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It was ruined for me when I was getting my masters in genetics and learned that “mitochondria” is plural, and the singular is “mitochondrion.” So, it’s either “the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell” or “the mitochondrion is the powerhouse of the cell,” and neither feel right.
I feel like the leading “the” is what’s messing that up.
“Mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell” sounds fine to me.
*powerhouses might be better(it sounds better for me)
I refer to one piece of broccoli as a
broccolusbroccolo.I have one die which gives one datum at a time.
Why have you done this to us?!
A grammatical error in a translation from a foreign galactic basic to English is what ruined the force for you? Lol. If we can believe in defying gravity, I think we can believe “The iceburgs is the ship’s fear.”
Bro. What lol.
Idk, just a dumb joke about star wars
I was with you until the last line, lol, had me scratching my head and wondering if I was okay
Weakness would have made more sense then fear, but that ship already sailed. If it’s going to Titanic I’m going to pretend I can’t change course now
I’m a big fan of saying weird shit and leaving it up, cheers fellow weirdo.
I constantly struggle with what’s proper and what sounds right when using Latin plural in English.
It’s mental how this is pretty much known worldwide, like drawing that S thing. The one similar to the Suzuki logo
As a non-native English speaker, I still have no idea why this specific phrase is so significant and at this point I’m afraid to ask.
I think it comes from an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and exploded as a meme.
the meme originated from tumblr. the quote itself is older than color tv.
Well ‘meme’ is an older idea than image macros =p
Lol that’s like saying a joke originated on the Family Guy
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I think it’s just the most simplified you can get talking about cellular biology, specifically when teaching organelles. So most primary science textbooks use that terminology and it’s more memorable than all the other organelles so it just stuck and it got repeated and reviewed every year and it sorta became a pre Internet meme and part of a shared consciousness if you were schooled in the US.
6th grade biology class in the United States, 2001 AD.
The teacher slaps up a diagram of a cell and organelles.
30-45 children all looking around the room, not exactly paying attention
She points to the various organelles, trying to explain their purpose, the golgi complex, ribosomes…
“And the mitochondria”
“Is the power house of the cell”
Children cheer in applause and repeat it, because it rhymes.
It then enters the collective unconscious of English speakers.
I was in the room where it happened.
The S was known worldwide pre internet though. Was the powerhouse line?
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It’s really amazing. The only (not really) downside is that certain episodes make me tear up.
You will also have to enslessly play the games they’re playing.
I haven’t actually been able to watch the special episode properly because my wife and daughters are too busy crying. I do love how stripe is kicked out of the bushes by Wendy
It is really nice to have a children’s TV show that doesn’t scream the title and characters’ names at us over and over, mainly to make sure we remember to buy merchandise
Such a great show. That Sleepytime episode always ruins me though. About how kids need their parents less and less as time goes on and they become more independent, fuuuuck.
What’s interesting to me about that phrase is that no one uses the word “powerhouse” for anything else any more, except maybe to call something powerful.
Since it’s not the 1920s any more and we have an electrical grid and centralized power generation. We still sometimes do use temporary off-grid generators, but we no longer have any need for a dedicated word that means “building or shed that we keep our generators in”.
Power plant🌱
Yes, that’s the word that everyone uses for the large generating stations that create power on a large scale like a manufacturing plant creates goods on a large scale.
Its rare for us to have “power houses” now, and when we do no one calls them that.
The power generating stations near me are still called Power houses.
Lmao I was watching an episode of ST: Voyager the other day and a little girl learning about mitochondria said they were the “warp core of the cell”. That phrase is ridiculously pervasive
What’s with americans and mitochondria ?
Grew up in Asia. Only moved to the US for undergrad… And this applies. So it’s not just the Americans methinks.
That’s interesting
We don’t have that where I live, sure we had to learn the organelles of a cell, but there was no über-focusing on the mitochondria.
(Btw I didn’t know about “methinks”. Learned a new word, thanks !)
The phrase “Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” was coined in a 1957 article by biologist Philip Siekevitz. It apparently rattled around in the English lexicon until 2013, when a tumblr user by the handle apatheticghost posted the following:
what I learned in school
-
I am a fucking piece of shit
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everybody else is also a piece of shit
-
mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
This blew up in popularity and variations emerged that replaced the first two items with various social commentary, but always kept the mitochondria line. It stood for a kind of universal frustration students have with school, that a lot of the curriculum feels like memorizing game show trivia answers rather than useful or practical skills applicable to adult life. Loads of us have no idea how the tax system works but we can all parrot biology factoids.
The phrase became one of those catchphrase in-jokes. A bit like how you can’t say 69 without saying “nice” anymore.
My on personal Mandela Effect: I’d swear I’m from the parallel universe where the phrase comes from the Bill Nye The Science Guy theme song, but apparently I’m thinking of “Inertia is a property of matter.”
Thanks for the detailed answer !
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P O W E R H O U S E
T H R I L L H O
M I L P O O L
Inertia is a property of matter
Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins
Mitosis is….
Why does everyone know this, but still think the definition of “metabolism” is solely built towards fake weight loss regiments? Bit of a tangent.
I learned about mitochondria from Parasite Eve. Damn I wish they’d remake that.
came here to say this. hopefully they don’t become sentient and destroy the island of manhattan… or maybe it’s not a bad idea afterall
I came here to say the same as well! Every time I see the word mitochondria I immediately return to fighting that T-Rex and those awesome green weapon range domes. What an excellent game.
Same here in Germany - immediately came to my mind!
There’s this book. Sequel to Wrinkle in Time i think. Where this kid brings up the subject of mitochondria in class. Gets pummeled for it.
This has got to be the funniest summary of A Wind in the Door
