{"id":7931,"date":"2011-12-20T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-20T09:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=7931"},"modified":"2013-06-07T14:02:15","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T21:02:15","slug":"10-more-interesting-words-phrases-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/10-more-interesting-words-phrases-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"10 More Interesting Words &#038; Phrases Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/10-more-interesting-words-phrases-facts\/10-more-interesting-word-and-phrase-facts-copy\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7932\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-7932\" title=\"10 More Interesting Word and Phrase Facts copy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/10-More-Interesting-Word-and-Phrase-Facts-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"620\" height=\"5949\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/10-More-Interesting-Word-and-Phrase-Facts-copy.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/10-More-Interesting-Word-and-Phrase-Facts-copy-340x3262.jpg 340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Embed This Infographic<\/b><br \/>\n<textarea style=\"width: 600px;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/10-more-interesting-words-phrases-facts\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/10-More-Interesting-Word-and-Phrase-Facts-copy.jpg\" border=\"0\" title=\"Language Facts\" class=\"nopin\" \/><\/a><br \/>Source: <a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I Found Out<\/a><\/textarea><br \/>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. What the \u201cBee\u201d in \u201cSpelling Bee\u201d Means<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While no one knows exactly where the word derives from, the \u201cbee\u201d in \u201cspelling bee\u201d simply means something to the effect of \u201cgathering\u201d or \u201cget together\u201d.\u00a0 The earliest documented case of this word appearing with this meaning was in 1769, referring to a \u201cspinning bee\u201d, where people would gather to protest purchasing goods from Britain due to the high taxes on those items.<\/p>\n<p>Other gatherings that were commonly labeled with \u201cbee\u201d were: apple bee, logging bee, quilting bee, barn bee, hanging bee, sewing bee, field bee, and corn husking bee, among others.\u00a0 Basically, any sort of major competition or work gathering, with a specific task in mind, tended to get the \u201cbee\u201d label added on the end.\u00a0 With many of these bees being tedious work events, it was also customary to serve refreshments and provide entertainment at the end of the task.<\/p>\n<p>The first documented case of a spelling bee called such was in 1825.\u00a0 However, it is likely that there were spelling bees before this date.\u00a0 This was simply the first time someone seems to have written down in print that has survived to today \u201cspelling bee\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. The Bluetooth Standard is Named After a 10th Century Scandinavian King<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The man was Harald I of Denmark.\u00a0 \u201cBluetooth\u201d is the English translation of \u201cBl\u00e5tand\u201d, which was an epithet of Harald I (Harald Bl\u00e5tand Gormsson).\u00a0 Legend has it, he received this name due to being extremely fond of blueberries and consuming them so regularly and in such volume that they stained his teeth blue.<\/p>\n<p>The Bluetooth standard was originally developed by Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson in 1994, working at Ericcson in Sweden.\u00a0 Because Bluetooth was meant to offer a set unified standard, replacing a variety of competing protocols, particularly the somewhat antiquated RS-232, they decided to name it after the 10th century king, Harald Bl\u00e5tand Gormsson, who completed his father\u2019s work of unifying the various Danish tribes into one Danish kingdom around 970. Although, he was only able to maintain this unification for a few years.<\/p>\n<p>The name Bluetooth wasn\u2019t originally necessarily meant to be the final name of the standard.\u00a0 When they first named it thus, it was just a code name for the technology.\u00a0 It ultimately ended up sticking though and became the official name of the standard.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3. The Origin of the Term \u201cGoing Postal\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It seems to be common knowledge that if you have a co-worker who appears they might take out a 9mm handgun and play target practice with all the panicking office help, you would say, \u201che\u2019s about to go postal!\u201d It also seems like common sense then, that this could be because postal workers are a little on edge, that they will fly off the handle and kill everyone in sight if they don\u2019t get their 15 min. smoke break. It turns out, that\u2019s not really the case, but who\u2019s to let facts get in the way of a good established term and public perception?<\/p>\n<p>The stereotype is undoubtedly due to several incidents involving postal workers from 1986 to 1993. On August 20, 1986 postman Patrick Sherrill walked into his workplace, shot and killed 14 co-workers and injured 6 more before shooting himself in the head. On October 10, 1991 a former US postal worker, Joseph Harris, killed two employees at a post office in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Then, on November 14th of that same year, after being fired, Thomas Mcilvane killed 4 people and then himself at a Royal Oak, Michigan post office. In a terrible coincidence, on May 6th 1993, two separate shootings took place.\u00a0 The first one was at a post office in Dearborn, Michigan, where Lawrence Jasion killed one person and wounded three before killing himself. Within a few hours of that, in Dana Point, California, Mark Richard Hilbun killed his mother, and then shot two postal workers.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t hard to see from these shootings where the public might get the idea that the postal service had some issues; the media was sure to follow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. How the \u201cI\u2019m Going to Disneyland\u201d Saying Got Started<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In January of 1987, CEO of Disney, Michael Eisner, and his wife were having dinner with Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager.\u00a0 Rutan and Yeager shortly before became the first to fly an aircraft around the world without re-fueling or stopping.\u00a0 At a certain point in the dinner, Eisner\u2019s wife, Jane, asked Rutan and Yeager what they were going to do now that they\u2019d achieved this momentous milestone.\u00a0 The response she got was \u201cwell, we\u2019re going to Disneyland.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jane Eisner thought this would make a great slogan in an advertising campaign and suggested it to her husband, Michael.\u00a0 Michael Eisner liked it and decided that Disney would use this slogan in a commercial following Super Bowl XXI, in 1987 in which the New York Giants defeated the Denver Broncos 39-20.<\/p>\n<p>The athlete they got to star in this commercial was the quarterback for the Giants, Phil Simms. Simms was named the MVP of Super Bowl XXI and offered $75,000 by Disney to appear in their commercial, with his part filmed directly after the game. During this he was to say \u201cI\u2019m gonna go to Disney World!\u201d with alternate takes having him say \u201cDisneyland\u201d instead of \u201cDisney World\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Disney then followed this up with making three more such commercials in 1987, following other major sporting championships.\u00a0 These included hiring: yachtsman Dennis Conner, after winning the America\u2019s Cup; NBA star Magic Johnson, after the Lakers won the NBA Finals, and MLB player Frank Viola, after the Twins won the World Series that year.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5. A Group of Cats is Called a \u2018Clowder\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The correct term for referring to a group of cats is \u2018clowder\u2019.\u00a0 Interestingly, there are also two other valid ways to refer to a group of cats, other than just saying \u201cgroup of cats\u201d or \u201ccats\u201d.\u00a0 Those other two terms are \u2018clutter\u2019 and \u2018glaring\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to this, if one wants to refer to a group of wild cats, the correct terms are \u2018dowt\u2019 and \u2018destruction\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 A male cat, when neutered, is called a \u201cgib\u201d, when not, is called a \u201ctom\u201d.\u00a0 Female cats are known as \u201cmolly\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The word \u201ccat\u201d itself derives from the Old English \u201ccatt\u201d.\u00a0 Catt has its source in the Late Latin \u201ccatus\u201d, meaning: \u201cdomestic cat\u201d.\u00a0 This Late Latin word probably derives from an Afro-Asiatic word: \u201ckadd\u00eeska\u201d, meaning \u201cwild cat\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6. Saying \u2018Ahoy-Hoy\u2019 was at One Time the Preferred Way to Answer the Phone<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The very brief popularity of this telephone greeting stemmed from the fact the \u201cahoy-hoy\u201d was Alexander Graham Bell\u2019s preferred way to answer the phone.\u00a0 Ahoy-hoy derives from the term \u201cahoy\u201d, which is generally associated with being a nautical term used for hailing ships.\u00a0 However, there is also significant evidence that it was popularly used as a way to more or less say \u201chello\u201d in non-nautical situations.\u00a0 Further, \u201choy\u201d was commonly used as far back as the 14th century as a call to use while driving cattle.\u00a0 This precedes the first known instance of it being used in the nautical sense, attached with a leading \u2018a\u2019 sound (\u201ca-hoy\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>The exact origins of the word \u201cahoy\u201d aren\u2019t known beyond that it stems from the Middle English exclamation \u201choy!\u201d\u00a0 The most popular theory as to the origin of \u201choy\u201d is that it derives from the Dutch word \u201choi\u201d, meaning \u201chello\u201d.\u00a0 An alternate widely accepted theory states that it came from the Czech word \u201cAhoj\u201d, also meaning something to the effect of \u201chello\u201d.\u00a0 Yet another theory, albeit slightly less widely accepted, is that it stems from the Old Norse \u201cheill\u201d, which eventually gave rise to the Middle English \u201chail\u201d and perhaps \u201choy\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAhoy-hoy\u201d quickly got beat out in the U.S. and many other English speaking countries by \u201chello\u201d, which was Thomas Edison\u2019s favorite thing to say when answering the phone.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7. The French Word for \u201cPaperclip\u201d is \u201cTrombone\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The word trombone originally comes from the Italian \u201ctromba\u201d, which comes from the same Latin word, \u201ctromba\u201d, both retaining the same meaning: trumpet.\u00a0 In this case, the ending with the added \u201cone\u201d (tromb-one), indicates \u201clarge\u201d.\u00a0 So, essentially, trombone means \u201clarge trumpet\u201d.\u00a0 This has been the name of the instrument in Italy likely since its creation, which is probably around the early 15th century.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClip\u201d, on the other hand, comes from the Old English \u201cclyppan\u201d meaning: to embrace.\u00a0 Obviously this, combined with \u201cpaper\u201d from the Latin \u201cpapyrus\u201d (made from papyrus stalks), gave birth to the word paperclip.<\/p>\n<p><strong>8. There is Nothing That Comes After Once, Twice, Thrice<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, even though these words are roughly equivalent, differing only in the numeric value they refer to, it is now considered poor English to use \u201cthrice\u201d instead of the equivalent \u201cthree times\u201d.\u00a0 At the same time, it is considered poor English to use \u201cone time\u201d instead of \u201conce\u201d, which seems odd given \u201cthrice\u201d is now taboo.\u00a0 Just as odd, \u201ctwice\u201d is currently considered equally as proper as \u201ctwo times\u201d in modern English.<\/p>\n<p>So what we now have here is \u201conce\u201d being proper to use; twice being acceptable, but not necessarily preferred over its equivalent \u201ctwo times\u201d; \u201cthrice\u201d being a no-no; and then nothing beyond that.\u00a0 English!<\/p>\n<p><strong>9. Where the Ampersand Symbol and Name Came From<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The symbol for \u201c&amp;\u201d comes from combination of letters in the Latin for \u201cand\u201d, \u201cet\u201d.\u00a0 Specifically, in Old Roman cursive, it became common to combine e\u2019s and t\u2019s, which produced something like this:\u00a0 Over the next six centuries the ampersand gradually became more elaborate until we get the form of the symbol that is used today:<\/p>\n<p>The name for the symbol, \u201campersand\u201d, didn\u2019t commonly come into use until the 19th century, from \u201cand per se and\u201d, meaning more or less: \u201cand [the symbol] by itself is and\u201d.\u00a0 Classically, when the English alphabet was spoken, \u201cper se\u201d commonly preceded any letter of the alphabet that could be used as a word by itself, such as \u201cA\u201d and \u201cI\u201d, as well \u201cO\u201d, which at one point could be used as a standalone word.\u00a0 Further, the ampersand symbol used to appear at the end of the English alphabet: \u2026 X, Y, Z, &amp;. Hence, when spoken: \u201c\u2026 X, Y, Z, and per se and\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>By the mid-19th century, this led to the symbol itself officially appearing in English dictionaries as \u201campersand\u201d.\u00a0 The one exception to this being among Scottish people who traditionally call it \u201cepershand\u201d, which derives from \u201cet per se and\u201d, using the original Latin \u201cet\u201d to refer to the symbol when spoken, instead of the English \u201cand\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10. The Symbol (#) on a Telephone is Also Called An Octothorpe<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The origins of this term date back to the 1960s and 1970s in Bell Labs with the first documented place this word showed up being in a U.S. patent filed by Bell Labs in 1973.\u00a0 The exact etymology of this word isn\u2019t known as the two \u201ceye witness\u201d accounts are contradictory.\u00a0 However, what is known is that it was a term engineers at Bell Labs started using as early as the 1960s when Bell Labs was working on interfacing techniques between computers and telephones.<\/p>\n<p>It was during this time that Bell Labs came up with the now ubiquitous \u201ctouch tone dialing\u201d, which added two additional keys to handsets, the \u201c*\u201d key and the \u201c#\u201d key.\u00a0 It is clear the \u201cocto\u201d part was thought up because of the eight points on the symbol.\u00a0 The origins of the \u201cthorpe\u201d (sometimes written \u201cthorp\u201d) are not so clear.<\/p>\n<p>Ralph Carlsen of Bell Labs wrote a memorandum on this symbol upon his retirement in 1995 where he states that Don Macpherson came up with the name when he went out to instruct their first client of the new telephone system, the Mayo Clinic.\u00a0 He thought Bell Labs needed an unambiguous name for the # symbol, which had many names, so came up with \u201coctothorpe\u201d.\u00a0 The latter \u201cthorpe\u201d was in reference to the incredible Native American athlete \u201cJim Thorpe\u201d.<\/p>\n<span class=\"collapseomatic \" id=\"id69f169e0bf525\"  tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Expand for References and more Information\"    >Expand for References and more Information<\/span><div id=\"target-id69f169e0bf525\" class=\"collapseomatic_content \">\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/the-symbol-on-the-pound-or-number-key-is-also-called-an-octothorpe\/\">Octothorpe<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"What the Bee in Spelling Bee Means\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/what-the-bee-in-spelling-bee-means\/\">What the Bee in Spelling Bee Means<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/the-bluetooth-standard-is-named-after-a-10th-century-scandinavian-king\/\">Origin of the Name of the Bluetooth Standard<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Origin of the Term Going Postal\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/09\/the-origin-of-the-term-going-postal\/\">Origin of the Term Going Postal<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/08\/how-the-im-going-to-disney-land-saying-got-started\/\">I&#8217;m Going to Disneyland<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/a-group-of-cats-is-called-a-clowder\/\">Group of Cats<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/10\/saying-ahoy-hoy-was-at-one-time-the-preferred-way-to-answer-the-phone\/\">Ahoy-hoy<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"French Word for Paperclip\" href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/the-french-word-for-paperclip-is-trombone\/\">French Word for Paperclip<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/there-is-nothing-that-comes-after-once-twice-thrice\/\">Once, Twice, Thrice<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2011\/06\/where-the-ampersand-symbol-and-name-came-from\/\">Where the Ampersand Symbol Came From<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed This Infographic Source: <a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I Found Out<\/a> &nbsp; 1. What the \u201cBee\u201d in \u201cSpelling Bee\u201d Means While no one knows exactly where the word derives from, the \u201cbee\u201d in \u201cspelling bee\u201d simply means something to the effect of \u201cgathering\u201d or \u201cget together\u201d.\u00a0 The earliest documented case of this word appearing with this meaning was in 1769, referring to a [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":7954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-infographic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7931"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7945,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7931\/revisions\/7945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}