Interesting Titbits

[11618]

Interesting Titbits





The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".

Almonds are members of the peach family.

The symbol on the "pound" key (#) is called an octothorpe.

The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.

The word "set" has more definitions than any other word in the English language.

"Underground" is the only word in the English language that begins and ends with the letters "und."

There are only four words in the English language which end in "-dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

The longest word in the English language, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is *pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. The only other word with the same amount of letters is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconioses, its plural.

The longest place-name still in use is Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapiki maungahoronukupokaiw en uaitnatahu, a New Zealand hill.

Los Angeles's full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula" and can be abbreviated to 3.63% of its size, "L.A."

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

Donald Duck's middle name is Fauntleroy.

The muzzle of a lion is like a fingerprint - no two lions have the same pattern of whiskers.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

The Ramses brand condom is named after the great phaoroh Ramses II who fathered over 160 children.

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

The male gypsy moth can "smell" the virgin female gypsy moth from 1.8 miles away.

The letters KGB stand for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word that can be typed with only the left hand.

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

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 only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

Emus and kangaroos cannot walk backwards, and are on the Australian coat of arms for that reason.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds, while dogs only have about ten.

The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat," which means "the king is dead."

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.

The first episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi" was the highest rated American program in the history of Korean television. "Chachi" is Korean for "penis."

*pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Let me define this for you;
pneumono = lungs
ultramicroscopic = just what it says
silico=silicon
volcano=just what it says
coni = dust
osis = inflammation

So, this big word indicates ultramicroscopic silicon volcano dust has caused inflammation of the lungs.


HAPPY NEW YEAR AND BEST OF LUCK FOR 2012

[Art 1]

[MoBe]

stewardesses you say?,,,,,,,and I was using my right hand all this time.

[FeelingTheBlues]

Great things to know! I can now sleep without any worries!

[bgriz]

[77T]

Ha...I probably got an "-osis" while reading.

[LeotheLion]

Just love these lists.

Besides Screeched-the most common quoted- there are,

Scraughed

Scrinched

Scratched

Scrounged

Scrunched

Stretched

And plural nouns
Straights and

Strengths

[liptonnr]

I love useless facts and trivia!

[blackmsport]

wow.... Like it

[Nugs]

Like it, except it is possible to sneeze with your eyes open.

[11618]

Originally Posted by Nugs

Like it, except it is possible to sneeze with your eyes open.

I stand corrected LOL

Strange but true

Can you sneeze with your eyes open?
More facts

I always used to believe that if I kept your eyes open when I sneezed, my eyeballs would be propelled out of my head with the 100 mph force of the sneeze and be lost forever. I, in fact, really had nothing to worry about as, firstly, shutting your eyes when you sneeze is a reflex action. This means that your brain is hardwired to do it without you even having to think about i t- the same way that you will remove your hand from a hot stove as soon as you touch it. We can bypasses the conscious bits of our brain and tell the muscles what to do immediately if we need to act quickly.

But some people don't possess the reflex that makes you shut your eyes when sneezing and can sneeze with their eyes open - they still have eyeballs so is there really any reason for this reflex if it doesn't keep our eyes in our heads? The answer to that is probably not. So even if I could manage to hold my eyes open when I sneeze, they would stay put. The eyes are really well attached to your head via muscles and the optic nerve (Some strange people can make their eyes bulge out of their head which, although looking odd, doesn't lead to their eyeballs falling out onto the floor and serves to prove how well attached they really are). So the eyelid plays very little part in holding your eyes in when you sneeze.

So why do we still do it? The thing is, no one really nose (he he). Some people have said it is to stop nose gunk from flying into our eyes and giving us an infection. However, the eyes have really good defenses against germs so this probably isn't the case. Maybe it is because we tense lots of our face muscles before we sneeze and the eye muscles are tensed as a byproduct. Or it could have no reason. The eyes and nose nerves are intertwined and stimulation of one can lead to a response from the others. This 'cross-wiring' is what happens when some people sneeze when looking at bright lights.

Did you know: Apparently the first sign of the plague used to be sneezing, so people would say 'bless you' if they heard you sneeze (you were probably going to die so they were trying to be nice). Sneezing these days doesn't usually warn of something as horrid as the plague but we still say 'bless you' anyway.

[leemozoid]

"Manufacture" is the only English word in which the letters "ufa" appear in that order.

[Lion]

Very interesting read...Thanx!!!

[TSW]