Words & Language
The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the Army for the General Purpose vehicle, GP.
There are only four words in the English language which end in 'dous'
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.
A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.
There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, silver, and month.
'Dreamt' is the only English word that ends in the letters 'mt'
The longest word in the English language is 1909 letters long and it refers to a distinct
part of DNA.
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is 'screeched'.
The longest town name in the world has 167 letters.
China has more English speakers than the United States.
The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.
The word "lethologica" describes the state of not being able to remember the word you
want.
Shakespeare invented the word "assassination" and "bump".
The Hawaiian alphabet has 12 letters.
If you were to spell out numbers, you would you have to go to One Thousand before you
would find the letter "A".
Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's
kissing the conveyor belt.
'Skepticisms' is the longest word that alternates hands when typing!
Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive!
Clinophobia is the fear of beds!
The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the
alphabet!
The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is
"uncopyrightable"!
Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the
United States!
The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
A group of unicorns is called a blessing. Twelve or more cows are known as a "flink." A
group of frogs is called an army. A group of rhinos is called a crash. A group of
kangaroos is called a mob. A group of whales is called a pod. A group of geese is called
a gaggle. A group of ravens is called a murder. A group of officers is called a mess. A
group of larks is called an exaltation. A group of owls is called a parliament.
The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."
Ernest Vincent Wright wrote a novel, "Gadsby", which contains over 50,000 words -- none
of them with the letter E!
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence
contains them all: "A rough-coated,dough-faced,thoughtful ploughman strode through the
streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
The verb "cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each
other: adhere and separate.
Facetious and abstemious contain all the vowels in the correct order, as does arsenious,
meaning "containing arsenic."
Animal Kingdom
Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
When opossums are playing 'possum, they are not "playing". They actually pass out from
sheer terror.
Ants stretch when they wake up in the morning.
The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight
Elephants can't jump. Every other mammal can.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so
they don't know you're there.
Camel's milk does not curdle.
Humans and Dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
Only bird that can fly backwards: Hummingbird.
Only animal besides human that can get sunburn: Pig.
Ostriches stick their heads in the sand to look for water.
An eagle can kill a young deer and fly away with it.
In the Caribbean there are oysters that can climb trees.
Polar bears are left-handed.
A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue!
Bats always turn left when exiting a cave!
An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.
The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head!
The male praying mantis cannot copulate while its head is attached to its body. The female
initiates sex by ripping the males head off.
A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.
The starfish is one of the only animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out!
Starfish don't have brains.
The penguin is the only bird that can swim, but not fly!
Slugs have 4 noses!
A dragonfly has a lifespan of 24 hours.
A jellyfish is 95 percent water!
A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty
percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It
supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realize what is occurring, relax and
correct itself.
A snail going flat out would take 11 days to cover the distance of 1.6km (1 mile)
The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs!
Owls are one of the only birds that can see the color blue!
Bulls are colorblind, therefore will usually charge at a matador's waving cape no matter
what color it is.
The poison-arrow frog has enough poison to kill about 2,200 people!
Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cant find any food!
After eating, a housefly regurgitates its food and then eats it again!
There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones!
Dolphins sleep with one eye open!
There are over 58 million dogs in the U.S!
Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day!
There are more than one million animal species on Earth!
A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night!
A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside!
A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average!
The placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times!
The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its fur!
For reasons of camouflage, it never washes and is consequently covered in the moss-like
algae.
The North American daddy long legs uses its feet as ears to listen to the chewing of
insects inside wood.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1!
Porcupines float in water!
It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth!
A snail can sleep for 3 years.
The longest recorded flight of a chicken is thirteen seconds.
Cat's urine glows under a blacklight.
If you keep a Goldfish in the dark room, it will eventually turn white.
A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation.
Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.
The venom in a Daddy Long-Legs spider is more poisonous than a Black Widow's or a Brown
Recluse, but they cannot bite humans because their jaws won't open wide enough.
A pig's orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
A hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
A polar bear's skin is black. Its fur is not white, but actually clear.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
Some lions mate over 50 times a day.
A rhinoceros horn is made of compacted hair.
The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'!
Butterflies taste with their feet.
The worlds largest spider, the bird-eating spider, has a leg span of 26.6cm (10.5 in).
The worlds quickest spider is capable of covering 33 times its own body length per
second.
Fleas can achieve high jumps of 20cm (7.75 in), which is over 130 times their own height.
The flea can also jump 350 times its body length. It's like a human jumping the length of a
football field.
A newly born kangaroo is born so small, that 15 could fit comfortably in an egg cup.
Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for
that reason.
Turtles can breathe through their butts.
The African egg-eating snake can extend its jaws to over 4 times the circumference of
its body.
Armadillos have four babies at a time and they are always all the same sex.
Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.
Armadillos can be housebroken.
To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs - it will
let you go instantly.
Reindeer like to eat bananas.
A flamingo can eat only when its head is upside down.
A blind chameleon still changes colors to match his environment.
A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
A snail can have about 25,000 teeth.
A strand from the web of a golden spider is as strong as a steel wire of the same size.
The Weddell seal can travel underwater for seven miles without surfacing for air.
Cats can hear ultrasound.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
There are only three types of snakes on the island of Tasmania and all are deadly poisonous.
A newly born whale on average measures 7.3m (24 ft), which is larger than an adult elephant.
In certain parts of the world there are fish, particularly members of the perch family,
that are able to, and do, climb trees.
Human Beings
The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
Our eyes are always about the same size from birth, but our nose and ears don't stop growing.
Men get hiccups more often than woman.
Proportional to their weight, men are stronger than horses.
A hard working adult sweats up to 4 gallons per day. Most of the sweat evaporates before
a person realizes it's there, though!
Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different!
Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails.
You blink about 84,000,000 times a year.
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206!
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete!
Snoring can reach loudness of 69 decibels, which is about the same as loudness of a
pneumatic drill (65-90 decibels)
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better than men.
Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
The strongest muscle in the body is the tongue.
Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
There are 600 muscles in our muscular system, and we use 17 of them to smile and 43 to frown.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
Humans are the only primates that don't have pigment in the palms of their hands.
The pop you get when you crack your knuckles is actually a bubble of gas bursting.
A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.
It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.
Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.
Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks!
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants!
The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year!
Babies are born without knee caps. They don't appear until the child reaches 2-6 years of age.
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks otherwise it will digest itself.
A kiss stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like it light
and frequent, men like it more strenuous.
One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
You can't kill yourself by holding your breath.
Humans and Dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
Famous Names
Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every Dewey-decimal category.
Gilligan of Gilligan's Island had a first name that was only used once, on the never-aired
pilot show. His first name was Willy. The skipper's real name on Gilligan's Island is Jonas
Grumby. It was mentioned once in the first episode on their radio's newscast about the wreck.
Wilma Flintstone's maiden name was Wilma Slaghoopal, and Betty Rubble's Maiden name was
Betty Jean Mcbricker.
Thomas Edison, light bulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
Barbie's measurements if she were life size: 39-23-33.
Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
Mark Twain didn't graduate from elementary school.
Pamela Anderson Lee is Canada's Centennial Baby, being the first baby born on the centennial
anniversary of Canada's independence.
Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar with Midnight Cowboy.
Her entire role lasted only six minutes.
The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.
Ivory bar soap floating was a mistake. They had been overmixing the soap formula causing
excess air bubbles that made it float. Customers wrote and told how much they loved that it
floated, and it has floated ever since.
The Ramses brand condom is named after the great pharaoh Ramses II who fathered over 160
children.
Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history.
Spades-King David; Clubs-Alexander the Great; Hearts-Charlemagne; and Diamonds-Julius Caesar.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters
from the word "criminal." The second? William Jefferson Clinton.
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in
public.
David Prowse, was the guy in the Darth Vader suit in Star Wars. He spoke all vader's lines,
and didn't know that he was going to be dubbed over by James Earl Jones until he saw the
screening of the movie.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers
in Malaysia combined.
There's no Betty Rubble in Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.
The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
The airplane Buddy Holly died in was the "American Pie." (Thus the name of the Don
McLean song.)
Places
Texas is the only state that is allowed to fly its state flag at the same height as the
U.S. flag.
Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de
Porciuncula."
City with the most Rolls Royce's per capita: Hong Kong
State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska.
Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it's known as
Tennessee.
The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight.
These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.
The Pentagon, in Arlington, Virginia, has twice as many bathrooms as is necessary. When
it was built in the 1940s, the state of Virginia still had segregation laws requiring
separate toilet facilities for blacks and whites.
The state of Florida is bigger than England!
The highest point in Pennsylvania is lower than the lowest point in Colorado.
Reno, Nevada is west of Los Angeles, California.
Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, with a population of 1,000 and a size
108.7 acres.
Only continent without reptiles or snakes: Antarctica.
The Boston university bridge is the only place in the world where a boat can sail under a
train, driving under a car, driving under an airplane.
160 cars can drive side by side on the Monumental Axis in Brazil, the world's widest road.
Portion of land in the US owned by the government: 1/3
The only nation who's name begins with an "A", but doesn't end in an "A" is Afghanistan.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was
built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy
the building.
Laws
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
Donald Duck comics were banned in Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
In Minnesota it is illegal to cross state lines with a duck on your head.
In Indiana it is illegal to ride public transportation for at least 30 minutes after
eating garlic.
It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis!
In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
A New York law, makes driving with 10 or more license suspensions a felony punishable by
a $5000 fine and 4 years in jail. (Only in New York can 10 driving license suspensions be
a felony, and 9 license suspensions are no problem.)
In Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.
It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland!
One of the reasons why marijuana is illegal today is because cotton growers in the 30's
lobbied against hemp farmers - they saw is as competition. It is not chemically addictive
as is nicotine, alcohol or caffeine.
It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas!
It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland!
It's against the law to have a pet dog in Iceland.
Inventions & Firsts
The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a
chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung!
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum!
Coca Cola was originally green.
First novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and laser printers all have
in common? All were invented by women.
The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave it To Beaver".
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time television was Fred and Wilma
Flintstone.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
The tango originated as a dance between two men for partnering practice.
According to National Geographic, scientists have settled the old dispute over which came
first -- the chicken or the egg. They say that reptiles were laying eggs thousands of
years before chickens appeared, and the first chicken came from an egg laid by a bird that
was not quite a chicken.
That seems to answer the question. The egg came first.
In 1963, baseball pitcher Gaylord Perry remarked, "They'll put a man on the moon before I
hit a home run." On July 20, 1969, a few hours after Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon,
Gaylord Perry hit his first, and only, home run.
Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Michigan carries the designation M- 1, named so because it was
the first paved road anywhere.
Leanardo Da Vinci invented the scissors
The first roller skates appeared on their Belgain inventor Joseph Merlin. Legend has it he
skated into a Londan ballroom, playing a violin.
Although first invented in 1827, contact lenses where first manufactured in 1887 by Eugen
Frick.
Money
On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1"
encased in the shield, and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.
More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.
Cost of raising a medium size dog to the age of eleven $6,400.
If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have
the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
Pound for pound, hamburgers cost more than new cars.
America once issued a 5-cent bill!
There are more 100 dollar bills in Russia currently than there are in the United States.
If you toss a penny 10,000 times, it will not be heads 5,000 times, but more like 4950.
The heads picture weighs more, so it ends up on the bottom.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in
first-class.
Dogs and cats consume over $11 billion worth of pet food a year!
Comparisons
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28
Percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do
all over again: 80
Percentage of American women who say they would marry the same man: 50
Percentage of men who say they are happier after their divorce or separation: 58
Percentage of women who say they are happier: 85
Percentage of bird species that are monogamous: 90
Percentage of mammal species (including humans!!) that are: 3
Chance that a U.S. soldier in the Vietnam War volunteered : 4 in 5
Chance that a U.S. soldier in World War II volunteered : 1 in 3
Percentage of oil imported by the U.S. in 2001 that came from Persian Gulf countries : 23
Percentage that came from Canada and Mexico : 27
Men are 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than women!
The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth!
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.
Food Facts
The strawberry is actually a member of the rose family. Each strawberry contains
approximately 200 seeds.
The only food that doesn't spoil? Honey.
Five Jell-O flavors that flopped: celery, coffee, cola, apple, and chocolate.
There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.
The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
The biggest Brussels spout was grown in 1974 and weighed 7.26 kg (16lb)
Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
They have square watermelons in Japan...they stack better.
Iceland consumes more Coca-Cola per capita than any other nation.
Apples are more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in the mornings!
Smelling bananas and/or green apples (smelling, not eating) can help you lose weight!
Almonds are a member of the peach family.
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
Random Facts
All of the clocks in the movie Pulp Fiction are stuck on 4:20.
The Earth weighs around 6,588,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
No piece of square dry paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000.
The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
The youngest pope was 11 years old.
There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building!
The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
What occurs more often in December than any other month? Conception.
What separates "60 Minutes" on CBS from every other TV show? No theme song.
Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what? Their birthplace.
Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?
Obsession.
There are more collect calls on this day than any other day of the year? Father's Day.
The reason firehouses have circular stairways is from the days of yore when the engines
were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how
to walk up straight staircases.
111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and
Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't
added until 5 years later.
The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB,
NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League All-Star Game.
Contrary to the 'sticky keys' theory of the origin of the keyboard arrangement: The
letters were arranged in such a fashion to let salesman to reach over and quickly spit
out 't y p e w r i t e r' on the demo model - a word that can be spelled entirely on
the first line.
The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel
that it burns.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons
combined.
101 Dalmatians and Peter Pan (Wendy) are the only two Disney cartoon features with both
parents who are present and don't die throughout the movie.
The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely solid.
Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
Did you know that you are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous
spider?
The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered
after 38 minutes.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
More people are killed by donkeys annually than are killed in plane crashes.
If the population of China walked past you in single file, the line would never end because
of the rate of reproduction.
You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
No president of the United States was an only child.
The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime at night
Most lipstick contains fish scales!
Percentage of Manhattan's population killed during the cholera epidemic of 1832 : 50
One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen!
If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion!
Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland!
Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone!
One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television!
It is estimated that millions of trees in the world are accidentally planted by squirrels
who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them!
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin!
A toothpick is the object most often choked on by Americans!
Every 45 seconds, a house catches on fire in the United States!
There are more than 50,000 earthquakes throughout the world every year!
The average iceberg weighs 20,000,000 tons!
A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a
tennis court!
Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours!
Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet!
There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses!
The tallest man of all time was Robert Wadlow, At a height 8'11'' He weighed 440 lbs.
and at 22 years old his shoe size was 37aa.
The most common name for a human in the world is Mohammed.
I can not verify the legitimacy of any of the material included on this page.
It is presented for amusement only.