I don’t know about ”most people in the workforce.” I’m in my mid-30s, and not only do I remember it once or twice from my childhood, I also encountered it once in 2013 (at a brewpub somewhere in New York). You’re right, though, that it becomes less of a thing with each passing year.

Except when you’re walking on a road, you should walk on the opposite side of vehicle traffic.

I take back my post, THIS is my hill to die on. Please note that it applies to any mixed use path where one type of traffic is markedly slower, so pedestrians on the road, obviously, but also walkers on bike paths.

I frequent a bakery that sells the Swedish treat called a semla. No one who works there speaks Swedish, so when I ask for ”two semlor” (pl.), they repeat it right back to me ”two semlas”. Sigh. They have a very finite number of foreign language menu items—they can learn the plurals. (Don’t get me wrong, if ”semlas” is the price of semlor I don’t have to make, I am willing to pay it, but boy does it annoy me.)

And that is exactly how I ended up never watching Game of Thrones.

I’m neither a writer nor a scientist, but there’s a copy of this on my bookshelf and I wish I could lend it to you: Deadly Doses: The Writer’s Guide to Poisons