Did you know?

Funny things I didn't know

• The onion is named after a Latin word meaning large pearl.


• Approximately one billion snails are served in restaurants annually.


• Botanically speaking, the banana is a herb and the tomato is a fruit.


• The world's oldest existing eatery opened in Kai-Feng, China in 1153.


• The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.


• Chop-suey does not come from China. It was created by Chinese immigrants in California


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


• There are more than 600 million telephone lines today, yet almost half the world's population has never made a phone call.


• The dollar symbol ($) is a U combined with an S (U.S.)


• The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula


• Emus cannot walk backwards


• Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head."


• There are six five words in the English language with the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum, continuum, duumvirate and duumvir, residuum.


• The pupil of an octopus' eye is rectangular.


• An animal epidemic is called an epizootic.


• Other than humans, black lemurs are the only primates that may have blue eyes.


• The two longest one-syllable words in the English language are "screeched" and "strengths."


• A Chinese checkerboard has 121 holes.


• Giraffes have no vocal cords.


• All porcupines float in water.


• In Chinese, the words for crisis and opportunity are the same.


• The smallest mushroom's name is "Hop-low."


• The poisonous copperhead smells likefresh cut cucumbers.


• Anne Boleyn had six fingernails on one hand.


• Bananas do not grow on trees, but on rhizomes.


• Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.


• Vincent Van Gogh comitted suicide while painting Wheat Field with Crows.


• An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes.


• Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.


• QANTAS, the name of the Australian national airline, is a (former) acronym, for Queensland And Northern
  Territories Air Service.


• Almonds are members of the peach family.


• A bear has 42 teeth.


• The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."


• Other than fruit, honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life! What about milk, you say? A cow has to eat grass to produce milk and grass is living!


• Xmas" does not begin with the Roman letter X. It begins with the Greek letter "chi," which was used in medieval manuscripts as an abbreviation for the word "Christ" (xus = christus, etc.)


• "Hara kiri" is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting."


• The term the "Boogey Man will get you" comes from the Boogey people,who still inhabit an area of Indonesia. These people still act as pirates today and attack ships that pass. Thus the term spread "if you don't watch out the Boogey man will get you."


• At McDonalds in New Zealand, they serve apricot pies instead of cherry ones.
  The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."


• Chicago is closer to Moscow than to Rio de Janeiro.


• Original copy of the Declaration of Independence is lost. The copy in Washington D.C. is what is referred to as a holograph. That is a term for a handmade copy of a document and is not the same as a laser produced hologram.


• Singapore is the only country with one train station.


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


• Mickey Mouse is known as "Topolino" in Italy.


• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear


• An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.


• The oldest word in the English language is "town"


• The sea wasp is half an inch long at best and more poisonous than any other jellyfish known to man.


• Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.


• Cinderella's slippers were originally made out of fur. The story was changed in the 1600s by a translator.


• It was the left shoe that Aschenputtel (Cinderella) lost at the stairway, when the prince tried to follow her.


• Cinderella is known as Tuhkimo in Finland.


• There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs six times: Indivisibility.


• Japan is the third most densely populated country in the world. First is the Netherlands, followed by Belgium


• The "D" in D-day means "Day". The French term for "D-Day" is "J-jour".


• Female orcas live twice as long as male orcas. The larger numbers of female orcas in a pod are because of the female's longer lifespan, not because the males have collected a harem.


• Most spiders belong to the orb weaver spider family, Family Aranidae. This is pronounced "A Rainy Day."


• Avocado is derived from the Spanish word 'aguacate' which is derived from 'ahuacatl' meaning testicle.


• The second longest word in the English language is "antidisestablishmenterianism".


• Native speakers of Japanese learn Spanish much more easily than they learn English.


• Native speakers of English learn Spanish much more easily than they learn Japanese


• New Zealand kiwis lay the largest eggs with respect to their body size of any bird.


• Cockroaches' favorite food is the glue on envelopes and on the back of postage stamps


• Dr. Seuss pronounced "Seuss" such that it rhymed with "rejoice."


• Compact discs read from the inside to the outside edge, the reverse of how a record works.


• The term "Mayday" used for signaling for help (after SOS), it comes from the French term "M'aidez" which is pronounced "MayDay" and means, "Help Me"


• Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave.


• A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.


• In Casablanca, Humphrey Bogart never said "Play it again, Sam."


• Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson."


• Captain Kirk never said "Beam me up, Scotty," but he did say, "Beam me up, Mr. Scott".


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


• The most sensitive finger is the forefinger.


• Mr. Spock's (of Star Trek) blood type was T-Negative


• A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.


• A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.


• Venetian blinds were invented in Japan.


• Rabbits love licorice.


• Panama hats come from Ecuador not Panama.


• Seoul, the South Korean capital, just means "the capital" in the Korean language.


• Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon, who died at birth, which is why Elvis' middle name was spelled Aron; in honor of his brother


• Horses cannot vomit.


• Rabbits cannot vomit.


• Dalmatian dogs are born pure white, they don't start getting spots until they are three or four days old.


• Marijuana is Spanish for 'Mary Jane.'


• The Australian $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100 notes are made out of plastic.


• Virgina Woolf wrote all her books standing.


• Coca-Cola was originally green.


• Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.


• Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.


• Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.


• There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet.

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