Skip to main content

Stuff you never knew 'til now

Seeing as how I had so much fun with frenulum yesterday, I thought I'd continue dispensing knowledge. The following is a list titled "Weird Trivia" on the IFAQ web site (Infrequently Asked Questions). Enjoy.

•••••

Bank robber John Dillinger played professional baseball.

The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.

The housefly hums in the middle octave, key of F.

A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.

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 its plural, pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses.

Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

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

Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.

Cleo and Caesar were the early stage names of Cher and Sonny Bono.

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

Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth...and whose shame created the expression for ignominy, "His name is Mudd."

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was Betty Jean McBricker.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

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

If NASA sent birds into space they would soon die, they need gravity to swallow.

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

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."

Armored knights raised their visors to identify themselves when they rode past their king. This custom has become the modern military salute.

White Out was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (formerly of the Monkees)

Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with "Midnight Cowboy." Her entire role lasted only six minutes.

Charles Lindbergh took only four sandwiches with him on his famous transatlantic flight.

Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.

In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.

Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it floated, and it has floated ever since.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.

The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows."

A walla-walla scene is one where extras pretend to be talking in the background -- when they say "walla-walla" it looks like they are actually talking.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

A whale's penis is called a dork.

Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.

Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

The phrase "sleep tight" derives from the fact that early mattresses were filled with straw and held up with rope stretched across the bedframe. A tight sleep was a comfortable sleep.

"Three dog night" (attributed to Australian Aborigines) came about because on especially cold nights these nomadic people needed three dogs (dingos, actually) to keep from freezing.

Comments

Brianne said…
We knew the whale's penis thing back in middle school - because you'd get called a dork and then everyone would stare and laugh and I didn't know why for the longest time.
The rule of thumb thing I found out from the movie "Boondock Saints." Have you seen it? You should - it's great.
Did you know that the dot over and "i" is called a tittle?

Popular posts from this blog

Is it OK to own a Canadian?

In her radio show, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, written by a U.S. resident, and posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative: Dear Dr. Laura: Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination ... End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them. 1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexic...

In memoriam...

I remember the first time I heard the name "Les Anderson." A bunch of Wichita State University communication majors were sitting around on campus, talking about classes they planned to take. Several people warned me: watch out for Les Anderson. He was tough. He had a murderous grading scale. It was nearly impossible to get an A. They weren't kidding. But he wasn't tough just to be a tyrant. From his teaching sprang a fleet of incredible, successful journalists, writers, editors, broadcasters, public relations experts, advertisers, non-profit professionals...I could go on and on. Most importantly, he created a legion of people who wanted to make a difference in the world. The greatest gift Les gave to them all? He believed in them, cared about them for their own personal stories as well as the stories they told for class assignments or in the pages of his hometown newspaper. Les was my teacher. My boss. My mentor. My conscience. My champion. My friend. When I started c...

Holy Separated-At-Birth, Batman!

Gary Oldman...meet Uncle Knit-Knots from Imagination Movers.