@mjd It sounds like you're thinking that having a pet chicken sounds crazy. I sort of agree: I personally will only accept mammalian predators as potential pets. But my neighbors have pet chickens, and I think they are merely eccentric.

@mjd I guess you could just get a pet chicken and name it that.

@mjd Yes, water is the other major source of mass.

People have a mental image of trees consuming soil, but they also have the necessary information to know that that's not what happens.

@mjd I phrase the question more precisely -- where trees get their mass from.

@mjd "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - Lovecraft.

My standard example of beliefs of this sort is what trees are made from. Most people will say "the ground" -- but they will, upon questioning, be aware that (a) trees turn CO2 from the air into O2, and that (b) trees are (primarily) made of carbon.

@lahosken Beheads bridge, surely.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to link to one of my favorite pieces of writing ever.

@lahosken It used to be a thing.

According to the E.U. regulations, extra-virgin oil must have appreciable levels of pepperiness, bitterness, and fruitiness, and must be free of sixteen official taste flaws, which include “musty,” “fusty,” “cucumber,” and “grubby.”

...

After the first volcanic slurps, the strippaggi grew softer and more meditative, and took on personal notes, the marquess’s wheezy and almost wistful, Zaramella’s deep and wet, as if he were gargling Epsom salts.