Uncle John’s Did You Know? (27 page)
Read Uncle John’s Did You Know? Online
Authors: Bathroom Readers’ Institute
• Don’t look for a full moon on Halloween: During the past 100 years, it’s happened only four times—in 1925, 1944, 1955, and 1974. The next October 31 full moon will be in 2020.
• Twinkies are about 68% air.
• Thinking of entering a doughnut-eating contest? Here’s a tip: Press down hard on the doughnut before biting into it, so the air inside doesn’t bloat your belly.
• The world’s longest hot dog: a 1,996-foot wiener made by Sara Lee Corp. for the 1996 Olympics. Unfortunately, the “Olympic Weenie” wasn’t refrigerated, so it couldn’t be eaten.
• Krispy Kreme makes about five million doughnuts a day in its North American stores.
• In 1886, its first year in business, Coca-Cola sold an average of nine bottles a day. In 2000, people in more than 200 countries drank nearly 571 million servings of Coca-Cola in just one day.
• Depending on how you measure it, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is 4,200 feet—or 28,800 Oreo cookies—long.
• In 2006 a Coca-Cola employee tried to sell one of Coke’s secret recipes to Pepsi…but Pepsi turned him in.
• On July 4, 2006, Takeru Kobayashi won the International Hot Dog Eating Contest for the sixth year in a row. He ate 53¾ hot dogs (with the buns) in just 12 minutes—more than one wiener every 15 seconds.
• In the world of microbes (microorganisms), the smallest of the small is the
parvovirus
. It’s so tiny it can be seen only through a high-power microscope.
• Seaweed and kelp may look a lot like plants, but they actually belong to the same family as microbes.
• Viruses are versatile: They can infect every form of life, including fungi, bacteria, plants, animals…and you.
• If you could stack bacteria, it would take about 500 of them to equal the thickness of one thin dime.
• Fungi are everywhere! They live on your body, in your house, on plants and animals, in the soil, and in fresh and salt water.
• A single teaspoon of topsoil contains about 120,000 fungi.
• Viruses have a unique way of reproducing: invading and taking over other cells (like the ones in your body).
• Each square centimeter of your skin is home to an average of about 100,000 active, healthy bacteria.
• Slime molds normally live as individual cells, but in poor conditions they group together. When they do, look out! They form a slimy, sluglike structure that can crawl off to a new location.
If you’ve run out of names to call your friends, try some of these from Cumbria in northwest England
.
• A “gammerstang” is a big girl with bad manners.
• A silly, talkative person is a “bletherskite.”
• What’s a “mæzlin?” A person with no sense.
• A tattletale is a “clat.”
• Someone who’s incompetent is “feckless.”
• Someone who says flattering things is a “flaach.”
• A big bully is a “gomerel.” (Though in other places in England, a gomerel is a fool.)
• “Goamless” is the word for cowardly.
• A blunderer is a “maffelhorn.”
• Know anyone who’s totally useless? You’d call him a “wæster.”
• A rogue or a scamp is a “taggelt.”
• A lazy guy who slinks around is a “slonk.”
• A woman who’s dressed extravagantly is a “flîgaery.”
• A “tæstrel” is a violent or mischievous person.
• Lots of words for idiots: Try “dafty,” “clot-head,” “dummel head,” or “gowk.”
• Dobermans were first bred by Louis Dobermann, a German tax collector who wanted a dog for protection from bandits—
and
for intimidating taxpayers.
• The oldest American breed is the American Foxhound. Hounds came with the first settlers; the American Foxhound developed from those dogs.
• In the United States, an estimated one million dogs have been named in their owners’ wills.
• The Saluki, a graceful variety of hound, is represented in Sumerian carvings that date all the way back to 7000 B.C.
• Greyhounds can stride a distance of 27 feet.
• A dog’s ear is controlled by 17 muscles.
• True or false: Dalmations are born with all their spots. False! They’re born with white coats, and the black spots develop later.
• Chow Chows have tongues and gums that start out pink at birth but turn bluish-black by the time they’re eight weeks old.
• Basset Hounds can’t swim. Their legs are too short to keep their long, heavy bodies afloat.
• Who’s Bingo? (He’s the dog on the Cracker Jack box.)
You’ve heard them here and there, but where do they come from?
• The word “worm” is from
wyrm
, the Old English word for dragon. In ancient times, worms and insects were classified with serpents.
• Bungalow, pajamas, jungle, and shampoo are all from the Hindi language.
• The term “devil’s advocate” comes from the Roman Catholic Church. A devil’s advocate argues the case against appointing someone a saint.
• “Mayday” comes from the French
m’aider
, a shortening of
venez m’aider
: “Come help me!”
• If you ice skate, you probably know what a Zamboni is. The machine used in ice rinks to smooth the ice is named for its inventor, Frank Zamboni, who created the first one from a tractor.
• The abbreviation for pound—lb.—comes from the Latin
libra
, the word for scale. People in the Middle Ages did their weighing and accounting in Latin.
• “Chameleon” is from the Greek word for “little lion.”
• The word “moose” comes from the Algonquian Indian word meaning “twig eater.”
• Technically, black and white are not colors. White contains
all
the colors of the visible spectrum and black is the
absence
of color.
• In 10th-century France, the doors of traitors and criminals were painted yellow.
• The color yellow has come to mean “cowardly.” It used to be common to say a cowardly person had a “yellow streak” or was “yellow-bellied.”
• Greenish blue is called
turquoise
; bluish green is called
teal
.
• The ancient Persians believed all gods wore white.
• In ancient Rome, public servants wore blue. Interestingly, even today, many police officers and other public servants wear blue uniforms.
• At Easter in Greece, eggs are dyed red for good luck.
• Red means good luck in China, too. It’s used especially for holidays and weddings.
• Ancient Egyptians colored the floors of their temples green.
• Leonardo da Vinci believed that the power of meditation increased by 10 times when it was performed in purple light, for instance in the purple light of stained glass.
• Tony the Tiger, the Frosted Flakes mascot, is married and has a son and a daughter. His wife’s name: Mama Tiger. His children are Tony Jr. and Antoinette.
• A male actor provided the voice of the famous Taco Bell Chihuahua, but the dog you saw in the commercials was a girl dog named Gidget.
• The Energizer Bunny has made cameo appearances in commercials for Purina Cat Chow and Hostess Twinkies.
• The oldest and most enduring cartoon characters to advertise a Kellogg’s product are Snap! Crackle! and Pop! of Rice Krispies fame.
• When the Jolly Green Giant first appeared in 1928, he wasn’t jolly at all. He was a scowling, hunchbacked giant in a scruffy old bearskin.
• Back in the 1930s, Pepsi had an advertising campaign starring two cartoon cops named “Pepsi & Pete.”
• Ronald McDonald’s face is recognized by more than 95% of American children.
• A Pillsbury Doughboy doll released in 1972 was so popular that
Playthings
magazine named it Toy of the Year.
A
pangram is a sentence containing all 26 letters of the alphabet, like the classic “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” But there are lots more where that came from
.
• A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent.
• About sixty codfish eggs will make a quarter pound of very fizzy jelly.
• Amazingly few discotheques provide jukeboxes.
• By Jove, my quick study of lexicography won a prize.
• Crazy Fredericka bought many very exquisite opal jewels.
• Jaded zombies acted quaintly but kept driving their oxen forward.
• Exquisite farm wench gives body jolt to prize stinker.
• Uncle John’s fake, girly Pez box liquid washed MTV.
• Grumpy wizards make toxic brew for the evil queen and jack.
• Jolly housewives made inexpensive meals using quick-frozen vegetables.
• The xylophone orchestra vowed to imbibe jugs of kumquat fizz.
