Today’s factoid:
The term ‘red herring’ to mean a confusing or deceptive clue originated from methods used to disrupt or sabotage a fox hunt. Red herrings (a dried and smoked herring) had a strong odour which was often used to train dogs to follow scents. By dragging a red herring across the path of a fox, the hounds could become confused and start following the scent trail of the herring.
Source: Worldwidewords.org.
Today’s factoid:
Before creating Yogi Bear, The Flintstones and {Top,Boss} Cat and even before creating Hanna-Barbera, the creative duo William Hanna and Joseph Barbera worked at the MGM animation studios. There they created the famous cat and mouse duo Tom and Jerry.
Source: Wikipedia.
Today’s factoid:
Arising from its repeated use in a Monty Python sketch, the term “spam” is used to denote unwanted advertising emails or messages sent via the Internet. Hormel Foods Co. have rights upon the trademark SPAM but have explicitly allowed its use, when written with lower-case letters, to refer to this distasteful part of online communication.
Source: The official SPAM website.
Today’s factoid:
Contrary to popular opinion goldfish have been shown, under lab conditions, to have recall of events 11 months in the past (almost a third of a typical goldfish lifespan) and may be able to recall events even earlier.
Source: ABC’s Greatest Moments in Science.
Today’s factoid:
The phrase “Beam me up, Scotty” was never uttered in any episode of Star Trek or any of the feature films.
Source: Wikipedia.
Today’s factoid:
In Old English the word ‘man’ literally meant ‘person’ with no gender bias involved. Instead the words ‘wer’ and ‘wyf’ were used for ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in their modern sense (hence ‘werewolf’ lit. ‘man-wolf’). Over time, and due to a degree of linguistic sexism, the terms ‘man’ and ‘wyfman’ (woman) developed their common modern usage.
Similarly the Old English ‘ham’ for ‘farm’ leads to our modern word ‘hamlet’. Literally speaking my surname, ‘Wareham’, would render into modern English as ‘man-farm’. A terrifying concept possibly but I suspect I could survive being put out to stud.
Source: Dictionary.com.
Today’s factoid:
In 1971, as an April Fools’ Day joke, Representative Tom Moore Jr. introduced a bill in the Texas House of Representatives recommending Albert de Salvo, the famous ‘Boston Strangler’, for a commendation due to his “unconventional techniques involving population control and applied psychology”. The legislators, somewhat known for their habit of only lightly reading of what was before them, passed the bill and so the state of Texas now officially condones the actions of a murderer.
Source: Snopes.com.
I’ve just had a phone call from the landlord. To cut a long story short we have to be out by mid-Feburary. Not, it should be stressed, due to naughtiness on our part. Rather the landlord wants to move back in.
So even before our mail direct runs out we’ll be looking for a new, unfurnished, home.
Today’s factoid:
Should the world’s sea ice and icebergs melt (e.g. from global warming) then the sea level will not rise as one might expect. Archimedes’ principle states that a floating body displaces a mass of water equal to its own mass. Should the floating ice melt, it will turn into a volume of water of the same mass and will exactly ‘fill in’ the hole it leaves behind leaving the sea-level unchanged.
This does not mean we should not worry about global warming of course. Ice resting on land masses displaces no water and hence when it melts it will raise the sea-level.
Source: Wikipedia.
Today’s factoid:
It is often stated that, in nature, the only animal species in which the male gives birth is the seahorse. In actual fact both male seahorses and pipefish give birth to young. Indeed this common feature leads pipefish and seahorses to form a distinct family in the animal kingdom.
Source: Wikipedia, Science Daily. Factoid Elf: Clive Jones