I usually don't do this, but for this week's column I wanted to share something I received as an e-mail forward. It's a collection of trivia that I think is absolutely fascinating. I never knew a lot of this stuff before! I'm passing it on to you as a reminder of what an interesting world we live in!!
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Ronald Reagan was not the first U.S. president to have formerly been an actor. Martin Van Buren appeared in several movies prior to his career in politics, mostly quirky, low-budget independent films.
The longest word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "groupie."
The classic children's toys known as "Lincoln logs" are named after U.S. president Harold Log (1841-1845).
Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein -- which, despite its negative connotation in the United States, is actually a very common name in Obama's home country of Iraq.
The Latin name for the common house cat is garfieldus heathclifficus.
In the time it took you to read this sentence, 63 people around the world also read a sentence.
Due to an outdated law that's still on the books, in Massachusetts it is illegal to murder someone on Good Friday.
The punctuation mark known as the "period" is called that because writers were formerly encouraged to use it no more than once a month.
John McCain's middle name is Lucifer.
The hit TV series "Happy Days" spawned several spin-offs, including "Laverne & Shirley," "Joanie Loves Chachi," and "60 Minutes."
A group of witches is a coven. A group of gay men is a cast, a group of lesbians is a munch, and a group of drag queens is a tuck.
The first novel written on a personal computer was "Flowers in the Attic."
Mountain Dew was invented when someone accidentally poured some 7-Up into a can of gasoline.
Contrary to popular belief, the party game Twister was not named after the 1996 tornado movie. In fact, the game had been on the shelves for a good six months before that movie came out.
At least two of Colonel Sanders' 11 herbs and spices are poisonous.
Hillary Clinton's middle name is Steven.
On TV, the first couple ever shown in bed together were Fred Flintstone and Betty Rubble. The episode was banned.
It took the medical examiner four hours to pry the gun from Charlton Heston's cold, dead hands.
In Denmark, the third most common cause of death is shark attack.
The Hawaiian alphabet has only 12 letters, and three of them are J.
The term "legally blind" has its roots in medieval England, where you had to have the king's permission to be blind. If you went blind without royal approval, you could be put in the stocks in the town square as punishment, with a sign on you that said "For Unlawful Cataracts" -- and the acronym for that is where a certain modern vulgarity came from.
Beloved TV icon Mr. Rogers always claimed that the reason he didn't visit his fans in Mexico was that he was afraid to fly -- but the real reason was that he was a fugitive there, having once killed a guy with his bare hands in a Tijuana bar fight.
Studies show that 98 percent of all "little-known facts" distributed via e-mail are false. Except for this one, of course.
Ya know....I always wondered about Mr. Rogers........
One story about Mr. Rogers that apparently IS true (I heard this on NPR's "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!") is that his car was stolen once & after it had been reported on the local Pittsburgh news the thieves returned it with a note saying, "If we'd known it was your car, we would never have taken it."
A couple of weeks ago we were at a family dinner, talking about Obama, and my mother-in-law said, "he's that guy from the middle east."
It always amazes me how gullible some people are.
My favorite myth about Mr. Rogers is that he was a deadly sniper in Korea and/or Vietnam. I was left with this absurd visual of him sitting in a tree with a sniper rifle and a sweater vest.
wait..I don't get it.. Why have so many obviously silly statements, but then reveal the true origins of Mountain Dew?
*yucky* :-P
Uncopyrightable. that's the longest word without repeating a letter
I don't usually laugh out loud, but that line about Charlton Heston was the funniest thing I've heard in a while!
The Charlton Heston line made me laugh really hard.
But I thought Mountain Dew was 7-Up and antifreeze. Hmm. Dang unreliable emails...
The word "Groupie" is 7 letters. The word "Products" is also 7 letters and also does not repeat any letters. But I suppose if you pluralized the word "Groupie" and came up with "Groupies", it would still win out at 8 letters.
I guess that means that "Groupies" is actually the longest word you can spell without repeating any letters.
Well, okay. Second only to "Uncopyrightable".
Why not make it plural?
Uncopyrightables? That would be even longer!
The longest word I can spell without repeating letters is Groupies. But that's because I can't spell uncopywriteabel. Does anybody know where I can get Raven Symone's email address?
speaking of outdated laws, i saw one which made me laugh longand hard into the night. i read that in Arizona, if one train meets another along two separate parallel tracks, both trains had to stop untill the other one passed. i read it and couldnt believe it, so if someone could enlighten me to the veracity of this one i would appreciate it greatly.
cheers
I nearly -- VERY nearly -- spewed Diet Dr. Pepper all over my screen and keyboard while reading this column. I think it was "A group of gay men is a cast" that made me put my drink down until I was done reading.
"A group of witches is a coven. A group of gay men is a cast, a group of lesbians is a munch, and a group of drag queens is a tuck."
A munch! HA! Good stuff.
I believe the correct name for a group of gay men is a "parade."
I must write you to correct one egregious error in the above concerning John McCain's middle name. It is 'Beelzebub' not 'Lucifer' which is the middle name of Dick Cheney. As a matter of interest the W in George W Bush does not in fact stand for 'Walker'. This lie is part of a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. In fact it really means 'duu biy yaaah', a ancient Assyrian phrase meaaning "little imp of Satan".
- Howard Dean, NDC, Washington DC
"John McCain's middle name is Lucifer"
This is actually true but kept a deep dark secret so he won't lose the Bible Belt vote. And Ohio.
Hillary Steven Rodham Clinton.
My favorite!
As an ex-NRA member, the one about Heston made me crack up, big time! I've also had many arguments with my sister about who was the first tv couple to share a bed, I always thought it was Lily and Herman Munster. I could be wrong though.
Actually, Mountain Dew is carbonated horse urine. I read it on the label. They use some scientific name for it, but it just means horse urine.
The "cast" one is good. Though I thought it was "pride" (like lions)...
#3, are we married?
I'd list off my favorites, but there are too many and I'm lazy. Great column.
I almost fell over laughing because my dad said the exact same thing about Charlton Heston when he found out he died. I actually own the book "Flowers in the Attic" & do not recommend it to anyone, because it is only about an attic & not a very wholesome book. Still can't manage to toss it though..........
I laughed at the line about Charlton Heston, too. I guess it's never too soon to make jokes about recently-deceased gun-toting crazies.
The first t.v. couple to be shown sleeping in the same bed together were the parents in "The Brady Bunch," right?
Oh, and I love how we can make the obvious joke about Charlton Heston now that he finally bit it.
I shouldn't have read this while I was in class. Either that or I'm stupid..
I thought number 1 was boring, 2 was surprising, and number 3 seemed like a really interesting and odd bit of trivia that deserved more thought.
THAT was when I figured out that this humor column was filled with joke facts.
Hey! Don't make fun of Charlton Heston! Big Chuck was a Great American and gave us many great things, like the 10 Commandments and horse racing... and don't forget the Soylent Green.... mmmm..... Soylent Green. *drools...
*takes tongue out of cheek
Ok, I'm done now, make fun of the dead guy all you want.
Did you know that 74% of statistics are made up on the spot? I'm thinking that your 98% number probably falls somewhere within the 86% of statistics that people make up as they go. I'm just saying.
Actually, I thought the facts in this column were more plausible-sounding than the 2001 column.
"Did you know that 74% of statistics are made up on the spot? I'm thinking that your 98% number probably falls somewhere within the 86% of statistics that people make up as they go."
Braden, forfty percent of all people know that.
Jim Jiminy, 98% of the readers of this site already know you have a secret man crush on Braden.
Oh, my heavens, for about three seconds I was panicked that Eric had a lapse of sanity!! Phew, the universe is in order again.
I had to double check "Harold Log" on Wikipedia before I realized that the facts were all jokes. I fell for it.
Morley Safer dated Pinky Tuscadero briefly in the early 80's. It may have been Leather, I'm not sure.
[world's worst fake cockney accent]
jim jiminy, jim jiminy, jim jim jeroo. I does what I likes and I likes what I do.
[end accent]
flowers in the attack was a good book....
i'm amazed that was the thing i remembered considering there was stuff about casts, munchs and tucks
Well-written column, Eric. You, sir, must have received a number of those "fun fact" email threads, since they all seemed about 97.3% believable, yet at the same time absurd. But the collective nouns take the cake. My wife actually refers to all polygamist wives (and their 1800-ish fashions and hair "styles") as "Pollies." But I'm sure there's a separate column cooking about that giant brouhaha.
More collective nouns, please!
I never read the book Flowers in the Attic, but I saw the movie, and it depressed me and made me feel horrible for days. Awful stuff that I likewise wouldn't recommend (unless, of course, you want to feel horrible -- then by all means see it).
I'm certainly in favor of making fun of people, but I feel like Charleton Heston has been branded more negatively than he deserves. You know, the man starred in over 100 movies, won an Academy Award, was the longest serving president of the Screen Actors Guild, and marched with Martin Luther King on Washington. Yes, that's right: he was involved with the civil rights movement before it became fashionable or even accepted in Hollywood and other cool circles. But all people can do is make jokes about him being in the NRA (which is fine, as long as you know the rest).
It seems to me like he's simply being consistent -- whether it's equal rights for an oppressed minority, or the preservation of the right to defend oneself effectively, he doesn't appreciate peoples' rights and freedoms being taken away for questionable reasons.
That being said, the "cold, dead fingers" quote is hilarious. I think he would appreciate it.
James
Uh,m hello, bleeding heart liberal...
Before you go and slam Mccain, you might want to get
your facts straight.
His middle name is Sidney.
Yeah, look it up.
*snort*
I love you Courtney.
If you like these, you will just love davesweboflies.com
I've spent more time than I care to admit reading lies on that site.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
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Comments & Reaction:
I wrote a column way back in 2001 that had the same format as this one. Those items were intended to sound almost plausible, however, while most of these are more absurd.
SnideCast intro and outro: "Little-Known Facts," from the 1999 Broadway cast recording of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown."