first prize. It is one of the most used and, perhaps that is why, with which greater mistakes are made. “This verb has a very complex situation. It can function as the main and as an auxiliary and, at the same time, it can even accompany two verbs at the same time.” This, without a doubt, can generate a lot of confusion. In the first place, having, as auxiliary verb, is used to form compound times. To do this, all the simple ways of having are combined with the participle finished in -or of the verb that is being combined: he has bought, we wanted, he had come. Here comes one of the first errors, which is to use the form we have, archaic, to form the first person of the plural. ❌ We have seen your brother. ✅ We have seen your brother. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Its other use, as the main verb is, at the same time, impersonal. That is, it is a verb that is generally used in the third person of singular and, in this case, denotes the presence or existence of something, as in the phrase “there is bread.” In this case, errors are trying to make a concordance between the verb and the subject that has no place. “It is complex to think that a verb cannot pluralize, being that accompanies a plural subject, but in this case, it is a mistake,” says Helguera. ❌ There were several girls. ✅ There were several girls. Recently another meme became viral and, in some cases, the verb has appeared with this error: ❌ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. ✅ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. With the impersonal use of the verb having in the present there are also errors in the way of writing it. They have seen “ay”, “hai” or “there” where “there are”. A classic phrase that is usually taught to differentiate how it sounds about how it is written is as follows: There is a man who says Oh! There – adverb of place. There are – the impersonal form of the verb to have present. Oh! – Interjection to express many and different spirits, from pain to joy. The fourth of errors with this verb is perhaps the most curious and quite repeated and is born by confusion in pronunciation. Let’s see. In this case, the auxiliary verb is confused in infinitive, having, with the sequence constituted by the preposition and the verbal infinitive see. 2. Homófonas words What are homophones? Well, they are pronounced the same, but they are written differently. And here are great confusion that lead to errors, for example: The confusion between AS/has/beam .. and yes, here we have an example that includes the verb having. Have you looked for that AS of football? Look for it. Do what I tell you. Has – form corresponding to the second person of the singular of the present of indicative of the verb to have. AS – One of the cards of the deck or a person who stands out remarkably. Do – imperative form corresponding to the pronoun you of the verb make. “Especially in the difference between you and do, I always try to explain it in the simplest way for people to understand. And I usually do it by asking people to look at the participle. If there is a word that follows that ‘you have ‘or’ do ‘and it is observed that it ends in ado, gone, to, so and cho (as in erased, eaten, broken, printed and said), it will tell me that the previous word is (you have slept, you eaten , you have broken, you have printed, you said), “says Mónica Helguera. Another way to distinguish between you and do is see that the latter indicates an order. Other words that usually confuse because they sound the same are going, berry and fence. Go to the fence to collect berries. Go – third person of the imperative of the verb go. Valla – Cercado or Wall. Bayas – a type of fruit. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Another example of homophones are there, be there, find and aya. Find this detail: there, next to the tree, which is a beech, there are children with their aya. Find – Second person of the singular of the present of the verb find, which means finding. There – demonstrative adverb that place. Hay – a type of tree. Aya – person in charge of caring for children. Another problem with the homophones are those that go with V with B, both sounds that less and less Spanish -speaking people distinguish themselves by pronouncing … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.