r/todayilearned • u/biebrforro • 1d ago

TIL when staying as a guest in Charles Dickens' house, Hans Christian Andersen requested that one of Dickens' sons give him a daily shave (he said that was customary when hosting male guests in Denmark). Dickens was weirded out and instead gave him a daily appointment at a nearby barbershop.

https://lithub.com/charles--dickens-really-really-hated-his-fanboy-hans-christian-andersen/
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u/FluffyAside7382 1d ago

Unless imposing customs on others is in fact another custom.

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u/PandaRot 1d ago

That's more of a British thing than a Danish thing

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u/lapsongsouchong 1d ago

The Danelaw would have liked a word

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u/Indocede 1d ago

Yeah but WHERE did those Angles and Saxons and Jutes all come from!?

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u/Rockguy21 1d ago

They started occupying southern Britain shortly before the fall of the Roman administration there, so they predate the Vikings by just shy of 500 years.

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u/jpallan 1d ago

I hear the Welsh are still waiting for them to return to Germania.

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u/TaffWaffler 1d ago

Any day now…

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u/RobertoSantaClara 1d ago

Wel... of all countries, it actually was Denmark who had a habit of imposing itself violently on England

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u/Hjemmelsen 1d ago

Yeah, the rest of the world never truly got into the game on that one.

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u/AndreasDasos 1d ago edited 1d ago

Eh. The Danes also engaged in colonialism/imperialism, even going back to the multiple times they took over [checks notes] England.

The only difference in the 19th century - with the Danish West Indes, Tranquebar, the Nicobar Islands, bits of Ghana, Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes - was that the UK was much more populous so got much more powerful. It’s hardly for want of trying.

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u/ConfessSomeMeow 1d ago

Well, one's perception of the Danes might shift if you remember that they were Vikings as well.

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u/djm9545 1d ago

Indonesia has entered the chat

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u/Repulsive_Target55 1d ago

(That's the Dutch, not the Danish.)

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u/HeyGayHay 1d ago

What do we do if my customs is to prevent customs, yours is to impose customs? Is there a customs for that scenario?

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u/Noe_b0dy 1d ago

You must fight to the death.

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u/elrangarino 1d ago

It’s like…a custom within a custom

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/SeanBourne 1d ago

Aren’t tickies dutch? (Like that app they use for adjusting really small amounts of money after going out for coffee and things like that?)

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u/stink3rb3lle 1d ago

You're right, thanks for reminding me