AUGUST

How do porcupines DO IT?

"Carefully," of course. Otherwise, it would be quite a sticky wicket, as they say in jolly olde England.

Scientists finally despaired of getting this rodent to answer a questionnaire about its mating habits, so that had to become voyeurs. Ooh, what they saw! First, there's a little spraying here and there in lieu of a courtship dance. Then one finally gives the other a pointed look. Now, dig this. Remember those old-style 'jammies with the flap in the back? Well, the female porcupine simple lifts her tail and folds it up over her back, leaving a smooth, quill-free space and, well, you get the picture....

They conclude with one of the animals disengaging, climbing a tree, and shrieking at the other. Do you suppose that's porcupine for, "was it good for you?"

Source: WHY MOTHS HATE THOMAS EDISON Ed. By Hampton Sides



Finally, the sap rises

The giant sequoia tree may not become sexually mature and flower until it is 200 years old. Hey, even I could deal with a 200-year-old adolescent.

Bamboo has been known to grow three feet in a day. Imagine how silly it looks shopping for shoes.

Source: Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts



Didja Know...
Wooden you know it, A 2"x4" is really 1 1/2" x 3 1/2"?
(Source: Sendingfun.com)

WWhy does frightening someone sometimes cure hiccups?

Frightening people is often a useful social tool. For example, Mafia loan officers use the technique as a practical reminder that you must pay back your loan when it's due, or you will find yourself in deep due. So why shouldn't fright have medical applications as well?

Hiccups happen when something irritates the nerves that control the diaphragm. The result is spasms. Maybe you ate or drank too fast or too much. Really, who cares what caused it, you just want to stop it. The way to do that is to fool those nerves. Since the same nerves also influence your heartbeat and blood pressure, why not divert them with something that will force them to stop diddling your diaphragm and direct their attention elsewhere? Fright does that.

I tried it with a friend. It worked. Boy, was he scared. He stopped hiccupping immediately, and barfed on my beige rug.

Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith



Starry-eyed

There is now an accredited school of Astrology, The Astrological Institute, in Scottsdale, Arizona. The Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, a federally recognized group, sanctioned it. The only criteria for accreditation are available jobs in the field and teachers qualified to teach their subjects.

I won't bother to apply. I can't even remember what sign I was born under. But it sure wasn't "$."

Source: THE NEW YORK TIMES



Didja Know...
The dot over the lower-case letter 'i' is called a 'tittle?'
(Source: sendingfun.com)

Why do we put on a pair of pants, but not a pair of shirts?

As a child, I had the distinct impression that life was a gamble. Why else would adults refer to heaven as a pair 'o dice? Then there was this pair of pants business. It was like the emperor's new clothes. Hard as I looked, I only saw one.

What's with the doubletalk about pants? Logically, it doesn't have a leg to stand on. But historically, whatever we've worn below the waist, from breeches to trousers, has singularly come in a "pair." The answer is to be found in clothing history. You know the expression about "putting on your pants, one leg at a time?" That used to be necessary because that's how they were once made: each leg separately, literally a pair. Once you had put on both legs, you tied them at the waist, like the chaps that cowboys wear. (Or is it the cowboys that chaps wear?)

Source: worldwidewords.org



Batty (or, an EEEEEEEE!-ticket attraction at 'Draculand')

Romania is going to build a Dracula theme park "where it happened," in Transylvania. Scheduled for completion in 2003, it will include a souvenir shop selling Dracula baseball bats and a food court (stop off for a bite). I'm sure they're already training the employees to say "fang you, very much."

"This won't be Disneyland," says Romania's Minister for Tourism. I'll say, but it still sounds Goofy.

Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL



Didja Know...
A rat can go longer without water than a camel?
(Source: Pogolo.com)

Why do we put photos and clippings in an album?

In the groovy days of Long Playing records, the Beatles released their "White Album." The cover was white on white, and so was the title, because the word "album" happens to be Latin for "white." Think albumin, albino, etc.

The first "albums" were white tablets on which the ancient Romans inscribed public records (not the musical kind!). They were about as exciting as Wayne Newton singing disco. During the Middle Ages, album came to mean any list of people or a register of things. Eventually that evolved into a book that held memorabilia of any kind - photos, autographs, pressed flowers, the severed finger that couldn't be reattached, and so on.

I still have my 6th grade graduation album. Several friends signed it, "2 good 2B 4 got 10." For the life of me, I can't remember any of them.

Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD ORIGINS by Jordan Almond



Orange with black stripes, or black . . .

Of the approximately 10,200 tigers residing in the U. S., only 200 are in zoos. Your neighbor may own one of the others (heard any strange sounds next door lately?). You can buy a cub for as little as $350, less than you would pay for many fancy breed dogs. But it's only fair to warn you that these fuzzy little things can weigh 600 pounds fully grown. Better finish obedience training very early.

Source: THE NEW YORK TIMES



Didja Know...
The second man on the moon, Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon?
(Source: Rush and Malloy)

Why are people who ignore traffic tickets called "scofflaws?"

When I was a kid, I heard this as "scuff flaws," and wondered what defective shoes might have to do with ignoring summonses.

On the surface, the origins of scofflaw appear to be obvious. "Scoff" means to be derisive. Scofflaws are therefore people who don't respect the law. And that's exactly what it described when it was coined. The interesting thing, though, is how it was coined: in a contest. It was held in Boston in 1923 and sponsored by a rich person who was a fan of Prohibition. The activity in question was thus not speeding or illegally parking but rather, drinking. Booze was illegal, yet so many people ignored the law. What to call them? Two contestants came up with this word and divided the $200 prize.

Only $100 a piece for inventing a word now in the dictionary? It's enough to drive a person to drink.

Source: worldwidewords.org



Don't repeat in polite company

People used to think that someone possessed by the devil could expel his hornyship by sneezing, flushing him out with the phlegm. Now researchers are beginning to believe that mucous itself may eventually be useful in devising cures to several diseases. Mucous is just sodium, water and complex sugars - the stuff you eat in fast food.

I knew it, I knew it.

Source: nationalpost.com



Didja Know...
Underaged drinkers consume one-fourth of all alcohol in the United States?
(National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse)

Why is New York City the "Big Apple?

Some people put off by the city's speed and edgy populace think of it as the pits. But after 9/11, many of us have a renewed appreciation for the solid core of this great metropolis.

The phrase appears to have at least two sources. A book, The Wayfarer (1909), ironically referred to Gotham as "the big apple" to diminish it. It was only one of the fruits on the national tree, "but gets a disproportionate share of the national sap." But the phrase was also used in the 1920s by New Orleans racing stable hands to express their high regard for racing in New York City. In 1924, John J. Fitzgerald, a columnist on the New York Morning Telegraph, the racing paper, popularized it. Jazz musicians began using it to mean the biggest stage of all, and today the Big Apple is still "where it's at."

Source: www.mcny.org



The foundation of scholarship

In "Cultural Rhetorics of Women's Corsets," in Rhetoric Review, Prof. Wendy Johnson writes, "To read corsets and women's writing, I propose that we engage formal rhetoric as an heuristic, so that through both rhetorical and feminist frames we may read something of how discourse shapes the feminine subject."

Some people like to read the back of a cereal box; she reads girdles.

Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL



Didja Know...
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!?
(FunnyFuel.com)

Why are sunsets red?

Because the day needs a traffic light, so it won't run into the night.

I better tell you the truth or MY sun will set. The molecules of air in our atmosphere always deflect the sun's light. That white light is actually a combination of violet, blue, green, yellow, orange and red light. These colored rays shine at different wavelengths and are deflected more or less depending on how much of the atmosphere they have to shine through. By sunset, the sun's low position in the sky means the rays have to pass through the maximum amount of our atmosphere to reach us and all of the colors have been completely deflected and scattered except red. It wins by default.

And you thought maybe the sun was embarrassed?

Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith



Pickled

Humans have been eating pickles for 4,000 years. The Bible, in a few sour passages, refers to them twice. Aristotle said some great things about them, but entirely in Greek. Columbus brought them to America. Napoleon thought they were good for you. Had he been asked to take his hand out of his coat, you would almost certainly see that he was concealing a half-eaten dill.

Source: mtolivepickles.com



Didja Know...
The Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,
000,000,000 tons (5,940 billion billion metric tons)!?
(FunnyFuel.com)

Why do we refer to kids as "small fry?"

This phrase, often used affectionately, presents quite an image when you think about it. Of course, it could be worse. You're not suggesting we envision them boiled in oil, just dipped in some fat and quick-heated over a high flame.

Food is often used to suggest something diminutive. For example, we might say that something is "peanuts" or "small potatoes." And "fry," in another context, describes small fish that are eaten fried. But in this context, it's got nothing to do with fish. In fact, it's not connected to food of any kind. This fry comes from the Old Norse word "frjo," which means kids. It's that simple.

Small fry, then, is redundant, since children tend to be small in the first place. But since you always have to tell them at least twice to do anything...

Source: Who Put the Butter in Butterfly? By David Feldman



I put you on the spot

A black panther is really a leopard with a dark coat. You can see his spots if you examine him up close. You look; I'm busy right now.

A mockingbird can alter its tune almost 90 times in less than 10 minutes. I'm not impressed. My Congressman can do that and chew gum while being treated to a free lunch by a lobbyist.

Source: THE JOY OF TRIVIA by Bernie Smith



Didja Know...
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times!?
(FunnyFuel.com)

How come my telephone operates even in a blackout?

Depends on what you mean by blackout. When I've been imbibing and MY lights go out, my telephone works just fine, but I don't. So, who cares if the phone still functions?

Still, it is curious that the phone goes ringy-dingy even when the electricity fails. It's not magic, and the phone does run on electric power. The source and amount of the current, though, is critical. Your phone gets juiced from the phone company, not from the electricity in your home. The phone company has storage batteries and sometimes diesel generators that keep providing current even during a long blackout. And although they have to power a lot of phones, each requires a miniscule amount of electricity. An outlet in your home typically supplies 15 amps, while your phone uses less than .00001 amps.

Source: THE STRAIGHT DOPE by Cecil Adams



Good morning, sorry, I'm stuck!

When Japanese bow, they are angling to send a message. A 15- degree bow is "good morning," while they say "sorry" at 45 degrees. At 90 degrees, the message is probably, "get me a chiropractor!"

Source: absolutetrivia.com



Didja Know...
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!!?
(UselessKnowledge)

Why do we call extortion "blackmail?"

Do you tip your mailman at Christmas? You don't have to. But would you want your neighbor to "mistakenly" receive your Frederick's of Hollywood catalog? Accidents happen. How about those "toys" you ordered from that torrid website?

Actually, blackmail has nothing to do with the Post Office, which screws up as a matter of principle. It comes from "mal," Old English for tribute or rent. Warlords in ancient Scotland used to force farmers to pay mal as protection. Pay it and you plant your crops in peace; don't pay it and we plant you and you rest in peace. Blackmail took on its modern meaning of general extortion for money in the 19th century.

Why black? The color was often used to suggest evil, but it may also have been to distinguish the payment, made in crops or livestock, from what was called "white" money -- coins and currency.

Source: wordorigins.org



Not bestsellers - restsellers?

You may have noticed that Amazon.com ranks books by sales. Books that have sold the least are far down the list-- somewhere on the order of the 2,000,000th best selling book in Amazonia.... Recent titles that have had trouble cracking the 'Hot 2 Million': an anthology of Cream of Wheat advertising art, the National Park Service guide to Fort Pulaski and Vol. VII of the papers of Puritan Massachusetts' Governor John Winthrop.

I guess the public had its fill of him after Vol. VI.

Source: Cnet.com



Didja Know...
Porcupines float in water!?
(FunnyFuel.com)

Why are people's eye's often red in snapshots?

Well, if you photograph them just before the bar closes, you shouldn't be surprised. Under other circumstances, if they're your relatives and yours are anything like some of mine, don't even question this phenomenon. Use it to identify which are not of this Earth.

If you want the scientific explanation, it's all in the retina, the light-sensitive membrane in your eye. It's not exactly a mirror so most of the time light does not reflect off of it. But the light from a camera's flash is so intense that it does come back at the camera's lens. The red color is from the blood vessels in the membrane.

Cats, like some other animals, have an extra reflective layer on their retina so even shining a flashlight at them in the dark produces a reflection. What's more, they're in league with the devil.

Source: howstuffworks.com



Cracked

The Liberty Bell, on view today in Philadelphia, did not ring out American independence on July 4, 1776, but rather on the 8th. Anyone who says otherwise is cracked.

There are many places in the Western Hemisphere named for Columbus. Note that they're not called "Christopher." So why do we call America after explorer Amerigo Vespucci's first name? Well, "God Bless Vespucci" does lack a certain something.

Source: THE JOY OF TRIVIA



Didja Know...
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building?
(FunnyFuel.com)

Is ozone good for us or bad for us?

Depends. It helps to precipitate soot and dirt when used as a cleaning agent. It kills germs, and that's good. But it's not so good when it's in the air and it reacts perfectly with car exhaust, dirt particles and the like to make them hang out there for you to breathe as smog.

Ozone is an oxygen molecule with an extra atom. It's most commonly created by a discharge of electricity, such as lightning. The Sun's radiation hitting our atmosphere also creates ozone, which forms a layer in the atmosphere that protects us from the sun's ultraviolet rays. I find it touching that the sun works to protect us from itself, don't you?

Too much ozone at ground level can irritate your eyes. Then again, too much tequila can make you cry. What can I say?

Source: THE WORLD BOOK ENCYCLOPEDIA



Mercy, mercy

There is an odd and rare physical disorder called "mercyism," which causes one to throw up after eating but then want to eat again immediately. It was once thought to be common among doctors, an obvious confusion of this condition with "mercenaryism."

People over 50 are only half as likely as a teenager to catch a cold. Statistics also show they are also less likely to buy a Brittany Spears CD or still be in high school.

Source: 2201 FASCINATING FACTS



Didja Know...
February is officially National Snack Food Month?
(Source: New York Daily News)

What are crop circles, and how might they have been made?

Weird phenomena are often circular. First flying saucers, now crop circles -- those little green men have us going ‘round and around. No wonder believers seem a little dizzy.

Crop circles - sometimes they take other geometric patterns - - are most often associated with England. One day you have a perfectly normal wheat field. But overnight, some force has squished down part of the crop to form a circle, which is most vivid when seen from the air. A lack of footprints in the field suggests an unexplainable natural or supernatural phenomenon.

Not necessarily. Many have been exposed as hoaxes, created, for example, by a rope tied to a stake and pulled around in a circle, crushing the wheat. If the ground is dry, you can carefully walk into and out of the field without leaving prints.

Just remember: wherever you find a crop, you usually find manure.

Source: www.sciam.com



Rats!

Rat ownership in the U. S. increased by 49 percent in the 1990s. Rats now reside as pets in more than 500,000 American households. The American Fancy Rat and Mouse Association sponsors thoroughbred rat shows. One judge rates a rodent “better than husbands,” since it “goes back in its cage when you’re done with him.”

Source: www.wsj.com



Didja Know...
There is a town in British Columbia, Canada called Poopoo Creek? (Source: UselessKnowledge.com)

Who invented the "Monopoly" game, and when?

No, not Bill Gates! His game is played on a desktop with two clicks and a curse, not a roll of the dice. Nor was it Donald Trump, although imagine passing "GO in a stretch limo, landing on Boardwalk and having the wherewithal to put a real hotel on it.

Naturally, this real estate game in which even the meek can become moguls was invented during the Depression. Charles Darrow created it in Germantown, Pennsylvania and sold it to Parker Brothers in the mid-1930s. Darrow used Atlantic City place names because he had a few good times there. With more than 200 million sets sold since then, Monopoly has become part of American culture. Nieman Marcus even brought out a chocolate version in 1978. Play that one long enough and you can't go to jail because you won't fit through the door.

Sources: yesterdayland.com and monopoly.com



Volts, amps, pints and pieces

A refrigerator laden with six-packs and frozen pepperoni pizza draws more current than when it's empty and there's more air to cool. On the other hand, you may have to spend even more on antacids after the beer and pizza.

A company in Maine will sell you fox urine, an effective deer repellent when sprinkled around your house. Then all you have to do is set fire to your house to diminish the stink.

Source: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL



Didja Know...
The Virgin Mary is the only woman mentioned by name in the Quran?
(Source: Newsweek)

Why do magicians use the word "abracadabra?"

Well, "open sesame" is rather seedy. And "abracadabra" swings. If you don't believe me, pronounce it slowly, out loud, one syllable at a time, and tap your feet and snap your fingers while you say it. Crazy, man.

Most of the time, such an incantatory word is created simply for its sound, such as the fairy tale word, "rumplesnitz." But abracadabra has a more interesting background. It's a magical charm from cabbala, the practice of medieval Jewish mysticism that has recently caught Madonna's fancy, bless her little bustier-enclosed heart. The word, possibly the initials of some ancient Hebrew words, was inscribed on parchment and worn around the neck to cure flux and ague.

So, next time someone you know and love has flux or ague, or even both, just say the word -- and take a bow.

Source: BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE, edited by Ivor H. Evans



Shedding some light

"LASER." It's an acronym you use often, but do you know what it stands for? Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. This has created quite a crisis for school boards in some of the backwoods sections of America. Once you have textbooks delving into "stimulated emissions," there's no telling where they'll go next.

Source: THE HANDY SCIENCE ANSWER BOOK



Didja Know...
If a person yells for eight years, seven months and six days, that person would produce enough sound energy to heat a cup of coffee?
(Source: Sendafriend.com)

Why is that wild holiday in New Orleans called "Mardi Gras?"

Mardi Gras is the period lasting anywhere from a day to two weeks before Ash Wednesday, a last fling before Lent. If you know that the name comes from the French for "Fat Tuesday," you get only 25 out of a possible 100 points because you don't know the half of it.

The ancient Romans had an anything-goes spring feast called Lupercalia. Take my word for it, anything, but anything, went. The early Church had to compete, and so allowed for a toned down version of Lupercalia called "carnivalere" - "goodbye to the flesh," in Latin - just before the meatless Lent. It's the source of our word, carnival. The last day of carnival - Shrove Tuesday - came to be called "Fat Tuesday" because of the medieval Parisian custom of leading an ox, crowned with a fillet stuck on its horns, through the streets.

Now there's a steak-on-a-stick that really gilds the lily.

Source: BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE AND FABLE, edited by Ivor H. Evans



Quickie

At the Mustang Ranch, the famous legalized bordello in Nevada, the workers spent an average of 15 minutes with each client. What a coincidence. That's how much doctors spend with patients these days.

In 1845, the village of Peter's Colony on the Trinity River in Texas renamed itself after George Mifflin Dallas, Vice President of the United States. They chose a nonentity so he wouldn't overshadow the growing town.

Source: THE JOY OF TRIVIA by Bernie Smith



Didja Know...
Domestic cats can hear much higher pitched sounds than either dogs or humans?
(Source: Friskies.com)

What is there about mice that scare elephants?

First, let's deal with that old, hoary stereotype about pachyderms that populates children's stories and cartoons: that elephants are disturbed at all by "wee timorous beasties." It's true. So much for debunking old myths.

If elephants could just be fitted with corrective lenses, this would never be an issue. If they had a higher energy level, mice might not matter. But notice where the elephant's eyes are located: at the sides of its head. YOU try to focus on anything small and close-by when your pupils are placed for plenty of peripheral vision. Especially in the confines of a small space, such as a cage, a mouse strikes an elephant as some blurry intruder threatening its space. And, to boot, this tiny UTO - unidentifiable twitching object - is confronting the ultimate in life-in- slow-motion creatures

The elephant's solution? He momentarily tolerates this nonsense, and then puts his foot down.

Source: WHY MOTHS HATE THOMAS EDISON ed. By Hampton Sides



Get too close and you could get screwed

The narwhal, a kind of whale, has a long, corkscrew-shaped tusk that by the time the animal matures extends out as much as 9 feet from its upper lip. Wine bars welcome their patronage. They don't have to ask for proof of age and the customer can open his own.

You can smell a skunk from a mile away. Phooey! I suppose we could remove the scent glands from every one of them, but then the animal would be exstink.

Source: 2201 FASCINATING FACTS



Didja Know...
The average North American will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year?
(Source: Cerealfiles)

Who are the Gideons, and when did they start putting Bibles in hotel rooms?

Hey, did you hear the joke about the traveling salesman? Well if you haven't, you won't hear it here because we don't mix humor and religion. It was Christian traveling salespeople, under the leadership of one Samuel E. Hill, who formed the Gideons in 1899. They named themselves for a judge in the Old Testament.

The Gideons placed their first Bible in a drawer at the Superior Hotel in Ironside, Montana in 1908. I don't know the reaction of the first guest to encounter that unanticipated copy of The Good Book. But I imagine some weary business traveler checking in late after a hard day on the road, a little bleary-eyed, no doubt, might have mistaken all the "begats" in the Old Testament for the local telephone directory.

I just hope this guest didn't also complain about too much noise from "the man upstairs."

Source: THE BOOK OF ANSWERS by Barbara Berliner



In hot water - and loving it

According to neurobiologist Eric Kandel, sea slugs show "limited behavior, even compared to other invertebrates." I'll say. All they do is "eat, rest and copulate." And if the water they're in gets too warm, they do nothing but copulate.

Sea slugs have larger nerve cells than any other animal. What the heck, to live like that you have to have a lot of nerve.

Source: DRESSING FOR DINNER IN THE NAKED CITY



Didja Know...
It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas?
(Source: Pooshka.com)

Why are the four seasons unequal in length?

Kids learn early about the world's injustice. Winter, with its long days in school, drags on, while summer flies by in a flash. Blink between July 4th and Labor Day and you miss it.

Surprise! In the Northern Hemisphere, summer lasts 93.65 days, while winter actually blows over in a mere 88.99. Spring lasts 92.76 days and autumn, 89.84. But why? Because no matter how things might seem to be going in your life, you are never really going around in circles, at least not with regard to the sun. The earth you're standing on takes an elliptical, not a circular path around it. We're closest to the sun in January, when its gravitational pull on the Earth is strongest, briefly speeding us up in our orbit, and slightly abbreviating autumn and winter.

Now if we could just make ice cream last longer than a bowl of hot soup.

Source: THE HANDY SCIENCE ANSWER BOOK by The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh



About this much

There once was a unit of measurement called the gry, which was .008 inch. We still need it - for zeroing in on a "pinch" of salt, estimating how much someone means when they ask you to cut them a "thin" slice of birthday cake and determining how much is "some" when someone asks you to cut them some slack

Source: THE BOOK OF ANSWERS



Didja Know...
The aggregate weight of the world's termites outweighs that of humans by a ratio of 10 to 1?
(Source: Useless Trivia)

Why do we call that thing that depletes a checking account a "mortgage?"

What did bankers do for amusement before collecting the monthly mortgage payment? What could possibly be more fun than tossing an aged widow out onto the street for getting behind on her payments?

At best, the mortgage is an onerous burden. In fact, taking this 15th century word literally, it's also a deadly one. "Mortgage," derived from two Old French words, means a "dead pledge." They don't mean pay or die, although it may feel that way. "Dead" is an economic and legal reference to what your house - your collateral or "pledge" -- will be to you if you fall too far behind and the bank repossesses the place. Any right you had to it is finished. Kaput. Dead.

Today, people often celebrate the final payment by burning their mortgage. Had they lived during the French Revolution, they probably would have long since burned the bank instead.

Source: THE OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY



Darn them

Y'all probably think that the expression "damned Yankee" developed in Dixie. Well it didn't. It dates to the American Revolution, when General Schuyler's men used it to refer to their fellow revolutionaries who hailed from the backwoods.

Today, of course, it is a remnant of the Civil War, heard increasingly less in the South, but still uttered with some frequency in Boston by Red Sox fans.

Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam



Didja Know...
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night?
(Source: New York Daily News)

Why do we refer to a person charged with a crime as a "culprit?"

It's the 17th century. A lawyer in a hurry - obviously not being paid by the hour - reads quickly through a document, smushes two abbreviations together, and forms a new word.

When a person up for trial on a high crime in this period pled not guilty, the clerk replied for the court, "Culpable: prest d'averrer nostre bille" -- "guilty, and we're ready to go to trial." The first two words of the reply came to be abbreviated on legal forms as "cul. Prist" ("Prist" is the Latin predecessor of the Old French, "prest.") The smusher made them into "culprist," and you can see where that's headed.

French faded from English law, and the sloppiness was compounded as the meaning of this mashed potato phrase, now a single word, shifted from a declaration that the state was ready to go to trial, to one that characterized the trialee. (Hey, there's no justice.)

Source: The Oxford English Dictionary



It hurts - hard and fast

It takes millions of nerve cells to transmit pain from the spot that hurts to your brain. Given its complex path, it's amazing just how quickly the message travels. At its peak, pain can do 350 feet per second - often in a hospital zone!

Brain surgery is the oldest known operation. The Aztecs and Incas practiced it to cure insanity. It "worked," if the criterion for success for each procedure was one less insane person.

Source: HOW A FLY WALKS UPSIDE DOWN by Martin M. Goldwyn



Didja Know...
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin? Today it's known as Tennessee.
(Source: New York Daily News)

Exactly what do we mean by "the exception that proves the rule?"

We've all heard and probably repeated this expression many times. But can you explain it? When I say it slowly, paying attention to what I'm saying, it sounds like nonsense. An exception undercuts, it doesn't prove a rule.

So why have we been duped into repeating this gibberish? Because it made sense at one time when the word "proves" meant something other than what it usually means today. It used to mean, "test," from the Latin, probare, "prove." The same root gives us the word "probe," also a test. And an exception does test a rule. If the exception is valid, the rule ain't.

So why do we go on repeating an expression which at its heart is truly archaic? Because we heard it from others when we were young and we imitate them, like monkeys. Here, have a piece of my banana.

Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam



My name is ...Wackula

Novelist Bram Stoker, at work on what was to become "Dracula," was going to call the book's title character Count Wampyr. Elmer Fudd could have played him in the movies.

Bela Lugosi, who did play the Count, was in private life an adept sculptor. What did he carve with, his teeth?

Source: DO FISH DRINK WATER? By Bill McLain



Didja Know...
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny?
(Source: Encarta.com)

Is the appendix our body's only vestigial structure?

If some of the people I've had to deal with lately are any indicator, the brain might qualify. Seriously, though, there are several apparently useless parts in the human body. Your nictating membrane is one.

But the most interesting vestigial part is the only bone in your body that does not appear to have been assigned a task. The coccyx begins as four small bones that fuse into one as you mature. But it has no more use as a solo act than it did as a quartet. The coccyx is what we commonly call our "tail bone." It may indeed be the remnant of the tail we once had, but in our time, it just sits there.

Now, out of the corner of my eye I've seen you squirming. Ok: the nictating membrane is that small useless fold in the corner of YOUR eye.

Source: HOW A FLY WALKS UPSIDE DOWN by Martin M. Goldwyn



Talk fast

The speed of sound, known as Mach 1, varies at different altitudes. It's 760 miles an hour at sea level, but drops to 660 miles an hour at 36,000 feet. Your experience of either would probably be about the same – assuming that you were in an airplane.

An astronaut in orbit around the Earth would see the sun rise and set 16 times in a day. A rooster doing the same thing would probably get laryngitis.

Source: ISAAC ASIMOV'S BOOK OF FACTS



Didja Know...
Cat urine glows under a black-light?
(Source: TryThisAtHome)

When did correct spelling become important?

Spelling was a creative activity at least as late as Shakespeare's day, about 1600. In those good old days, spelling was no more fixed than the language, and the Bard himself appears to have spelled his own name differently every time he wrote it.

But the invention of the printing press and the spread of education that it fostered was already beginning to end all that. Wider literacy coincided with the rise of vernacular languages, which eclipsed Latin. English, like French, Italian, and other tongues, got serious, taking on rules, consistency and standardization. Setting it in type was like setting it in stone. By the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rules solidified and a new subject was added to the curriculum. Everyone had to learn how to spell. Torture, no longer practiced in dungeons, was perpetuated in the classroom.

Source: THE OXFORD COMPANION TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, ed. by Tom MacArthur and DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam



Bird brain

Parrot researcher Dr. Irene Pepperberg taught Alex, a 13- year-old African Gray, to name 80 objects. But even at meal time, she had trouble teaching him to ask for a date. "I like date," she tried to get him to repeat. "Give me date. Yum."

Really, Dr. Pepperberg, is your social life that barren?
Have you tried the personals?

Source: DRESSING FOR DINNER IN THE NAKED CITY



Didja Know...
The emblem for Apollo 15, designed by Emilio Pucci, was the first designer fashion worn in space?
(Source: Retrofuture.com)

Why do whales frequently beach themselves?

Not because they're slackers. They usually end up on some desolate beach. If they were just looking for downtime, they would show up more often in places like Cancun, Miami or Hilton Head.

Whales navigate with their own version of sonar. They bounce sound off objects, including the ocean bottom, and calculate their distance from these objects by the time it takes for the sound to return. With this system, they usually get along quite swimmingly. But shallow water with a sandy bottom near beaches presents a problem. The whale's sound waves can get tossed back and forth like ping-pong balls between the bottom and the nearby surface of the water, delaying their return. This makes the whale a little nut. He mistakenly thinks he's in deep water when he's really getting into hot water, and soon he's like a fish out of water.

Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith



Say what?

According to Prof. Anders Henriksson, college students say and write the darnedest things. For example, that Noah's wife was Joan of Ark, Plato taught Harris Tottle, and the Germans used the military technique called Blintzkrieg.

My favorite is that the communists built the Berlin Mall. I guess they hoped to make the West shop till it dropped.

Source: The Washington Post



Didja Know...
The sloth moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its fur?
(Source: Useless Trivia)

If something is put off temporarily, why might we be holding it in "abeyance?"

I suppose you might be holding it in abeyance if you're a high-faluttin' pointy-head. When I put things off, I don't mention "abeyance," just "manana."

But if you insist: It so happens that the image upon which this word is based has nothing to do with high culture. In fact, picture a goofus. I'm sure you know at least one. He or she doesn't know what's going to happen next, things are in abeyance, so the goofus just kind of stands there and gapes. That's it. Abeyance comes from an Old French word, abeance, meaning to gape. Something's going to happen and you don't know what it is, so you go slack-jawed.

Well shut my mouth!

Source: THE OXFORD DICTIONARY OF ENGLISH ETYMOLOGY



Careful

People in the Dominican Republic, where Christopher Columbus landed, think his name is jinxed and won't mention it. There have been earthquakes, plane crashes and other accidents associated with occasions honoring the explorer.

The word they use for this jinx is "fucu" (pronounced foo-coo). Be careful not to mispronounce it or you may be cursed, too.

Source: DRESSING FOR DINNER IN THE NAKED CITY AND OTHER TALES FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S "MIDDLE COLUMN"



Didja Know...
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second!?
(Source: Useless Trivia)

Is there any difference between seraphim and cherubim?

There's always a pecking order, even among angels. I'm not just talking about wingspread, although physical characteristics come into play.

First, there are enough kinds of angels to field a baseball team. The nine types, or choirs, in descending order, are seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues powers, principalities, archangels and (plain vanilla) angels. Seraphim rule the roost and have three pairs of wings, while cherubim never have more than two. It's not exactly like Hertz and Avis. Even if the cherubim try harder, they're not going any higher.

Of course, this hierarchy of haloes omits a very important fallen angel. You know what they say: the devil is in the details.

Source: THE BOOK OF ANSWERS by Barbara Berliner



Putting the right spin on it

Moving objects are affected by the Earth's rotation. This is called the "Coriolis effect." In the Northern Hemisphere, such objects are deflected to the right. That would explain the conservative trend in recent Republican campaigns.

Light has "weight" and exerts a pressure of two pounds per square mile on our planet's surface, as anyone who has ever tried to bench-press a light beam can testify.

Source: ISAAC ASIMOV'S BOOK OF FACTS



Didja Know...
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth?
(Source: Britannica.com)

Why do we call an incurable optimist a "Pollyanna?"

Possibly because it's easier to spell than "obnoxious." Some people are just so cheerful that they practically chirp. If there were any justice in the world, they would fall into a volcano.

The word arose from the popularity of a 1913 children's novel called "Pollyanna," by Eleanor H. Porter. The title character was an orphan cared for by her strict aunt. To cope, Pollyanna invented something called the "glad game." I'll spare you the nauseating details. The story became so popular (it must have been a slow decade) that Pollyanna also became a play and a film, starring Mary Pickford. The author published a sequel and other writers produced their own follow-up books.

Well, that's enough of that. I bet it's going to rain tomorrow. The stock market will probably drop a hundred points. Things will never be as good as they were. Grump.

Source: THE READER'S ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE by Max J. Herzberg



Just looking

Although many people consider them pests, deer are widely beloved and when the snows are deep and food scarce, some people put out hay for them. But that won't help. Deer do not graze, they "browse," feeding on leaves and twigs.

Browse? So, that's what that deer was doing in the bookstore in the hunting section!

Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION



Didja Know...
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion?
(Source: A Misguided Friend Who Tried To Do This)

Why do llamas spit?

You mean those guys in the Tibetan monasteries who wear the colorful robes? Couldn't be. This must refer to those big, oh so cute and furry animals from South America.

The answer is, briefly, llamas spit to communicate. Believe me, if they could send an email instead I am sure they would. But they can't, and spitting is a direct way of sending a message - in your face, so to speak. If the message is relatively benign, they use plain spit. One llama could be telling another, "not tonight, honey, I have a headache." But if they're angry or afraid, they expectorate smelly green slime. Even then, there's a warning: they pull their ears back just before they let fly.

Question: What's the difference between a llama and a politician engaged in dirty campaigning? Answer: The politician doesn't pull his ears back.

Source: WHY MOTHS HATE THOMAS EDISON ed. By Hampton Sides



Maligned

Henry VIII was married to three Catherine's, two Anne's and one Jane. Despite his bloody reputation, he only beheaded two of his six wives. Call him Mr. Nice Guy.

Genghis Khan wasn't the real name of the man who ruled much of the known world in the 13th century. It was Temujin. He was called Genghis Khan, "universal ruler," probably because if you gave him an inch, he took your foot.

Source: THE BOOK OF ANSWERS



Didja Know...
A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein?
(Source: Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary)