non-euclidean geometry in the bedroom

[kaberett]

A couple of months ago I wound up seeing a tumblr post about The Burrito Method of getting a duvet into its cover[1], and promptly went !!! because I got myself a superking when I moved to London (a grown-up duvet for my first double bed!) and have Loathed changing its cover ever since.

The first time I experimented with it, I did it solo. The second time, I asked A if he would like to Share An Experience.

So we laid out the duvet cover, and we laid out the duvet, and we rolled it up, and I said "and now you invert the corners!" and wound up staring at my hands in confusion while I tried to remember exactly how the magic works. It was at this point that A started Voicing His Doubts about how this could Possibly Work.

Hold-on-give-me-a-moment I muttered, or something like that, and did the corner trick. A was still going "this geometry doesn't work. this doesn't work? this cannot work." as I started unrolling again.

A stunned silence Developed. Briefly. And Then Came The Denouncements Of This Witchcraft, followed by some more silence and a thousand-yard stare while he tried and failed to work out what in the name of fuck had just happened, geometrically speaking, and long story short-ish I'm not saying he's safeworded non-Euclidean etc but also...

[1] ugh okay edited to be a link from further down the reblog chain that does work, as opposed to the one that doesn't grump grump :-p

Comments

[madgastronomer]

The original post has been changed and no longer has the video you're talking about. Here's the video on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPfudNNd8Y

[judiff]

So like we already knew that “comforter” was American for “duvet”* - dialects are cool - but WHY do they call a duvet cover a “duvet cover” if they don’t think the thing it like covers is called a duvet?


*and we are like like old enough to remember duvets sometimes being called “continent quilts” herein the UK

[jedusor]

they are not the same! comforters don't have covers; here is an explainer. (do you guys call comforters something else, or do you just not have them?)

[madgastronomer]

We have them, and in my experience, they are, or used to be, more common than duvets. A lot of people here just don't distinguish.

[judiff]

O that would be an "eiderdown" in UK english (even if it's not stuffed with down) but like they are super old fashioned and duvets like pretty much totally replaced them in the 70's and 80's

But the video linked to above is someone saying they are putting a "comforter" into a "duvet cover"! So it seems like comforter is the like generic word? (Even when it doesn't fit the pairing word)

[jedusor]

dude, I already answered the question. Iain Stirling pronounces sandwich "sangwich," would you like to defend that life choice on behalf of everyone in the UK?

[judiff]

You seem like angry and I don’t want to upset you.

You posted a link that said comforters and duvets are different and only duvets go into covers and asked what comforters are called on the UK. So I did the continuing the conversation and tying to make sense of the answer thing of explains about the U.K. word eiderdown and asked about the one area where the information you provided doesn’t fit with the video we were commenting on - that a comforter is being put in a cover. That was like curiosity and trying to refine my understanding not like an attack

I don’t expect any one American to be able to like answer for all American dialects. Or any one UK person. It would be perfectly reasonable for you to say (assuming it’s true) that you’ve always heard comforter and duvet used differently and don’t know why the video-person would be putting a comforter in a duvet cover or that it’s a regional variation or the person is just being weird or whatever
But it’s not like I’m snarking about how an obscure this-one-person-you-might-never-have-heard-of-said-this-thing-one-time so you are therefore Bad and Wrong. I’m just trying to make sense of how the video shared in this thread fits with the information you provided.

And I have no idea who Iain Stirling is but there are d/g/j mergers in some UK accents (like how garage gets pronounced “ga-rid-j” particularly in the South East/London). As well as the obvious fact that different people have different mouths and vocal cords that make slightly different sounds even within the same accent group

[kaberett]

Yo, I am reading you as snapping here -- I do not think this is something you make a habit of, but please try not to. <3

(Snapping at me is fine -- I am confident we can sort ourselves out! -- but I would like folk to Assume Good Faith in conversations in comments, and if that's not possible to check in with me Less Publicly for calibration or to ask me to step in. & for my part apologies for not managing to stay caught up on comments.)

[recessional]

But the video linked to above is someone saying they are putting a "comforter" into a "duvet cover"!

If you read the Nordstrom link above in full, it will note that some people put comforters inside duvet covers.

The difference is between whether or not the blanketing-shaped-thing is intended to be required to be used with a cover, or without it.

If it can be used without a cover, it is a comforter, whether or not you put it in a cover. If it should on no account or ever be used without a cover, it is a duvet.

Hope that helps clarify.

[judiff]

That makes sense, thanx

[fyreharper]

It’s one fewer syllable and rolls off the tongue more easily? (Source: grew up calling them comforter covers, then spent a lot of time with someone who calls them duvets/duvet covers and now it’s a toss-up which comes out verbally… but only for the cover; the comforter is still consistently a comforter because *why change??*)

[ewt]

Thanks for this!

[alexwlchan]

…are you sure you linked to the right tumblr post

[madgastronomer]

The post was edited to change the video, something Tumblr denizens sometimes do if a post gets too popular. The original video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRPfudNNd8Y

[davidgillon]

I think my method's more fun:
Lay the duvet cover on the bed, opening at the base.
Stand in front of the bed with the duvet, one corner in each hand.
Reach up so the duvet is dangling in front of you and not wrapped up in itself or anything.
Bring your hands back down and dive into the duvet cover, dragging the duvet in with you.
When you get to the top, starfish yourself so the corners in your hands end up in the top corner of the duvet, and your feet kick the bottom corners where they need to be.
Wriggle back out again.

[konsectatrix]

That method is ALSO fun, but I use the burrito on ones like my huge king duvet and my weighted queen monster, or other situations where I will most likely lose the wrestling match. XD

[madgastronomer]

I think you have to be rather taller than I am for that one!

[davidgillon]

Possibly, though I'm not exceptionally tall - 5'8"

[madgastronomer]

I, however, am about 5'1", and have a king sized duvet.

[davidgillon]

Fair to say that's more of an issue. Though you could wriggle up to the top as well as wriggling out again afterwards ;)

[madgastronomer]

It’s the “hold it up so it dangles” that’s the big problem.

[davidgillon]

D'oh! Missed the obvious.

[madgastronomer]

Being short is quite literally a different perspective! :)

[konsectatrix]

I love the burrito method so much. It is fabulous witchcraft.

[passingbuzzards]

Omg??? Potentially lifesaving information, I will have to try this! I hate putting the duvet cover on so very much that most of the time I just give up and throw the bare duvet on top of a flat sheet and live with it. (My duvet is a queen size and I'm only 5', so it's very hard with these short little arms, you know.)

...But I agree, I don't see how that works at all. Black magic for sure *g*

(Thanks madgastronomer for the correct youtube link!)

[madgastronomer]

You're welcome. And yeah, I'm 5'1", if that, and I do the same.

[chiasmata]

Yes burrito! Youngest taught me that one. Particularly useful when I’m making multiple beds, which is a killer but the kids feel welcomed home if I do it rather than leaving it for them…

[lunabee34]

Heeeee.

High five!

[emperor]

So I read the title of this post, and thought it was going in ... another direction entirely ;-)

But! That looks like a super-neat trick (and the side-effect of trolling geometers is just an added bonus); I will try and remember to try it next time I'm changing our bedding. So thanks for sharing :)

[kaberett]

Gosh, you don't say. :-p

& you are welcome!

(From Fervent Discussion Elsenet it seems like this is much more useful if you're using synthetic duvets than if you have down, but if it sounds potentially useful to you instead of just "why... would I... bother?" then it's worth a try!)

[emperor]

Today was bedding day, so I gave it a try - great for getting the duvet cover off, less good for putting it back on (the top corners didn't end up quite in the corners). While trying to find the video, I came across Which? reviewing duvet processes, who conclude that the burrito method is easiest if not quickest :)

[kaberett]

Oh that is fantastic -- thank you for the link! Alas re imperfections of the method for your purposes, though.

[sfred]

Ooh!

[highlyeccentric]

That looks extremely satisfying, but it does look like it probably takes longer than inverting it from the top corners and shaking down, even if I do sometimes end up INSIDE the duvet cover with the comforter...

[kaberett]

I have historically done inverting-from-the-top-corners and I find it an enormous frustration that usually winds up with me crawling around inside the Big Sock! I cannot at all shake my superking duvet sufficient to make it ever work without tedious Manual Rearrangement (which was not the case with my single duvets), so while this is more set-up faff I am finding it significantly less frustrating in actuality.

[gumbie_cat]

I love that this method never stops feeling like I'm performing some kind of magic trick, but even better: if you start unrolling the burrito while you are sat on the bed and lay back as you go, you end up tucking yourself in and are ready to go straight to sleep.

[silveradept]

So that looks like someone did a mini-moebius, a Klein bottle, or other trick to create a surface with only one side and then flopped it back out into our space, having inverted it while it was in the single-side space.

That said, it looks like a large amount of work to do from my non-audio experience.

[fyreharper]

what. what.

[enigel]

Hah! It was introduced to me as the "California Roll" method, and I had a similar experience of stunned silence as I didn't even know what questions to ask about the witchery.

It even works for duvet covers that don't open for the full length (which is what I have), but there's significantly more faff, and the reveal is much less satisfying.