Fun facts about people as a whole, as is the case with an ethnic group or nation.
Muscle strength in 10 year olds has fallen by 20% to 30% over the 16 year period between 1998 and 2014. Researchers from the University of Essex took a random sample of ten-year old students from students in Chelmsford, Essex in 1998, 2008 and 2014. They had the same number of boys and girls and …
Children are a third weaker than twenty years ago Read More »
You may have heard the saying: ‘Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight’ but does a red sunset really mean you are going to have good weather? Yes! The colour red indicates that dust particles are suspended in the atmosphere under the effect of high pressure. This mass of air coming from the west means that …
Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight (is it true?) Read More »
Blonde hair is extremely rare globally. 84% of the world’s population have black or dark-brown hair, including most of Africa and Asia. Blonde hair is most common in northern European regions. https://www.holleewoodhair.com/hair-color-statistics/ Why do people have blonde hair? People evolved to have blonde hair because, as they migrated north, the lighter the skin and hair, …
Only 2% of the world’s population have blonde hair Read More »
An undertaker in France is called a ‘croque-mort’. ‘Croque’ meaning to nibble or bite and ‘mort’ meaning dead. It is thought that the word comes from the middle ages when undertakers used to bite the toe of the deceased to check that they were definitely dead. In France the word ‘croque-mort’ is given to employees …
Why the French for undertaker is ‘croque-mort’ (bite the dead)? Read More »
In the ‘gypsy’ language of Romani they call a television a ‘dinnilos-dicking-muktar’ which literally translates as ‘fools-looking-box.’ The words ‘chav’, ‘lollipop’, and ‘pal’ also come from Romani. Pal – a friend, from the Romani word phral, meaning brother. ‘Loli phabai’ means red apple which mutated to ‘lollipop’. Bonus fact: Some people call them ‘gypsies’ but …
In Romani, the word for television translates as ‘fool’s looking box’ Read More »
Pop singer K$sha collected her fans’ teeth. After a difficult spell in rehab she thanked her fans for their support and asked them to send her their teeth. The response was overwhelming and she ended up with over a thousand teeth, enough to make a rather fetching bra top with accompanying earrings, and necklaces. “I …
Michel Lotito from Grenoble has been eating glass and metal since 1959. At the age of 8 he practiced ‘sophrology’ (the science of a peaceful mind) a form of self-hypnosis and relaxation which helps him control the pain. At the age of 16 he broke a glass when he was drinking , he helps a …
The words company and companion come from the latin ‘com’ meaning with and ‘pan’ meaning bread. So a companion is someone you eat or share bread with. c. 1300, “one who accompanies or associates with another,” from Old French compagnon “fellow, mate, friend, partner” (12c.), from Late Latin companionem (nominative companio), literally “bread fellow, messmate,” from Latin com “with, together” (see com-) + panis “bread,” …
What do the words company and companion have to do with bread? Read More »
In 1980 Terry Fox decided to run 5,780 miles across Canada. He was suffering from cancer and only had one leg but he wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him. He managed to run 3,339 miles, the equivalent of a full marathon every day, before the disease spread to his lungs and he …
The word vaccine comes from “Variolae vaccinae ” which is Latin for ‘smallpox of the cow’. This is because the first vaccine was made with cowpox.
In the UK it is illegal to handle a salmon under suspicious circumstances’. This is an offence under the Salmon Act of 1986. The law was actually designed to prevent people selling fish gained through illicit means – rather than those holding them, well, in a suspicious way.
Annie Hawkins (USA) has the largest breasts in the world and they are all natural. She has a breast size of 177.8cm. She has an around chest-over-nipple measurement of 177.8 cm (70 in). Her breasts weigh 8 stone (51kg/112lbs). She wears a US size 52I bra (102ZZZ UK size), because it is the largest available …
The word quarantine comes from quarantena, the Venetian for ‘forty’. This is because during the times of the Black Death (15th century) ships returning to Venice were ordered to remain on an island for 40 days( which is where we get the word ‘isolation’ coming from the latin ‘insula’ meaning island). Why 40 days? The …
Other favourites include: purple (14%), green (14%), red (8%), black (7%), orange(5%), brown (3%), yellow (3%), white (2%), grey (2%) Source: The Epic Book of Epicness by Martin Frost
Why is everything ‘ok’? What does ‘ok’ mean? In the 1830s people found it amusing to spell expressions incorrectly. A common one was ‘all correct’ which became ‘orl korrekt’ and abbreviated to OK. The word was popularised when Martin Van Buren, known as Old Kinderhook, was campaigning for re-election and his fans were known as …
