32 Things You Likely Didn't Know

email | July 26, 2003 | Anonymous

[Hildy]

1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.

2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

3. The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.

4. A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.

5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.

6. A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

7. A 2 X 4 is really 1-1/2" by 3-1/2".

8. During the chariot scene in "Ben Hur," a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Heston's wearing a watch).

9. On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily! (That explains a few mysteries....)

10. Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.

11. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

12. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.

13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.

14. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan. There was never a recorded Wendy before.

15. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

16. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death. (Who was the sadist who discovered this??)

17. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to s-l-o-w film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.

18. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA."

19. The original name for butterfly was flutterby.

20. 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.

21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so the called themselves Motorola.

22. Roses may be red, but violets are indeed violet.

23. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you cannot sink into quicksand.
24. Celery has negative calories. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with.

25. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest.

26. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

27. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, "Elementary, my dear Watson."

28. An old law in Bellingham, Washington, made it illegal for a woman to take more than three steps backwards while dancing!

29. The glue on Israeli postage is certified kosher.

30. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

31. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.

32. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!

[Squantos]

Buttered bread falls buttered side down every time. A cat falls feet down every time. A cat with a piece of buttered bread duct taped to it's back , then tossed into the air will float in mid air !...........honest !

Stay safe.........great thread !

[cyncooper]

Well--thanks for the added information!

[petuniasevan]

5. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate

Also true of Vulcan males.

[Slings and Arrows]

So what you're saying is, never leave a Vulcan alone with your pet ferret?

[chaosagent]

This is definitely true about ferrets. We lost one that way that we were told had been spayed, but it hadn't. If they go into heat and don't breed, their red blood cell production ceases.

It takes a while for all the old cells to age and die, after which the ferret basically suffocates because there is not enough red blood cells to carry oxygenated blood.

[chaosagent]

And Bogart never said "Play it agin, Sam" in Casablanca

[Swordmaker]

19. The original name of the butterfly was flutterby."

From the North American Butterfly Association:

What is the origin of the word "butterfly."

No one really knows the origin of this word. It is possible that it arose from the butter-yellow color of common European butterflies called sulphurs.

[Mike Darancette]

Saturday Night BUMP

[STARWISE]

According to the about.com hoax and urban legends site, #6 is not true:

A Duck's Quack Doesn't Echo

An urban legend

Summary: A duck's quack doesn't echo, and nobody knows why.

Status: False.

Comments: Note well that you won't find this claim made in any scientific journal or textbook. You will find it in questionable sources such as email trivia lists and fruit drink bottle caps — reason enough to be skeptical.

The obvious question — and the one never answered by those who tout this absurd factoid, naturally — is, why wouldn't a duck's quack echo? What could there possibly be about the sound a duck makes that would uniquely exempt it from the physical laws that apply to all other such sounds, e.g., a dog's bark, a cat's meow or a lamb's bleat?

The answer is: nothing.

Resources:

Is It True that a Duck's Quack Doesn't Echo?
Ask the Experts, PhysLink.com

Resources: Is It True that a Duck's Quack Doesn't Echo?
Ask the Experts, PhysLink.com

PhysLink.com

Question Is it true that a duck's quack doesn't echo? If so, why?

Asked by: Matt Schonert

Answer

I'm sorry to say that it's not true about the quack of a duck. Quacks echo as much as any other sound in nature. However, there is a way to avoid an echo, the problem is that it depends on your distance from the object reflecting the sound, and not the type of sound itself.

Sound travels in waves, and all of these waves have a specific wavelength (the distance from point on a wave to the exact point on the next). If by chance, the distance between the emitter of the wave and the reflector is exactly on one of the nodes of the wave... the sound will not reflect back at all. There will just be a standing wave created between one place and another, as all points on the wave would have zero net displacement. You can try this in the lab with a strobe light and a string oscillator. Also, if you have done the experiment with the column of water and the tuning fork, you will notice dead spots. These are distances where no matter what you do with the tuning fork, you won't hear anything coming from the tube.

The second way to avoid an echo, is to use a partially reflective material. This method is one of many that helps to hide aircraft from radar. If you position a half-reflective layer exactly one-quarter wavelength in front of a fully reflective layer, the wave will cancel itself out. By separating the layers by 1/4 wavelength, half the wave bounces off the first, and the other half of the wave bounces of the second. The travel time from the first layer to the second and back again, is exactly 1/2 wavelength, which means that the positive peak displacement is balanced exactly by the negative peak displacement. Again, no net displacement = no discernable wave return.

Answered by: Frank DiBonaventuro, B.S., Air Force officer, Tinker AFB, OK.

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And now, folks... back to your dining and dancing pleasures .. ;-)

[Swordmaker]

21. The first product Motorola started to develop was a record player for automobiles. At that time, the most known player on the market was Victrola, so the called themselves Motorola.

Per Motorola company website:

Motorola History

The company was founded by Paul V. Galvin as the Galvin Manufacturing Corporation, in Chicago, Illinois, in 1928. Its first product was a "battery eliminator," allowing consumers to operate radios directly from household current instead of the batteries supplied with early models. In the 1930s, the company successfully commercialized car radios under the brand name "Motorola," a word suggesting sound in motion. During this period, the company also established home radio and police radio departments; instituted pioneering personnel programs; and began national advertising. The name of the company was changed to Motorola, Inc., in 1947.

[Hildy]

See post #20...We've scratched the duck.

[DannyTN]

"13. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver."

Roger Miller in the song "Dang Me" rhymed "purple" with Maple "Syurple".

"Dang Me, Dang Me, They ought to take a rope and hang me. High from the highest tree.....Woman would you weep for me?"

[longtermmemmory]

Under the revised vulcans of Enterprise, Vucan females now have the same "issue". (T'Pol became "ill" and her mating cycle was triggered early)

[STARWISE]

Shows ya how many of us are actively disengaged from life on a Saturday night .. LOL.

[Semper911]

See also:

www.amusingfacts.com

Also just google the words "useless facts", (with the quote marks) and you'll be there for hours. I love this sort of thing, random facts, but all too often they turn out to be... not-so-factual.

Interesting, though.

[Nateman]

No rhymes you say?
orange syringe
purple herbal
silver pilfer
Kind of like the English teacher who said 'sugar is the only word in the english language in which "su" sounds like "sh"" to which Mark Twain said "are you SUre?"

[Hildy]

I don't know, this is infinitely more fun than, let's say, watching Saturday Night Live. I really don't have a life, do I? Hubby's asleep and my dogs have taken up residence on my side of the bed. So I figured I'd come here for a little "conversation"

[Hildy]

I don't know...that's pushin it a bit, don't ya think? I axed the duck, but I don't think I'm gonna pull that one, yet.

[STARWISE]

Wonder the veracity of all the other statements .. I didn't run across them at the about.com site. Thanks for the break from the news. I just feel so sad for our soldiers over there .. God Bless them and comfort their families.