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Bizarre Fact #1:
Did you know...
The @ symbol has become an important part of e-mail culture. It separates the User Name from the Domain Name. All countries throughout the world use the same symbol but it obviously has a different name in other tongues. In English it is simply the 'at' sign.
Here are just a few of the more endearing terms:
Italy: 'chiocciolina' - which, in Italian, means 'little snail'
France: 'petit escargot' - also 'little snail'
Germany: 'klammeraffe' - which means 'spider monkey'.
Dutch: 'api' - a shortened version of 'apestaart' or 'monkey's tail'.
Finland: 'miau' or 'cat's tail'.
Norway: 'kanel-bolle', a spiral shaped cinnamon cake
Israel: 'shtrudel' - following the pastry concept
Denmark: 'snabel', an 'A' with a trunk.
Spain: 'arroba'. the Spanish symbol for a unit of weight of about 25 pounds.
Bizarre Fact #2:
Did you know...
April Fools' Day has always been celebrated in Australia and it's easy to see why when you look at the list of Aussie words which mean 'fool', amongst their other amusing meanings:
Boofhead: an idiot or a fool, sometimes with a big, ugly head too.
Burke and Wills: rhyming slang - dills, as in, "They'd be Burke and Wills." - idiots or fools. From the surnames of two famous but ultimately doomed explorers of outback Australia.
Dag: an amusing type of idiot or fool, usually a well intentioned jibe, "a bit of a dag".
Dill: an idiot or a fool.
Dip Stick: an idiot, a fool.
Droob: slow witted or slow moving person, not too bright, a fool.
Duffer: a silly or foolish person, also refers to one who steals sheep.
Goose: a 'dead set' (real) fool.
Nong: idiot, fool.
Ratbag: a foolish type of eccentric.
Bizarre Fact #3:
Did you know...
The English-language alphabet originally had only 24 letters. One missing letter was J, which was the last letter to be added to the alphabet. The other latecomer to the alphabet was U.
Bizarre Fact #4:
Did you know...
Fan is an abbreviation for the word "fanatic." Toward the turn of the 19th century, various media referred to football enthusiasts first as "football fanatics," and later as a "football fan."
Bizarre Fact #5:
Did you know...
The proper name of our sole natural satellite is "the Moon" and therefore...it should be capitalized. The 60-odd natural satellites of other planets, however are called "moons" (in lower case) because each has been given a proper name, such as Deimos, Amalthea, Hyperion, Miranda, Larissa, or Charon.
Bizarre Fact #6:
Did you know...
The word "snorkel" comes from the German word "schnoerkel", which was a tube used by German submarine crews in WW2. The subs used an electric battery when traveling underwater, which had to be recharged using diesel engines, which needed air to run. To avoid the hazard of surfacing to run the engines, the Germans used the schnoerkel to feed air from the surface into the engines.
Bizarre Fact #7:
Did you know...
The name "fez" is Turkish for "Hat".
Bizarre Fact #8:
Did you know...
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
Bizarre Fact #9:
Did you know...
The verb cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
Bizarre Fact #10:
Did you know...
Jerkwater is a railroad term. Until about fifty years ago, most trains were pulled by thirsty steam engines that needed to refill their boilers from water towers next to the tracks. But some towns were so small and inconsequential that they lacked a water tower. When trains stopped in those places, the crew had to find a nearby stream or well and, bucket-brigade style, "jerk" the water to the train. Those little dots on the map became known as jerkwater towns.
Bizarre Fact #1:
Did you know...
The @ symbol has become an important part of e-mail culture. It separates the User Name from the Domain Name. All countries throughout the world use the same symbol but it obviously has a different name in other tongues. In English it is simply the 'at' sign.
Here are just a few of the more endearing terms:
Italy: 'chiocciolina' - which, in Italian, means 'little snail'
France: 'petit escargot' - also 'little snail'
Germany: 'klammeraffe' - which means 'spider monkey'.
Dutch: 'api' - a shortened version of 'apestaart' or 'monkey's tail'.
Finland: 'miau' or 'cat's tail'.
Norway: 'kanel-bolle', a spiral shaped cinnamon cake
Israel: 'shtrudel' - following the pastry concept
Denmark: 'snabel', an 'A' with a trunk.
Spain: 'arroba'. the Spanish symbol for a unit of weight of about 25 pounds.
Bizarre Fact #2:
Did you know...
April Fools' Day has always been celebrated in Australia and it's easy to see why when you look at the list of Aussie words which mean 'fool', amongst their other amusing meanings:
Boofhead: an idiot or a fool, sometimes with a big, ugly head too.
Burke and Wills: rhyming slang - dills, as in, "They'd be Burke and Wills." - idiots or fools. From the surnames of two famous but ultimately doomed explorers of outback Australia.
Dag: an amusing type of idiot or fool, usually a well intentioned jibe, "a bit of a dag".
Dill: an idiot or a fool.
Dip Stick: an idiot, a fool.
Droob: slow witted or slow moving person, not too bright, a fool.
Duffer: a silly or foolish person, also refers to one who steals sheep.
Goose: a 'dead set' (real) fool.
Nong: idiot, fool.
Ratbag: a foolish type of eccentric.
Bizarre Fact #3:
Did you know...
The English-language alphabet originally had only 24 letters. One missing letter was J, which was the last letter to be added to the alphabet. The other latecomer to the alphabet was U.
Bizarre Fact #4:
Did you know...
Fan is an abbreviation for the word "fanatic." Toward the turn of the 19th century, various media referred to football enthusiasts first as "football fanatics," and later as a "football fan."
Bizarre Fact #5:
Did you know...
The proper name of our sole natural satellite is "the Moon" and therefore...it should be capitalized. The 60-odd natural satellites of other planets, however are called "moons" (in lower case) because each has been given a proper name, such as Deimos, Amalthea, Hyperion, Miranda, Larissa, or Charon.
Bizarre Fact #6:
Did you know...
The word "snorkel" comes from the German word "schnoerkel", which was a tube used by German submarine crews in WW2. The subs used an electric battery when traveling underwater, which had to be recharged using diesel engines, which needed air to run. To avoid the hazard of surfacing to run the engines, the Germans used the schnoerkel to feed air from the surface into the engines.
Bizarre Fact #7:
Did you know...
The name "fez" is Turkish for "Hat".
Bizarre Fact #8:
Did you know...
The combination "ough" can be pronounced in nine different ways. The following sentence contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
Bizarre Fact #9:
Did you know...
The verb cleave" is the only English word with two synonyms which are antonyms of each other: adhere and separate.
Bizarre Fact #10:
Did you know...
Jerkwater is a railroad term. Until about fifty years ago, most trains were pulled by thirsty steam engines that needed to refill their boilers from water towers next to the tracks. But some towns were so small and inconsequential that they lacked a water tower. When trains stopped in those places, the crew had to find a nearby stream or well and, bucket-brigade style, "jerk" the water to the train. Those little dots on the map became known as jerkwater towns.