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    Sunday, November 11, 2007

    Stuff I didn't know

    I found the following in "Stumble Upon", my newest addiction. I knew some of these, and I even added one of my own. See if you can tell which one came from me, and which ones are originals.

    Also, feel free to make your own additions/edits.

    The longest one-syllable word in the English language is
    “screeched.”

    “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends in the letters
    “mt”.

    Almonds are members of the peach family.

    The symbol on the “pound” key (#) is called an octothorpe.

    The dot over the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.

    Ingrown toenails are hereditary.

    The word “set” has more definitions than any other word in the
    English language.

    “Underground” is the only word in the English language that
    begins and ends with the letters “und.”

    There are only four words in the English language which end
    in”-dous” tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

    The longest word in the English language, according to the
    Oxford English Dictionary,
    is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.
    The only other word with the same amount of letters is
    pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

    The longest place-name still in use is
    Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimau
    ngahoronukupokaiwenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill.

    Los Angeles’s full name is “El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la
    Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula” and can be
    abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, “L.A.”

    A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

    An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

    Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

    In most advertisments, including newspapers, the time displayed
    on a watch is 10:10.

    Alfred Hitchcock didn’t have a belly button.It was eliminated
    when he was sewn up after surgery.

    Telly Savalas and Louis Armstrong died on their birthdays.

    Donald Duck’s middle name is Fauntleroy.

    Al Capone’s business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

    The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have
    the same pattern of whiskers.

    Steely Dan got their name from a sexual device depicted in the
    book ‘The Naked Lunch’.

    A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

    The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses
    II who fathered over 160 children.

    There is a seven letter word in the English language that
    contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters,
    “therein” the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

    Duelling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are
    registered blood donors.

    John Larroquette of “Night Court” and “The John Larroquette
    Show” was the narrator of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

    The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after
    Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in
    Frank Capra’s “Its A Wonderful Life”

    A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

    It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

    It was discovered on a space mission that a frog can throw
    up.The frog throws up its stomach first, so the stomach is dangling out of
    it’s mouth.Then the frog uses its forearms to dig out all of the
    stomach’s contents and then swallows the stomach back down again.

    Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully
    ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

    The male gypsy moth can “smell” the virgin female gypsy moth
    from 1.8 miles away.

    The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

    The name for Oz in the “Wizard of Oz” was thought up when the
    creator, Frank Baum, looked at his filing cabinet and saw A-N, and O-Z,
    hence “Oz.”

    The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar
    tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

    ‘Stewardesses’ is the longest word that is typed with only the
    left hand.

    To “testify” was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a
    statement made by swearing on their testicles.

    The combination “ough” can be pronounced in nine different
    ways.The following sentence contains them all “A rough-coated,
    dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough;
    after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed.”

    The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a
    letter is uncopyrightable.

    'Lollipop' is the longest word typed with only the right hand.

    Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct
    order, as does arsenious, meaning “containing arsenic.”

    Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the
    Australian coat of arms for that reason.

    Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have
    about ten.

    The word “Checkmate” in chess comes from the Persian phrase
    “Shah Mat,” which means “the king is dead”.

    The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days
    of lore when the engines were pulled by horses.The horses were stabled
    on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight
    staircases.

    3 Response(s):

    Meg & Josh said...

    Keli, slowly back away from the computer..... :) You are so the Queen of useless knowledge!

    Jill Johnson said...

    I bet you will remember all of these things too. You store stuff like these.

    Keli said...

    Yes, I believe my Ikea addiction has been replaced with a Stumble Upon addiction. I'm so bad....