A friend sent me these. Don't know if they're all true, but they're kind of interesting. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and "lollipop" with your right. (Bet you tried this out mentally, didn't you?) It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. (I'll bet you're going to check this out.) No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". (Are you doubting this?) Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet. (Now, you KNOW you're going to try this out for accuracy, right?) (First year typing student is familiar with this one) The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes). (Yep, I knew you were going to "do" this one.) There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous (You're not doubting this, are you?) There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." (Yes, admit it, you are going to say ... a e i o u) TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (All you typists are going to test this out) All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the back of the $5 bill A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue. (but who really cares?) A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. (Some days that's about what my memory span is) A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. A snail can sleep for three years. (I know some people that could do this too.) Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer. Almonds are a member of the peach family. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age. Butterflies taste with their feet. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10. February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated. If the population of China walked past you, 8 abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction. If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite! Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. (Good thing he did that) The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. There are more chickens than people in the world. There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables Vitamins. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks; otherwise it will digest itself. THERE! ... Now you know everything!
I think that 3 second memory of goldfish is wrong. Myth Busters trained goldfish to go through a maze to get food and they did eventually after training.
ok, i'll add a bunch of *cough* facts *cough* A "Blue Moon" is the second full moon in a calendar month (it is rarely blue). A bibliophile is a collector of rare books. A bibliopole is a seller of rare books. A ghost writer pens an anonymous book. A magic potion or charm thought to arouse sexual love, especially toward a specific person, is known as a "philter." A poem written to celebrate a wedding is called an epithalamium. A speleologist studies caves. Anagrams amused the ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews, and were popular during the Middle Ages. "Aromatherapy" is a term coined by French chemist René Maurice Gattefossé in the 1920's to describe the practice of using essential oils taken from plants, flowers, roots, seeds, etc., in healing. Ballistics is the science that deals with the motion of projectiles. Cannibalism, eating human flesh, is also called anthropophagy. DNA stands for Deoxyribonucleicacid. In 1945 a computer at Harvard malfunctioned and Grace Hopper, who was working on the computer, investigated, found a moth in one of the circuits and removed it. Ever since, when something goes wrong with a computer, it is said to have a bug in it. In the 19th century, craftsmen who made hats were known to be excitable and irrational, as well as to tremble with palsy and mix up their words. Such behavior gave rise to the familiar expression "mad as a hatter". The disorder, called hatter's shakes, was caused by chronic mercury poisoning from the solution used to treat the felt. Attacking the central nervous system, the toxin led to behavioral symptoms. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling. "Kemo Sabe" means "soggy shrub" in Navajo. "Long in the tooth," meaning "old," was originally used to describe horses. As horses age, their gums recede, giving the impression that their teeth are growing. The longer the teeth look, the older the horse. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple. Oddly, no term existed for "homosexuality" in ancient Greece - there were only a variety of expressions referring to specific homosexual roles. Experts find this baffling, as the old Greek culture regarded male/male love in the highest regard. According to several linguists, the word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert. Of all the words in the English language, the word "set" has the most definitions. "Ough" can be pronounced in eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully. Poor whites in Florida and Georgia are called "crackers." They got the name from their principal staple food, cracked corn. Another theory states that the name comes from the days when they would drive cattle southward using the "crack" of their bullwhips to keep the animals in line and moving. "Rhythms" is the longest English word without the normal vowels, a, e, i, o, or u. "Second string," meaning "replacement or backup," comes from the middle ages. An archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke. The "O" when used as a prefix in Irish surnames means "descendant of." The "y" in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a "th" sound, not "y". The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England used the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y". The ancient Romans built such an excellent system of roads that the saying arose "all roads lead to Rome," that is, no matter which road one starts a journey on, he will finally reach Rome if he keeps on traveling. The popular saying came to mean that all ways or methods of doing something end in the same result, no method being better than another. The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself." The expletive, "Holy Toledo," refers to Toledo, Spain, which became an outstanding Christian cultural center in 1085. The idiom "pillar of salt" means to have a stroke, or to become paralyzed and dead. The last thing to happen is the ultimate. The next-to-last is the penultimate, and the second-to-last is the antepenultimate. The phrase "raining cats and dogs" originated in 17th Century England. During heavy downpours of rain, many of these poor animals unfortunately drowned and their bodies would be seen floating in the rain torrents that raced through the streets. The situation gave the appearance that it had literally rained "cats and dogs" and led to the current expression. The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope. 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. Actually, that's a piece of folk etymology. The phrase refers to the use of rough and ready practical experience rather than formal procedures in getting something done. It's most likely that the saying comes from carpenters using the length of the first joint of the thumb, which is about an inch long, to measure things. So "rule" refers to a ruler in the sense of measurement, not of despotism or male chauvinism. Other parts of the body were used as a ruler, too. A foot was determined by a pace, the distance from the tip of the nose to the outstretched fingers is roughly a yard, and horse heights are still measured by handsthe width of the palm and closed thumb is about four inches. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. The ridges on the sides of coins are called reeding or milling. The right side of a boat was called the starboard side due to the fact that the astronavigators used to stand out on the plank (which was on the right side) to get an unobstructed view of the stars. The left side was called the port side because that was the side that you put in on at the port. The side of a hammer is a cheek. The study of insects is called entomology. The study of word origins is called etymology. The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe. The term "devil's advocate" comes from the Roman Catholic Church. When deciding if someone should be sainted, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view. The term "dog days" has nothing to do with dogs. It dates back to Roman times, when it was believed that Sirius, the Dog Star, added its heat to that of the sun from July3 to August 11, creating exceptionally high temperatures. The Romans called the period dies caniculares, or "days of the dog." The term "honeymoon" is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding. The term "throw one's hat in the ring" comes from boxing, where throwing a hat into the ring once signified a challenge. Today it nearly always signifies political candidacy. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards." The term, "It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye" is from Ancient Rome. The only rule during wrestling matches was, "No eye gouging." Everything else was allowed, but the only way to be disqualified is to poke someone's eye out. The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum. The white part of your fingernail is called the lunula. The word "homosexual" was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert. The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II. The word "set" has the highest number of separate definitions in the English Language (192 definitions according to the Oxford English Dictionary.) The word "assassination" was invented by Shakespeare. The word "coach" is derived from the village of Kocs, Hungary, where coaches were invented and first used. The word "karate" means "empty hand." The word "samba" means "to rub navels together." The word gargoyle comes down from the Old French: gargouille, meaning throat or gullet. This is also the origin of the word gargle. The word describes the sound produced as water passes the throat and mixes with air. In early architecture, gargoyles were decorative creatures on the drains of cathedrals. The word 'news' did not come about because it was the plural of 'new.' It came from the first letters of the words North, East, West and South. This was because information was being gathered from all different directions. The word quisling comes from the name of Major Vidkun Quisling, a Norwegian who collaborated with the Germans during their occupation of Norway. The word now means "traitor." The world's largest alphabet is Cambodian, with 74 letters. The ZIP in Zip-code stands for "Zoning Improvement Plan." Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower tied for second place, using "I" only once in their inaugural addresses. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language. Victor Hugo's Les Miserables contains one of the longest sentences in the French language - 823 words without a period The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead". The only city whose name can be spelled completely with vowels is Aiea, Hawaii. Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic." "Polish" is the only word in the English language that when capitalized is changed from a noun or a verb to a nationality. "Corduroy" comes from the French, "cord du roi" or "cloth of the king." The slash character is called a virgule, or solidus. A URL uses slash characters, not back slash characters. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable. The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate. 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 highest scoring word in the English language game of Scrabble is 'Quartzy'. This will score 164 points if played across a red triple-word square with the Z on a light blue double-letter square. It will score 162 points if played across two pink double-word squares with the Q and the Y on those squares. 'Bezique' and 'Cazique' are next with a possible 161 points. All three words score an extra 50 points for having seven letters and therefore emptying the letter rack in one go. The English word with the most consonants in a row is latchstring. The word "robot" was created by Karel Capek. It came from Czech/Slovak "robotovat," which means to work very hard. The only word that consists of two letters, each used three times is the word "deeded." A hamlet is a village without a church and a town is not a city until it has a cathedral. The stress in Hungarian words always falls on the first syllable. The word "karate" means "empty hand." The word "girl" appears only once in the Bible. The abbrevation "PDX" (Portland International Airport) is derived from "P" standing for Portland and "DX" meaning long distance or wide reaching. The abbreviation "ORD" for Chicago's O'Hare airport comes from the old name "Orchard Field." Switching letters is called spoonerism. For example, saying jag of Flapan, instead of flag of Japan. A H I M O T U V W X Y are the symmetric capital letters in the Roman alphabet. i l o t u v w x are the symmetric lower case letters in the Roman alphabet. All Hebrew orignating names that end with the letters "el" have something to do with God. Source: Joshua Allen The 'v' in the name of a court case does not stand for 'versus', but for 'and' (in civil proceedings) or 'against' (in criminal proceedings). The term, honeymoon, is derived from the Babylonians who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride's parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for the month following the wedding; that month became known as the honeymonth, hence our honeymoon. Source: Bryan Giese "Rhythm" and "syzygy" are the longest English words without vowels. The national anthem of the Netherlands "Het Wilhelmus," is an 'acrostichon.' The first letters of each of the fifteen verses represent the name "Willem Van Nassov" (old spelling.) Source: Albert Siersema The two longest one-syllable words in the English language are "screeched" and "strengths." Source: Michael Baraz 'Strengths' is the longest word in the English language with just one vowel. The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, a New Zealand hill. The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. It is a a pneumoconiosis caused by the inhalation of very fine silicate or quartz dust. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural. The second longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is "floccinaucinihilipilification," which means "the act of estimating as worthless." The third longest word in the English language is "antidisestablishmenterianism". The longest muscle name is the "levator labiisuperioris alaeque nasi" and Elvis popularized it with his lip motions. 'Stewardesses' and 'reverberated' are the two longest words (12 letters each) that can be typed using on the left hand. The longest word that can be typed using on the right hand is 'lollipop'. 'Skepticisms' is the longest word that can be typed using alternate hands. One of the longest English words that can be typed using the top row of a typewriter (allowing multiple uses of letters) is 'typewriter.' One out of every eight letters used in written English is an e. Source: "2201 Fascinating Facts" Alma mater means bountiful mother. No words in the English language rhyme with orange, silver or purple. The language Malayalam, spoken in parts of India, is the only language whose name is a palindrome. The words 'sacrilegious' and 'religion' do not share the same etymological root. The phrase "sleep tight" originated when mattresses were set upon ropes woven through the bed frame. To remedy sagging ropes, one would use a bed key to tighten the rope. No word in the English language rhymes with month. "Evian" spelled backwards is naive. The word denim comes from 'deNimes', or from Nimes, a place in France. Dublin comes from the Irish Dubh Linn which means Blackpool. Scottish is the language called Gaelic, whereas Irish is actually called Gaeilge. "Freelance" comes from a knight whose lance was free for hire, i.e. not pledged to one master. 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" The term "devil's advocate"comes from the Roman Catholic church. When deciding if someone should become a saint, a devil's advocate is always appointed to give an alternative view. When two words are combined to form a single word (e.g., motor + hotel = motel, breakfast + lunch = brunch) the new word is called a "portmanteau." Avocado is derived from the Spanish word 'aguacate' which is derived from 'ahuacatl' meaning testicle. AM and PM stand for "Ante-Meridian" and "Post-Meridian," respectively, and A.D. actually stands for "Anno Domini" rather than "After Death." 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. Lucifer is latin for "Light Bringer". It is a translation of the Hebrew name for Satan, Halael. Satan Means "adversary", devil means "liar". Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order. The heraldic term "gules", meaning red, comes from the French word "gueules", meaning a throat. The "D" in D-day means "Day". The French term for "D-Day" is "J-jour". The only Dutch word to contain eight consecutive consonants is 'angstschreeuw'. There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs six times: Indivisibility. The letters H I O X in the latin alphabet is the only ones that look the same if you turn them upside down or see them from behind. There are only 12 letters in the Hawaiian alphabet. The youngest letters in the English language are "j," "v" and "w." The only capital letter in the Roman alphabet with exactly one end point is P. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle. "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.) The letter W is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have 1 syllable... it has three. "Bookkeeper" and "bookkeeping" are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters. 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, here, ere therein, herein. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und." "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". There are only three words in the English language with the letter combination "uu." Muumuu, vacuum and continuum. The first letters of the names of the Great Lakes spell HOMES. The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell the name JASON. The oldest word in the English language is "town" Hydroxydesoxycorticosteroneandhydroxydeoxycorticosterones are the largest anagrams. 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." The Old English word for "sneeze" is "fneosan." The word "Boondocks" comes from the Tagalog (Filipino) word "Bundok," which means mountain. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. The derivation of the word trivia comes from the Latin "tri-" + "via", which means three streets. This is because in ancient times, at an intersection of three streeets in Rome (or some other Italian place), they would have a type of kiosk where ancillary information was listed. You might be interested in it, you might not, hence they were bits of "trivia." There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. "Speak of the Devil" is short for "Speak of the Devil and he shall come". It was believed that if you spoke about the Devil it would attract his attention. That's why when your talking about someone and they show up people say "Speak of the Devil" The "Nullarbor" in Nullarbor Desert in Western Australia is a Latin name; Null=No, Arbor=Trees. The word "samba" means "to rub navels together." The 'y' in signs reading "ye olde.." is properly pronounced with a 'th' sound, not 'y'. The "th" sound does not exist in Latin, so ancient Roman occupied (present day) England use the rune "thorn" to represent "th" sounds. With the advent of the printing press the character from the Roman alphabet which closest resembled thorn was the lower case "y". "Hara kiri" is an impolite way of saying the Japanese word "seppuku" which means, literally, "belly splitting." The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language. The word "moose" was originally Algonquin. The Sanskrit word for "war" means "desire for more cows." The ampersand (&) is actually a stylised version of the Latin word "et," meaning and." The word "hangnail" comes from Middle English:ang- (painful) + nail. Nothing to do with hanging. QANTAS, the name of the Australian national airline, is a (former) acronym, for Queensland And Northern Territories Air Service. The word 'byte' is a contraction of 'by eight.' The word 'pixel' is a contraction of either 'picture cell' or 'picture element.' No modern language has a true concept of "I am." It is always used linked with are in reference of another verb. The naval rank of "Admiral" is derived from the Arabic phrase "amir al bahr", which means "lord of the sea" In Chinese, the words for crisis and opportunity are the same. German has a word for the peace offerings brought to your mate when you've committed some conceived slight. This is "drachenfutter" or dragon's food. The Chinese ideogram for "trouble" symbolizes "two women living under one roof". The correct response to the Irish greeting, "Top of the morning to you," is "and the rest of the day to yourself." Swahili is acombination of African tribal languages, Arabic and Portuguese. The abbreviation for pound, "lb.," comes from the astrological sign Libra, meaning balance, and symbolized by scales. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P. The native tribe of Tierradel Fuego has a language so guttural it cannot have an alphabet. Sheriff came from Shire Reeve. During early years of monarchial rule in England, each shire had a reeve who was the law for that shire. When the term was brought to the United States it was shortned to Sheriff. The Greek version of the Old Testament is called the Septuagint. The word "queueing" is the only English word with five consecutive vowels. The word "modem" is a contraction of the words "modulate, demodulate." (MOdulateDEModulate) "Mr. Mojo Risin" is an anagram for Jim Morrison. The shortest French word with all five vowels is "oiseau" meaning bird. Pinocchio is Italian for "pine head." The infinity sign is called a lemniscate. The only word in the English language with all five vowels in reverse order is "subcontinental." The longest word in the English language is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis There are more chickens in the world than people Pinocchio was made of pine. Every year, Alaska has about 5,000 earthquakes. The hundred billionth Crayola crayon ever produced was Perriwinkle Blue. The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth. Strawberries have more vitamin c than oranges. More people in China speak English than in the United States. An ostrich egg would take four hours to hard boil. An iguana can stay under water for 28 minutes. Until the 1960's men with long hair were not allowed to enter Disneyland. There are more chickens in the world than people. A prune is a dried plumb. Denver was chosen to host the 1976 Winter Olympics, but later refused. Another name for the card game "Solitaire" is "Patience". Saturday was named for the planet saturn. The abbreviation a.m. stands for "ante meridiem". The abbreviation p.m. stands for "post meridiem". The best beaches for surfing face west. Wheat is the worlds most grown, and the world's most eaten food Gibraltar is the only place in Europe were you can find wild monkeys. The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue. The first American dictionary was writen by Noah Webster. An elephant raises it's trunk when it senses danger. The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds Pigs can run a mile in 7 ½ minutes The shortest word in the English language to contain the letters A,B,C,D,E, and F is: Feedback If you sleep in a cold room, you are more likely to have a bad dream. After eating too much food, your hearing becomes less sharp. Jack is the most common name in a fairy tale. A grasshopper can leap 20 times the length of its own body. 45% of dollar bills you'll ever own have been in a stripper's g-string. After the "Popeye" comic strip started in 1931, spinach consumption went up by thirty-three percent in the United States. The largest recorded kidney stone weighed 1.36 kg. Kidney stones range in color. The U.S. Government will not allow portraits of living persons to appear on stamps. The average person laughs 13 times a day. The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons. Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt. Australia is the only continent without an active volcanoe. The average North-American will eat 35,000 cookies in during their life span. Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. 40,000 Americans are injured by toilets each year. If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. Canada is an Indian word meaning "Big Village". Frogs do not drink water. There are two credit cards for every person in the United States. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before a person realizes it's there, though. Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots. In one day an average person will take about 18,000 steps. The two most commonly sold items in grocery stores are breakfast cereals and soda. "Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und." On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. The average person spends 30 years mad at a family member. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. There are three golf balls sitting on the moon. It's impossible to lick your elbow. It was so cold that in the winter of 1932, Niagra Falls froze completly solid! The average American spends 6 years in the bathroom, and 6 months at a stoplight. Babies have no kneecaps when they are born. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton. In 10 minutes, a hurrican releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined. The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." If you toss a penny 10000 times, it will not be heads 5000 times, but more like 4950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom. King Kong was Adolf Hitler's favorite movie. 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." A snail can sleep for three years. Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. 30% of people asked to participate in an opinion poll refuse. Most productive day of the workweek: Tuesday. The higher the income, the more likely an American man will cheat on his wife. Cleopatra wasn't Egyptian; she was Greek. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair. The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes. A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear. Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants. More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes. Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump." If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white. Women blink nearly twice as much as men. The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with. The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you want. TYPEWRITER, is the longest word that can be made using the letters on only one row of the keyboard. If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction The word racecar and kayak are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left. A snail can sleep for 3 years. China has more English speakers than the United States. The electric chair was invented by a dentist. Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 other million people in the world. The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct part of DNA. Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, dogs only have about ten. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. Feb 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon. Cat's urine glows under a black light. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older. If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee. If you fart consistently for 6 years and 9 months, enough gas is produced to create the energy of an atomic bomb. The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet. On average, people fear spiders more than they do death. The strongest muscle in the body is the TONGUE. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated. Polar bears are left-handed. The catfish has over 27,000 taste buds, that makes the catfish rank #1 for animal having the most taste buds. A cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death. Butterflies taste with their feet. Elephants are the only animals that can't jump. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. Starfish haven't got brains. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. The average secretary's left hand does 56% of the typing. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. There are more chickens than people in the world. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched." No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver or purple. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt". Almonds are members of the peach family. There are only four words in the English language which end in "- dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. In most advertisements, including newspapers, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10. A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world. In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak. 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. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball. Coca-Cola was originally green. Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury. The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters. City with the most Rolls Royces per capita: Hong Kong. State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska. Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38% Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33. Cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400 Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910. The youngest pope was 11 years old. First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer. Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts - Charlemagne, and Diamonds - Julius Caesar. 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321 If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes. Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later. "I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language. The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the South Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards." Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt. 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. The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P. The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns. The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game Q. What separates "60 Minutes," on CBS from every other TV show? A. No theme song. Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what? A. Their birthplace. Q. What do bullet proof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have in common? A. All invented by women. Q. There are more collect calls on this day than any other day of the year. A. Father's Day Q. What trivia fact about Mel Blanc (voice of Bugs Bunny) is the most ironic? A. He was allergic to carrots. 40% of all people who come to a party snoop in your medicine cabinet. An apple, onion, and potato all have the same taste. The differences in flavor are caused by their smell. To prove this you can pinch your nose and take a bite from each. They will all taste sweet The estimated number of M & M's sold each day in the United States is 200,000,000. Grapes explode when you put them in the microwave. Wine will spoil if exposed to light, hence tinted bottles. A hard-boiled egg will spin. An uncooked or soft-boiled egg will not. Domestic cats hate lemons or other citrus scents. Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath at least once a year. Parker Brothers prints about 50 billion dollars worth of Monopoly money in one year. (which is more than real money printed in a year) 203 million dollars is spent on barbed wire each year in the U.S. No word in the English language rhymes with "month". If you put a raisin in a champagne bottle, it will rise and fall continuously. The letter J does not appear ANYWHERE in the periodic table of elements. In Canada, if a debt is higher than 25 cents, it is illegal to pay it with pennies. Impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 states in the United States. Federal law forbids recycling used eyeglasses in the United States. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in U.S. coins without being able to make change for a dollar. If you are hedenophobic, you have a fear of pleasure. "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order. If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4,950. The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom more often. The longest word that can be typed solely with the left hand is stewardess. There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper. Cleveland spelled backwards is "DNA level C." The # symbols is often referred to as a "number sign" or "pound sign." Its actual name is an octothorpe. In English, the letter "W" is the only letter in the alphabet that doesn't have just one syllable - it has three. The letters in the abbreviation e.g. stand for exempli gratia - a Latin term meaning "for example." Women blink nearly twice as much as men do. This one is deep...think about the cultural impact this could have: NO WAR HAS BEEN FOUGHT WHERE BOTH COUNTRIES HAD A McDonalds. For the "wrong handed" people...Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people! That means DEATH to Lefties. The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet! The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable"! A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation. The state of Florida is bigger than England! The youngest person to give birth was a five-yr. old tribal girl (C-Section of course). If you scream during 8 years, 7 months and 6 days, you will produce enough energy to heat up a cup of coffee. If you fart continuously for 6 years and 9 months, you will produce gases equivalent to an atomic bomb's energy. A pig's orgasm last up to 30 minutes. The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female initiates sex by ripping the male's head off. (Ouch) Elephants are the only animals that can't jump. Some lions have sex more then 50 times in a day. Humans and dolphins are the only animal species that have sex for pleasure. American car horns beep in the tone of F. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning. The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin. The first owner of the Marlboro company died of lung cancer. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Betsy Ross is the only real person to ever have been the head on a Pez dispenser. The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles. No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times. 1 in every 4 Americans has appeared on television. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older. A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight. The albatross drinks sea water. It has a special desalinization apparatus that strains out and excretes all excess salt. In Clarendon, Texas, there is reportedly a law on the books that lawyers must accept eggs, chickens, or other produce, as well as money, as payment of legal fees. Cats purr at 26 cycles per second, the same as an idling diesel engine. A dragonfly flaps its wings 20 to 40 times a second, bees and houseflies 200 times, some mosquitoes 600 times, and a tiny gnat 1,000 times. Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor. Marilyn Monroe had six toes. The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum. 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." Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious, meaning "containing arsenic." The United States has never lost a war in which mules were used. Blueberry Jelly Bellies were created especially for Ronald Reagan. All porcupines float in water. Cat's urine glows under a black light. Non-dairy creamer is flammable. A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament. Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been over mixing 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. (It floats in gasoline, too) If you could count the number of times a cricket chirps in one minute, divide by 2, add 9 and divide by 2 again, you would have the correct temperature in Celsius degrees. During the Civil War, Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union Army before he accepted his post with the Confederacy. Margaret Higgins Sanger, the birth-control pioneer, was one of eleven children. There are more than 15,000 different varieties of rice. When a man died in ancient Egypt, the females in his family would smear their heads and faces with mud and wander through the city beating themselves and tearing off their clothes. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
in regards to babies without kneecaps... Newborns do have kneecaps. Kneecaps form about the fourth month of fetal life. However, they dont show up on x-ray very well because theyre not ossified, or bony. At this point in life, the kneecaps are made of a cartilaginous material. The growth centers surrounding the kneecap form late in developmental life in utero and may not appear until just before or just after the infant is born. Remember, infants are a work in progress. The potential for linear bone growth may continue until the late teens or early twenties. Although all the precursor tissues for the major bones are present at or immediately after birth, centers of ossification (where bone is laid down) continue to develop throughout childhood and beyond. For instance, the head of the femur appears at four months, the patella, or kneecap, starts showing signs of ossification at about 3 years in females and 4-5 years of age in males. Parts of the pelvic girdle (hips) dont appear ossified until adolescence with the tubercle of the pubis not appearing until 18-20 years of age. Why does this progressive development happen? As usual, we dont know. There are clues that can lead to some speculation. When raised in tissue culture, the fetal tissues in question will form as cartilage, but will not ossify into bone. It is only with the presence of weight-bearing forces (along with the presence of chemical mediators) that these tissues ossify. In an article in Scientific American in 1995, researchers suggest that the reason that biological change happens is to promote the widest spread of DNA. In an evolutionary sense, it means the individual survives to reproductive age and can have children ("spread of DNA"). If creatures spent good energy ossifying bones before they were needed to bear weight, less energy would go to other developmental processes such as bodily growth or brain development, things that in the long run would be more likely to enhance the survival of the individual. just thought you'd like to know. i had to check my 8month old son to see and sure enough they are there.
"Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor." I think you've just made the clinching argument for the pro-choice camp.
