-Sneezes can travel at 100mph
-All the clocks in Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20
-Almonds are members of the peach family
-Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur
-A goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds

Dang, I didn't know ANY of that. I didn't know that tigers had striped SKIN also. That must be something to see.

Random Thanksgiving Information
 

Did you know that Americans are expected to consume over 675 million pounds of turkey this Thanksgiving?

heehee
 

Did you know that Spike Lee's first REAL name is Shelton? I forgot the rest of his name, I'll bring it tomorrow. Has anyone ever seen When Harry Met Sally? "Do it to me Sheldon, you're an animal, Sheldon, ride me, big Shel-don." Hilarious, LOL.

interesting word origins
 

Catch-22 I always wanted to know this!

This phrase, meaning a situation where one bureaucratic regulation is dependent on another, which in turn is dependent on the first, derives from the 1961 novel of the same name by Joseph Heller:

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"
"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.
"Can you ground him?"
"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."
"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"
"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close calls he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."
"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"
"That's all. Let him ask me."
"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.
"No. Then I can't ground him."
"You mean there's a catch?"
"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."
There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

Heller originally titled his novel Catch-18, but at the request of his publisher changed it. Leon Uris had just published Mila-18 and the publisher did not want confusion between the two books.

Brownie Points
This term derives from the girl scouts. That organization had (has?) a system of points that the girls would accumulate toward advancement.
The phrase entered the general language from WWII in military slang. Uniforms, the army's tendency to have soldiers do things that seemed silly and child-like, and evocation of brown-nose all contributed to the popularity of the phrase. I worked for the GS and I never knew this!!


Mind Your P's & Q's I always wanted to know this, too!

The phrase dates to the late 18th century--at least 1779. The exact origin is unknown, but several competing hypotheses seem to be the most likely.

The first is that it derives from the phrase p and q which was an abbreviation for prime quality. This English dialectical term dates to the 17th century. So to mind your p's and q's would mean to be exacting in detail and ensure high quality.

The second is that it refers to difficulty children had in learning to distinguish between the letters p and q, being mirror images of one another. To learn one's p's and q's is a phrase meaning to learn one's letters is first recorded around 1830--somewhat later but not impossible as the origin. Often this explanation is identified with printers and distinguish between a p and a q in type, but the early use exclusively deals with children, not printing.

The third, first suggested by Farmer and Henley at the turn of the 20th century, is that the phrase comes from the practice of maintaining a tally in pubs and taverns. Marks under column P, for pint, or Q, for quart, would be made on a blackboard. To tell a bartender to mind his Ps and Qs would be to tell him to mind his own business and get back to work.

Another commonly suggested explanation is that it is a variation on mind your pleases and thank yous, a plea for gentility and manners. There is no evidence to support this, nor does the please and thank you phrase appear anywhere except in explanations of the Ps and Qs origin.

The last is from the world of printing. Typesetters had to be skilled in reading letters backward, as the blocks of type would have mirror images of the letters. The lower-case letters p and q were particularly difficult to distinguish because they are mirrors of one another and located in bins next to one another. Typesetters had to be particularly careful not to confuse the two.
Which is the correct one is anybody's guess (except the fourth which is certainly false). I favor the second explanation, but that is just a personal preference.

Phat

Phat is another word that frequently is given an acronymic origin. The exact acronym varies with the telling, Pretty Hot And Tempting, Pretty Hips And Thighs, and Pussy Hips Ass Tits have all been suggested. There is no evidence supporting any acronymic origin.

Rather, phat is most likely simply a slang respelling of fat. Such respellings are common in slang. And fat has a long history of meaning rich, abundant, or desirable. Fat has been used this way in English since the early 17th century, and in other languages for far longer. The specific sexual connotation of phat is likely just a specialization of the general meaning. Some suggest it may be a clipping of emphatic. Again, there is no evidence for this last, but at least it's more plausible than any of the acronymic origins.

Phat is also older than you might think. It has been a staple of African American slang since at least 1963.



Piccaninny

This word is a West Indian variation on the Spanish pequeno or pequenino meaning diminutive or tiny one. It entered English around 1687. Applied to small, black children, originally it was a term of endearment but is considered offensive today.

Picnic

Internet lore (and perhaps folklore prior to the internet) has the origin of this word as lynching party for blacks in the American South, originally deriving from the phrase pick an nigger. This is absolutely incorrect. The word's origins have no racial overtones whatsoever.

In actuality, the word derives from the French pique-nique, meaning the same thing as it does in English--an outing that includes food. Pique is either a reference to a leisurely style of eating (as in "pick at your food") or it's a reference to selective delicacies chosen for the outing. Nique is a nonsense syllable chosen to rhyme. The word appears in English as early as 1748 in reference to picnics in Germany. The word did not gain widespread use in Britain until c. 1800.

BUUUUUUUT...

Grandfather Clause

A grandfather clause is one that allows someone who previously had the right to do something to continue doing it even though the law forbids it to others. For example, when I turned nineteen, the state of New Jersey allowed me to drink alcohol. Later than year, they raised the drinking age to twenty-one, but since I was already of legal drinking age, I was grandfathered and could continue to legally consume alcoholic beverages. But why grandfather?

The term comes from discriminatory practices of certain Southern states against blacks. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, some Southern states had laws requiring payment of a poll tax or taking of a literacy test before one could vote. The poor and illiterate were denied the right to vote. This was race-neutral except for clauses in the state constitutions that exempted someone from poll taxes or literacy tests if their grandfather had had the right to vote. This meant that virtually all whites, whose grandfathers could vote before the imposition of these laws, were allowed to vote, while most blacks were denied the right to vote. Over the years, the term has lost the racial stigma and no longer connotes racial bias.

The term grandfather clause dates to 1900. The verb form, to grandfather, is more recent, dating to 1972.

(got these from http://www.wordorigins.org/)

Re: interesting word origins
 

THANK YOU!! If I get one more Black person admonishing me for calling something a picnic I swear!! :rolleyes: I told my husband last night I was going to start a rumor saying if you read 5 books in 5 days the sky will open and you will get money (a la those email messages) to see how many people believe it. Sometimes we will believe anything!

From snapple.com.....
 

I just read this fact when I opened my ice tea:

"Real Fact" #147
Panama is the only place in the world where you can see the sun rise on the Pacific and set on the Atlantic.

Get all the "Real Facts" at www.snapple.com

:cool:

someone once told me that there are three words in the english language that end with "gry" one is angry the other is hungry. Can someone tell me what the other one is??

dsweet

I still want to know the answer to this.

anyway... TTT...

From dictionary.com
 

"Angry" and "hungry" are two words that end in "gry".
There are three words in the English language. What is the
third word? Everyone knows what it means and everyone uses it
every day. Look closely and I have already given you the
third word. What is it?

Answer: "language".

This puzzle has circulated widely on the Internet for some
years, but usually in an abbreviated form such as "Name three
common English words ending in 'gry'", which has no good third
answer.


Maybe I'm dumb, but I still don't get it. How does the word language end in "gry"?

Re: From dictionary.com
 

ISOLATE:
There are three words in the English language.

1. The
2. English
3. Language

You have to remember what Rafiki told Simba . . .LOOK HARDER:p

Re: Re: From dictionary.com
 

Well, touch me in the morning and then just walk away!!!! That was easy enough.

Re: Re: Re: From dictionary.com
 

I didn't get it til I read it twice and I was like WHY LANGUAGE and then I looked at the sentence that I isolated and was like OOOOOOOH DUH!! LOL, tricky BASTIIIIIIDS!!

In the 1500's......
 

Here are some facts about the 1500s:

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly Ok, I knew that the Eurpeans didn't bath that often, but once a year?!? :eek: bath in May and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a
bouquet when getting married.

* * * * * *
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children - last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it Sidebar....GROSS!! :eek:. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

* * * * * *
Houses had thatched roofs - thick straw - piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the dogs, cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."

* * * * * *
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could really mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

* * * * * *
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying "dirt poor."

* * * * * *
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding
more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway. Hence the saying a "thresh hold."

* * * * * *
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did
not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes the stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, "Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old."

* * * * * *
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

* * * * * *
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often
with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

* * * * * *
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or "upper crust."

* * * * * *
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock them out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a "wake."

* * * * * *
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a "bone-house" and re-use the grave. When re-opening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. :eek: So they thought they would tie
a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be "saved by the bell" or was considered a "dead ringer."

Here is something for you all to chew on:

- I have NO brothers or sisters,but that girl is my father's daughter.How is this possible?