How do they make espresso?
Did you ever see anyone in a 1940s film noir order
espresso? Hell, no! Did they ever ask for tiramisu for
desert? Not on your yuppie life. It was coffee and a
piece of pie, and the sweetener didn't come in a little
paper packet.
Well, Humphrey Bogart be damned, I do like those little
espresso cups. The blended coffee that goes in them is
ground much finer than the ordinary kind. Unlike your
usual coffee, the water doesn't just drip on and through
the espresso grind, it's shot through the extra-tightly
packed powder at very high pressure--"pressed,"
if you will-- for about half a minute. (Espresso, by the
by, means expressed, or 'pressed' in Italian).
The result, which has less caffeine than typical java,
has a slightly muddy consistency and a head. If you want
YOUR head to have the same consistency, add tequila for
caffe ole!
Source: howstuffworks.com
Watch it
These laws were once actually on the books (and may still
be):
You can't even look at a moose from an airplane in Alaska.
If you live in Idaho, you can't give any other citizen of
that state a candy bar weighing more than 50 pounds.
Residents of Kentucky must bathe at least once a year.
You can't shoot a rabbit from a moving trolley in New
York.
Source: 2201 FASCINATING FACTS
Didja Know...
Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because
Donald didn't wear pants? (Source: Pogolo.com)
(Source: Sendingfun.com)
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 youre 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)
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