Today I found out the origin of the term “booze”. The first references to the word “booze” meaning “alcoholic drink” in English appear around the 14th century, though it was originally spelled “bouse”. The spelling, as it is today, didn’t appear until around the 17th century. The word “booze” itself appears to have Germanic origins, though which specific word it […]
Read more
Today I found out the biblical expression “40 days and 40 nights” just means a really long time. At the time among the Jews, the number forty wasn’t generally used to signify a specific number, per se, but rather more used as a general term for a large figure. When it was used in terms of time, it simply […]
Read more
Today I found out that in an effort to scare people away from drinking alcohol, the American government once poisoned certain alcohol supplies; this resulted in the death of over 10,000 American Citizens. This, of course, was during Prohibition. The government became frustrated with the fact that despite the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol being banned, the number of […]
Read more
Today I found out turkey does not make you drowsy after you eat it. Now to be clear, turkey does contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid which the human body doesn’t naturally produce, but is essential to proper body function and, thus, must be acquired from food. The reason tryptophan is tied to drowsiness is that it is used […]
Read more
Today I found out ‘peruse’ doesn’t mean what many people think it means. It turns out, “peruse” does not mean “to skim” or “to glance through” or “read quickly” or the like, as it is often used. It actually means quite the opposite of that, meaning “to read thoroughly or carefully” or “examine carefully at great length”. This meaning comes […]
Read more
Today I found out shaving does not make your hair grow back thicker, stronger, faster, or any other “er”. In fact, contrary to what parents the world over tend to tell their kids when their kids start shaving, it has been proven by numerous studies going all the way back to the 1920s that shaving has absolutely no effect whatsoever […]
Read more
Today I found out the origin of the term “Smart Alec”. It was once thought this term was simply generic and that Alec wasn’t actually a real person. However, relatively recent research by various etymologists such as Professor Gerald Cohen, in his1985 work “Studies of Slang”, has shown, based on considerable newspaper article evidence, that “Alec” was actually very probably […]
Read more
Today I found out what hemisphere you are in does not affect the way water spins down your drain. So why do some textbooks, most tour guides, and pretty much all TV shows like The Simpsons get it wrong? The myth that water in your drain will spin differently depending on what hemisphere you are in primarily stems from taking […]
Read more
Today I found out about Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife written just a few days before the first major land battle of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, fought this day (July 21) in 1861 in Manassas, Virginia. Ballou was a major in the U.S. Army and a member of the Rhode Island Volunteers. Before […]
Read more
Today I found out how deaf people think in terms of their “inner voice”. It turns out, this varies somewhat from deaf person to deaf person, depending on their level of deafness and vocal training. Those who were born completely deaf and only learned sign language will, not surprisingly, think in sign language. What is surprising is those who were […]
Read more
Today I found out that the idiom used for the notion of someone “getting what’s coming to them”, whether good or bad, is actually “just deserts”, not “just desserts”. The misconception primarily stems from the fact that most people are unfamiliar with the word ‘desert’ (pronounced dizert), which more or less means the same thing as the word ‘deserve’. Instead, […]
Read more
Today I found out humans have a lot more than five senses. It turns out, there are at least nine senses and most researchers think there are more like twenty-one or so. Just for reference, the commonly held definition of a “sense” is “any system that consists of a group of sensory cell types that respond to a specific physical […]
Read more
Today I found out the person who did the voice and puppeteer work for Jedi Master Yoda also did the same for Miss Piggy and the Cookie Monster. The man was Frank Oz and not only did he do the voice of Yoda and most of the puppetry work, he is also responsible for quite a bit of Yoda’s character […]
Read more
Today I found out why the Adam’s Apple is called the Adam’s Apple. The origins of this term go all the way back to the Biblical event where Eve gave Adam a forbidden fruit, which is commonly misrepresented as an apple. The term then basically comes from the legend that when he ate of the “apple”, the piece got stuck […]
Read more
Today I found out how the completely blind dream. It turns out that if they went completely blind before around the age of 5-7 years old, they will typically dream without any visual experiences. In the very few cases where some report having visual experiences in their dreams, these experiences are more in the abstract sense where they feel like […]
Read more
Today I found out that sugar does not make kids hyper. In fact, it has been proven in numerous studies that it doesn’t affect their behavior at all. In one such study, it was found that mothers who think their kids have been given sugar (even though their kids haven’t been given any), will almost always say their kids are […]
Read more
Today I found out Camels’ humps are not filled with water. So what are Camel humps filled with? It turns out, fat. These fat humps can weigh as much as 80 pounds and allow the Camel to comfortably go one to two weeks without eating, if necessary. Now, some of you out there might be saying to yourselves, “Well, but […]
Read more
Today I found out everything you probably think you know about Velociraptors is a lie. Now to be fair, everything I “knew” about Velociraptors came from the Jurassic Park movies and so I shouldn’t really be surprised it was all wrong. So if, like me, you thought that Velociraptors were slightly bigger than a human; reptilian looking; hunted in packs; […]
Read more