BS: Useless Trivia

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Cluin
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 12:11 PM

Depends how lazy you are.

Me, I'd go for the workout.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 05:21 AM

Pigs can orgasm for 40 minutes.

Lions can copulate up to 80 times a day.

Which would you rather be?

LTS



Oink

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 01:40 PM

Ranger Steve:

Somewhat debunked at This Site
One reads on occasion that the slipper was mis-translated from Charles Perrault's original tale which formed part of his Mother Goose tales. (Contes de ma mere l'oye -1697). But Perrault writes clearly of a pantoufle de verre (glass slipper). So it appears that Perrault knew of what he wrote: Glass (verre) not fur (vair).

Rawson in his book Devious Derivations says that the word, vair, was not used when Perrault was spinning tales. So, he says, it is doubtful that it was a mis-translation from some oral account of the story. Which doesn't mean that Perrault didn't know of the fur connection. If he did he was having a grand time playing a word game.

CHEERS

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: RangerSteve
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 12:59 PM

There is an obsolete French word (I don't know what it is) for white squirrel fur that is very similar to the french word for glass. Charles Perrault (sp?) got the two words confused while writing down the tale of Cinderella, which explains how she ended up with those impossible slippers.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Jan 05 - 10:53 AM

Torctgyd:
Hurricanes shot down almost twice as many enemy aircraft as Spitfires in the Battle Of Britain

Please be a little more precise, how many spitfires did the hurricanes shoot down? and how many enemy aircraft?

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 11:42 AM

Explanation accepted... hell, it got the reaction you wanted too, so Cheers eh!

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Torctgyd
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 11:20 AM

Toulousecruise,

Couldn't resist putting that one in, a best friend at university was Canadian and she was so easy to wind up by being called American but as I used to point out to her she is, beyond dispute, American as I am European (boo hiss)

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 10:50 AM

And I am an American who doesn't mind being called a Canadian. After all, they're nice people, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: ToulouseCruise
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 09:59 AM

Torctgyd -- No, Canadians do NOT like being called Americans. It is both because of our own pride in our own nation, along with SOME (not all) negative feelings on a global scale associated with the US.

okay, maybe I generalized... *I* am a Canadian who doesn't like being called an American.

Brian

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 21 Jan 05 - 12:48 AM

The first notable use of a pre-fab structure was when Willie the Conqueror's boys landed in Pevensey. They assembled a wooden fort to protect the horses.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:49 PM

The earth is not round, around here in Colorado either, it's kinda bumpy.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: open mike
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 01:42 PM

those crushed insects said to have colored lipstick were most likely cochineal, which are a form of "scale" . Cochineal is ofen used in dyeing wool and other fibers. http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Cochineal/
http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/howto/ht00/how_dye_cochineal.htm
http://www.bell.lib.umn.edu/Products/cochinea.html
oh by the way, " natural dye obtained from an extract of the bodies of the females of the cochineal bug (Dactylopius confusus)"

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: pdq
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 12:28 PM

The earth is not round. It is more acurately termed an 'oblate spheroid'.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Cluin
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 12:22 PM

susu, I got the saliva fact from George Carlin.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bert
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 11:34 AM

The Duke of Wellington was pro American so they didn't send him to fight in the war of 1812.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST,Bill the Collie
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:59 AM

The medicinal-tasting throat-sweety thingy "Fishermens friends" used to contain chloroform.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Torctgyd
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 10:43 AM

Shah also comes from Ceasar

Bananas growing on a banana tree have the fingers pointing upwards

10CC and The Lovin' Spoonfull got there names from the volume of ejaculate of a man at orgasm

Steam is invisible (what you see is condensed steam - water)

America is named after a Welsh born Bristolian called John Americk not Amerigo Vespucci (who else who wasn't a saint or a monarch had something named after their first name since surnames came into being - no one!!) controversial but true!!!

In the Wild West the Colt 45 was used more often as a hammer than anything else.

Father Christmas/Santa Claus now wears red rather than green thanks to Coke adverts from the 1920's

New York is further south than Rome

If George Washington hadn't been turned down for a commision in the British Armed Forces he would have fought on the Loyalist side.

Canadians really do like being called Americans

Having one great great great great grandparent from Ireland makes you Irish and eligible to play for their soccer team

London used to have a thoroughfare where prostitutes plied their trade as Grope C**t Lane, was this derived from the need to check the sex of the prostitute first?

Golf is definitely a good walk ruined

The swastika is a symbol of peace and good luck

Hurricanes shot down almost twice as many enemy aircraft as Spitfires in the Battle Of Britain

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: susu
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 09:44 AM

Cluin, where did you get that? Everyone swallows trace amounts of saliva several times a day most people are not even aware they are doing it, otherwise you would choke. Not only that but you have to swallow saliva when you eat or drink. Your saliva (along with chewing)is the first step to digestion. I am pretty sure that saliva is no match for the acid in your stomach that begins the next chemical step of digestion. I never heard that in nursing school, the only ting I remember about any link to saliva and cancer was that saliva may be used to detect oral cancer and that RNA from saliva ofter show biomarkers for head and neck cancer.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST,Sidewinder
Date: 20 Jan 05 - 07:59 AM

It took the Pharoah Snefaru three attempts to build his burial pyramid finally locating at Giza where his son and grandsons pyramids are located nearby.

Regards

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Cluin
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 10:11 PM

Saliva causes cancer.

But only when swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 10:01 PM

The scientific name for Yaupon Holly is Ilex vomitoria, so named because some American Indian tribes used it to brew a tea which was used to induce ritual vomitting. It has no known psychotropic effect. It just makes you puke.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST,Sidewinder
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 09:08 PM

Laurel & Hardy made almost a hundred films together but only won 1 Oscar for a comedy short titled "The Music Box" were they transport a piano up a flight of stairs with hilarious consequences.

Regards.

Sidewinder.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 04:30 PM

Australia has more deadly creatures than any other continent.

Bill Gates said spam will cease to be a problem by the end of this year.

There is one operating system that boasts of a perfect security record.

Roman soldiers were exempt from most battlefield diseases because they were forbidden to drink water. It was wine or vinegar.

For almost a century, the czar owned the rarest gemstones in the world, the only ones of their type.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jan 05 - 12:15 AM

Well, that one was boring. But usually I'm interested!

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 11:59 PM

To get back on the trivia track: even though jade is intimately associated with Chinese culture, there are no notable jade deposits within Chine. None closer than the Amur river at the border.

Jadite, the good looking, colourful stuff, was only introduced in 1748, IIRC, and came primarily from Myanmar (Burma). It first appeared at the Imperial Jade Market in Peking and immediately put nephrite out of the running.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 09:42 PM

If it's trivial, I'm interested. And congratulations!

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Auggie
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 09:16 PM

Dear Guest
No Harm, No foul.
Actually it's been a great day. Passed my 4 year post-cancer surgery check up today with no problems, so very little on the web could upset me. As to the veracity of my version, I've found it published my way twice (now that you've had me looking) but perhaps both were in error as one seems to have been cribbed from the other just as I cribbed it from the first source.
After all, if all it took to ensure veracity was repetition, I would be repeating "I won the lottery" over and over till it was true. Actually, after my MD's report today, I do feel like I've won the lottery.
I bow to your trivia expertise (but don't begin to challenge an ex-chemist on lipstick).

Best Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 04:44 PM

I'm sorry Auggie. It was a fascinating anecdote, and, as I said, you were entirely justified in relaying it. I just thought that you, I, and anyone else who might be likely to relay it further would want to know there was something fishy about that sausage story, even though it could be true.

If you already knew that the guy had weinered out of an earlier duel challenge from the very same von Bismarck, I'm sorry for submitting a useless fact, but I'm surprised you would deem that unworthy of mention in the clever weiner duel.

(I spent a much longer time researching and learning about Roman plywood, BTW, which amazed me just as much.)

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:29 PM

The impossibility of licking elbows is clearly a fascinating subject for the entirley normal section of the poulation reperesented by mudcat users....


and the rest of us

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Crystal
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:08 PM

on being told that it is impossible to lick your elbow a significant proportion of people will try.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 09:00 AM

It's about time I had a cuppa tea

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST,Auggie
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 08:51 AM

Actually Guest, the other account is published as well, and not on the web. But since you're the would be know it all trivia freak, I'll let you go find the source. Have fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Teresa
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 02:05 AM

Indeed, there is eight-dot computer braille.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 01:26 AM

Some reports have it that in 1865, Otto von Bismarck challenged Virchow to a duel, but Virchow declined. (This would have given him 12 years to think up what he SHOULD have said, and then actually get the chance to use it in 1877)

(Posting anonymously so as not to appear a would-be know-it-all, trivia-hounding freak, looking for an upset... The Virchow anecdote about trichinosis *is* published, in Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes. This other version (about rearmament and forced unification), I have only seen on the web.)

I leave resolution of the discrepancy to other useless-truth seekers.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bert
Date: 18 Jan 05 - 12:16 AM

If blind people changed Braille to eight dots then they could use extended ASCII and computer people would be able to read it.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Auggie
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 11:25 AM

Lipstick

Never 'Banned in Boston', but once the New York Board of Health considered making it illegal (the year was 1924) because at the time its composition, mainly beeswax for stiffness, olive oil for flow, and crushed, dried insect corpses for color was thought by some to be a health hazard, and not to just the wearer, but even to those who were kissed.

Still ache to kiss those ruby red lips? Well, Fear Not. By the late 20th century, Modern Science had completely reformulated the product.

Today's product contains a weak acid which actually reddens the lips, castor oil to carry the acid, animal &/or vegetable oils and soap to allow the first two to be smeared around, petroleum based wax to make it rigid enough to be sold as a stick rather than a cream, food preservatives to keep the oils from going rancid, perfume to mask the caster oil smell, and synthetic dyes (often aluminum and coal tar among others)to color the product itself.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The shiny iridescent quality? It's from dried, ground fish scales soaked in ammonia.

Ain't modern life grand?

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Teresa
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 01:25 AM

Using one to six dots for each character, Braille has a maximum of sixty-three possible characters. There are "shorthand" type characters that make up the balance in addition to the alphabet.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Cluin
Date: 17 Jan 05 - 12:40 AM

Norville Rogers was the real name of "Shaggy" from the Scooby Doo cartoon (voice by Casey Kasem).   

"Like WOW, man!"

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 04:31 AM

When counting in Japanese, "three" = "san"

Doug c

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 15 Jan 05 - 02:15 PM

To pdq, in re Japanese:

You are incorrect, I fear. For example, the Japanese word for foreigner, stranger, "other-person" is gaijin. Most do seem to end in vowels, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: beadie
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 04:05 PM

Actually, Auggie, it was the esteemed Gordie Roseleip of Darlington . . . the farmers' friend and the bane of welfare mothers.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Maija
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 02:54 PM

>>It's impossible to lick your elbow

The youngest son in the house just proved this theory wrong.

>>And undignified to try....

That's why I made him try and didn't try it myself ;)


Shane MacGowan once tried to eat a Beach Boys vinyl record.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: HuwG
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 12:47 PM

The word "cwm" is Welsh (meaning vale, or glacial corrie). In Welsh, "w" is always a vowel, pronounced as "oo" or "u".

(In Welsh, "u" is usually pronounced as "i". "y" is pronounced either as an "i" or a "u".)

Where Welsh words have been borrowed by English, half the vowels have usually been discarded e.g. "glib", meaning slippery, insincere or superficial, derives from the Welsh "gwlyb" (f. "wleb"), meaning wet.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 14 Jan 05 - 01:05 AM

On rare occasions, 'w' may also be a vowel; such as 'cwm'.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 08:51 PM

William Bligh was involved in three mutinies, none of which were through his fault.

The famous 'Mutiny on the Bounty' came about because Fletcher Christian was a pretentious wimp who couldn't deal with being treated as a junior officer (he was only a warrent officer *acting* as an officer for the cruise+) and by the mens' reluctance to leave Tahiti.
The second was the 'Spithead' mutiny, where the whole fleet effectively went on strike for better conditions (When other Captains were being replaced as part of the settlement, Bligh was welcomed back on board his ship with cheers from the crew).
A third 'mutiny' related to trying to stamp out corruption in the Military as Governor of New South Wales (something to do with rum IIRC).

Bligh was a cartographer, partly trained by Cook (and present on Cook's last voyage, I believe)and some of his maps were still in use late into the 19th Century.

Walrus


+The early accounts of the Mutiny were published by friend/members of the Christian family who naturally pushed the blame elsewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 08:23 PM

...from Merriam-Webster OnLine:

"Main Entry:        vow·el
Pronunciation:        'vau(-&)l
Function:        noun
Etymology:        Middle English, from Middle French vouel, from Latin vocalis -- more at VOCALIC
1 : one of a class of speech sounds in the articulation of which the oral part of the breath channel is not blocked and is not constricted enough to cause audible friction; broadly : the one most prominent sound in a syllable
2 : a letter or other symbol representing a vowel -- usually used in English of a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y "

A vowel is a sound first, the symbol for that sound second.

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Bert
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 08:12 PM

Mack,

Some did cover the point

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 08:06 PM

Mrrzy: Written Japanese might not have special symbols for vowels, but spoken Japanese certainly has vowel sounds, don't you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: Auggie
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 07:33 PM

Beadie
Was the Wisconsin senator you refered to that inexhaustable treasure trove of insipid ideas, the one and only Odie Fish?

Subject: RE: BS: Useless Trivia
From: mack/misophist
Date: 13 Jan 05 - 04:16 PM

The fibula used by the Romans, and the Celts, had no cover over the point. It could be made entirely of one piece of wire. The modern safety pin does have a cover, which is why it's a "safety" pin.

Fibulae should not be confused with pin-annular brooches, which had two parts and were not meant to bend.


More trivia: Roman shields were made of plywood.