Monday, March 7, 2011

A bit of nonspecific humor

Trivia I got in an e-mail;

  1. "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and"lollipop" with the right hand.
  2. No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple.
  3. "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
  4. Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
  5. The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.
  6. The words "racecar," "kayak," and "level" are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
  7. There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
  8. 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)
  9. TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
  10. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
  11. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
  12. A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
  13. A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
  14. A snail can sleep for three years.
  15. Almonds are a member of the peach family.
  16. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
  17. Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age.
  18. February, 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon.
  19. In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
  20. If the population of China walked past you, eight abreast, the line would never end because of the rate of reproduction.
  21. Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors.
  22. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
  23. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
  24. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
  25. The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.
  26. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
  27. The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
  28. There are more chickens than people in the world.
  29. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
  30. Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
  31. The game of Roulette was created by French mathematician Blaise Pascal, which he discovered when doing experiments into perpetual motion.
  32. J. Paul Getty earned infamy for noting: "A billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be."
  33. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was training to be a priest when he got turned on to Marxism.
  34. Jimmy Carter saw the turtleneck he wore at cease-fire talks in Bosnia fetch $5,000 at auction.
  35. Fidel Castro's real first name is Ruz.
  36. The world's largest soccer stadium is the Maracana in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
  37. Instant coffee was invented by Joel Cheek.
  38. MERICAN AIRLINES saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
  39. A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.

I'm still gone, so I hope this brought a bit of fun to you today.

13 thoughtful remarks:

Karen said...

WOW! some very interesting facts there Elizabeth! I would have loved to have seen a frozen Niagara Falls...must have been absolutely stunning and I didn't know that about babies knee caps. All pause for thought, thank you xxx

Diane said...

Fun facts!!! Who the heck has the time to compile this list :)

Teresa aka Tess said...

I never knew, really!, You've got to be kidding!!, Oh that's so awesome. They should dock that cruise liner forever.
Thanks for the fun....

Terri Kahrs said...

I'm going to try putting my rubber bands in the fridge! LOL! Lots of fun facts and quite a few chuckles too! Very entertaining post, Elizabeth! Hugs, Terri xoxo

Anonymous said...

Hm.
I might be part snail.

Kirsty.A said...

Thanks for that. I won't remember any of it!

voodoo vixen said...

I'm with Amy... obviously part snail and the rest is goldfish... oh and did you know that butterflies taste with their feet? LOL

Halle said...

Funny! Being the keeper of pointless knowledge that I am...I actually knew quite a few of those. What does that say about me? Esp. since I can walk down to the basement and forget what I went there for...

Julia Dunnit said...

Some really interesting stuff there - who knew an olive could prove so valuable! Hope you're having a fab time!

Cattrix said...

I knew that ears and the nose keep growing, but that we don't develop kneecaps until 2-6 was quite astounding.

Hope you are enjoying the trip. :)

Theresa MacNaughton said...

How random and pretty awesome! Thanks so much - I enjoyed reading these! Theresa

Liverpool Lou (Anne) said...

Hi Elizabeth, thanks for the fun facts. The one that gobsmacked me was about the olives!
Anne xx

HeARTworks said...

Verrry interesting! Poor goldfish! And the population of China! Wow! Patsy from
HeARTworks