Stats & Origins

Terry_Lasater

Terry_Lasater

All about the Caption
In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"

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Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

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The first couple to be shown in bed together on prime time TV were Fred and Wilma Flintstone.

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Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the U.S.Treasury.

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Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.

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Coca-Cola was originally green.

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It is impossible to lick your elbow.

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The State with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska

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The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...)

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The percentage of North America that is wilderness: 38%

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The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400

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The average number of people airborne over the U.S. in any given hour: 61,000

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Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.

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The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.

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The San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.

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Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history:

Spades - King David

Hearts - Charlemagne

Clubs -Alexander, the Great

Diamonds - Julius Caesar

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111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

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If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

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Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.

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Q. Half of all Americans live within 50 miles of what?

A. Their birthplace

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Q. Most boat owners name their boats. What is the most popular boat name requested?

A. Obsession

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Q. If you were to spell out numbers, how far would you have to go until you would find the letter "A"?

A. One thousand

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Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laser printers all have in common?

A. All were invented by women.

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Q. What is the only food that doesn't spoil?

A. Honey

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Q. Which day are there more collect calls than any other day of the year?

A. Father's Day

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In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. Hence the phrase......... "goodnight, sleep tight."

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It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month, which we know today as the honeymoon.

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In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."

It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"

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Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim, or handle, of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

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~~~~~~~~~~~AND FINALLY~~~~~~~~~~~~

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At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!
 
Didnt try to lick the elbow

but...i did think this random information was pretty interesting.

cool find
 
Terry_Lasater said:
If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
Click to expand...

Also, I would think that if the horse has both front legs on the ground and back legs in the air the person was a cowboy!
 
Terry_Lasater said:
In the 1400's a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb. Hence we have "the rule of thumb"
Click to expand...

" Couldn't do too much damage with that, now could we? Perhaps it should have been 'rule of wrist' "
 
Terry_Lasater said:
At least 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow!
Click to expand...



Damn you.





:nads:


spencer said:
" Couldn't do too much damage with that, now could we? Perhaps it should have been 'rule of wrist' "
Click to expand...


Maybe Rule of Leg?




Terry, more more more more more!!!!!!
 
Rule of leg wasn't the quote, but whatever floats your boat.

By the by, anyone know what the rule of wrist joke was from?
 
Saturday mail delivery in Canada was eliminated by Canada Post on February 1, 1969.

In Tokyo, a bicycle is faster than a car for most trips of less than 50 minutes.

There are 18 different animal shapes in the Animal Crackers cookie zoo.

Should there be a crash, Prince Charles and Prince William never travel on the same airplane as a precaution.

Your body is creating and killing 15 million red blood cells per second.

The king of hearts is the only king without a moustache on a standard playing card.

There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.

There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants.

The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows. It was the fashion in Renaissance Florence to shave them off.

Every day 20 banks are robbed. The average take is $2,500.

The most popular first name in the world is Muhammad.

Tablecloths were originally meant to be served as towels with which dinner guests could wipe their hands and faces after eating.

Tourists visiting Iceland should know that tipping at a restaurant is considered an insult.

One car out of every 230 made was stolen last year.

The names of Popeye's four nephews are Pipeye, Peepeye, Pupeye, and Poopeye.

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia.

The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders.

When glass breaks, the cracks move faster than 3,000 miles per hour. To photograph the event, a camera must shoot at a millionth of a second.

A Boeing 747 airliner holds 57,285 gallons of fuel.

A car uses 1.6 ounces of gas idling for one minute. Half an ounce is used to start the average automobile.

The Philadelphia mint produces 26 million pennies per day.
A lightning bolt generates temperatures five times hotter than those found at the sun's surface.

A violin contains about 70 separate pieces of wood.

It is estimated that 4 million "junk" telephone calls, phone solicitations by persons or programmed machine are made every day in the United States.

It takes glass one million years to decompose, which means it never wears out and can be recycled an infinite amount of times.

Forest fires move faster uphill than downhill.

Almost half the newspapers in the world are published in the United States and Canada.

The two-foot long bird called a Kea that lives in New Zealand likes to eat the strips of rubber around car windows.

Most lipstick contains fish scales.

Skepticisms is the longest word that alternates hands when typing.

One ragweed plant can release as many as one billion grains of pollen.

It's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket while you're sitting on a curb in St. Louis.

The first product to have a bar code was Wrigleys gum.

No piece of square dry paper can be folded more than 7 times in half.

A group of geese on the ground is a gaggle, a group of geese in the air is a skein.

Over 2500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people.

There are more than 10 million bricks in the Empire State Building.

If you counted 24 hours a day, it would take 31,688 years to reach one trillion.

Taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive.

A crocodile always grows new teeth to replace the old teeth.

The sun is 330,330 times larger than the earth.

Clinophobia is the fear of beds.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

Porcupines float in water.

Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eye".

The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog." uses every letter of the alphabet.

The average life span of a major league baseball is 5-7 pitches.

The Mint once considered producing doughnut-shaped coins.

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

The longest recorded flight of a chicken is 13 seconds.

The sloth (a mammal) moves so slowly that green algae can grow undisturbed on its fur.

Cat urine glows under a black-light.

The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

Windmills always turn counter-clockwise. Except for the windmills in Ireland.

A hedgehog's heart beats 300 times a minute on average.

Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand.

The placement of a donkey's eyes in its head enables it to see all four feet at all times.

Human teeth are almost as hard as rocks.

A mole can dig a tunnel 300 feet long in just one night.

Ancient Egyptians slept on pillows made of stone.

A hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside.

A quarter has 119 grooves on its edge, a dime has one less groove.

Hummingbirds can weigh less than a penny!!

Until 1796, there was a state in the United States called Franklin. Today it's known as Tennessee.

The Earth weighs around 6,600,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons (5,940 billion billion metric tons).

A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off - it dies from starvation.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.

It's against the law to pawn your dentures in Las Vegas.

One in every 4 Americans has appeared on television.

The average American/Canadian will eat about 11.9 pounds of cereal per year.

It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a certain church in Omaha, Nebraska.

you're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.

Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.

Over 10,000 birds a year die from smashing into windows.

The state of Florida is bigger than England.

There are more than one million animal species on Earth.

In Natoma, Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.

It was once against the law to have a pet dog in a city in Iceland.

Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day.

Thomas Edison, lightbulb inventor, was afraid of the dark.
 
My God.

I couldn't get through all of these, so it might already be in all that mess but...the only two words in the English language that contain three consecutive double letters are bookkeeping and bookkeeper.

And another fact... Terry has more time on his hands than Big Ben( the clock, not the quarterback).
 
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  1. A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
  2. Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks, otherwise it will digest itself.
  3. The Declaration of Independence (the very official copy in the Rotunda of the National Archives) is written on parchment, not paper.
  4. The dot over the letter 'i' is called a tittle.
  5. A raisin dropped in a fresh glass of soda will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top.
  6. A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
  7. A 2x4 is actually 1-1/2" x 3-1/2" .
  8. 40% of McDonald's profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
  9. Every person has a unique tongue print. (Say "aaah")
  10. The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was an albino.
  11. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
  12. During the chariot scene in 'Ben Hur' a small red car can be seen in the distance.
  13. John Wilkes Booth's brother once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son. Irony.
  14. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.
  15. Chocolate kills dogs! Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog. (Debated)
  16. Daniel Boone detested coonskin caps.
  17. Playing cards were issued to British pilots in WWII. If they were captured, the cards could be soaked in water and unfolded to reveal a map for escape.
  18. Dr. Seuss actually pronounced Seuss such that it sounded like Sue-ice.
  19. Ketchup was sold in the 1830s as medicine.
  20. Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
  21. During the California Gold Rush of 1849 miners sent their laundry to Honolulu for washing and pressing. Due to the high costs in California during these years it was deemed more feasible to send the shirts to Hawaii for servicing.
  22. American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
  23. The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
  24. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower', because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters. The proper term for upper case letters is "majuscule" and for lower case it's "minuscule".
  25. When the master printer was building a page and discovered that a particular sort was empty, he would get angry. Thus the term "out of sorts".
  26. The question mark came from a monk habit of writing the Latin word for question, quo, at the end of sentences. Over time, the letters were written vertically to save space and morphed into the ? we write today. Similarly, the exclamation point came from the Latin word "Lo", meaning something important that should be heeded. (Lo and behold...)
  27. Wellfleet, Massachusetts has the only town clock in the world that strikes ship's time. (Rings every half hour, to a maximum of 8 rings at the end of each four hour period.)
  28. The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
  29. Scissors as we know them today (well, pretty much) were invented in Rome in about 100 AD (or CE, if you want to be politically correct).
  30. If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and look like it is stinging itself to death. It spasms a lot.
  31. Most scorpions will glow under black (ultraviolet) light.
  32. Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to SLOW a film down so you could see his moves. That's the opposite of the norm.
  33. If you have three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies, you have $1.19. You also have the largest amount of money in coins without being able to make change for a dollar.
  34. The first CD pressed in the US was Bruce Springstein's 'Born in the USA.'
  35. The mask used by Michael Myers in the original Halloween was actually a Captain Kirk mask painted white.
  36. The first product Motorola developed was a record player for automobiles. At that time the most known player on the market was the Victrola, so they called themselves Motorola.
  37. Roses MAY be red, but violets ARE, indeed, violet.
  38. By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can't sink in quicksand. One should carry a stout pole while travelling in quicksand country...when placed under one's back, it helps one to float out of the quicksand.
  39. Celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to digest a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. (Mmm, diet food.)
  40. Charlie Chaplin once won third prize in a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest.
  41. In Gulliver's Travels Jonathan Swift described the two moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, giving their exact size and speeds of rotation. He did this more than one hundred years before either moon was discovered.
  42. Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying!
  43. Sherlock Holmes NEVER said, "Elementary, my dear Watson." For that matter, Sherlock Holmes never existed in the first place. But the address where he supposedly lived, 221B Baker Street, still gets a lot of fan mail.
  44. An old law in Bellingham, Wash., made it illegal for a woman to take more than 3 steps backwards while dancing.
  45. Birds have the right of way on all Utah highways.
  46. Sharon Stone was the first Star Search spokesmodel.
  47. The glue on Israeli postage stamps is certified kosher.
  48. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from public libraries.
  49. Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit will damage it.
  50. The number one selling CD in history is the third Beatles anthology. It recently beat out the Eagles' "Their Greatest Hits."
  51. Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.
  52. The original Winnie the Pooh was a real live bear found outside of Winnipeg, Canada, hence the name Winnie.
  53. Francis Bacon died in his attempt to find a better way to serve food. He caught a case of pneumonia while attempting to stuff a chicken with snow. Ironically, the chicken survived the ordeal.
  54. Dachshunds were originally bred in 1600 to hunt dachs, which is German for badgers.
  55. Houdini's real name was Ehrich Weiss.
  56. The first zoo in America was in Philadelphia.
  57. Laser is actually an acronym for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emissions of Radiation."
  58. The world's first passenger train made its debut in England in 1825.
  59. If you hate our "QWERTY" keyboard layout, blame Christopher Sholes. He changed it from the original in 1873 to lessen the chances of the keys jamming.
  60. Napoleon III suffered from ailurophobia, which is a fear of cats.
  61. Escalator is one of many words that were originally trademarks but have become ordinary words found in dictionaries. Some other words which were originally trademarks and have now passed into common use are aspirin, autoharp, band-aids, breathalyzer, cellophane, Coke (in some areas, at least), corn flakes, cube steak, ditto, dry ice, dumpster, formica, Frisbee, granola, gunk, jeep, kerosene, Kleenex, mace, nylon, ping-pong (also an onomatopoeia), popsicle, Q-tip, rollerblade, rolodex, Scotch tape, sheetrock, spandex, styrofoam, tabloid, thermos, trampoline, yo-yo, xerox, and zipper.
  62. The citrus soda 7-UP was created in 1929; "7" was selected because the original containers were 7 ounces. "UP" indicated the direction of the bubbles.
  63. Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there. Also, the powder on the bark of a quaking aspen tree works as a mosquito repellent.
  64. Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
  65. The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
  66. You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
  67. Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
  68. A Boeing 747's wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
  69. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
  70. Apples are more efficient than caffeine in waking you up in the morning.
  71. The little plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
  72. Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
  73. The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
  74. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
  75. Betsy Ross, Jackie Onassis, JFK, and Daniel Boone have all appeared on Pez dispensers.
  76. Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
  77. Adolf Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
  78. Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
  79. The sound of E.T. walking was made by someone squishing their hands in jelly.
  80. Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
  81. Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
  82. There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
  83. The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
  84. There are more chickens than people in the world.
  85. Two-thirds of the world's eggplant is grown in New Jersey.
  86. The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
  87. All of the clocks in the movie "Pulp Fiction" are stuck on 4:20.
  88. "Dreamt" and "undreamt" are the only English words that end in the letters "mt."
  89. The almond is a member of the peach family.
  90. Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.
  91. Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
  92. Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula."
  93. A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.
  94. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
  95. Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.
  96. In most advertisements, the time displayed on a watch is 10:10.
  97. Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.
  98. The characters Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street were named after Bert the cop and Ernie the taxi driver in Frank Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life."
  99. A mayfly has a life span of 24 hours.
  100. A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. ("The reason a goldfish swims back and forth and back and forth across the fish bowl all day long everyday is because by the time it gets to one side of the bowl it forgets what's on the other side of the bowl. Every trip is a new adventure! "Hey, I wonder what's over there!.... Hey! I wonder what's over THERE!" )
  101. It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
  102. The giant squid has the largest eyes in the world.
  103. The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.
  104. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
  105. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
  106. The data track on a CD is a very long spiral. If it were unwound and laid out in a straight line, it would be over 3.5 miles long.
  107. It is impossible to stick your elbow in your ear.
  108. A crocodile can't stick its tongue out.
  109. A shrimp's heart is in its head.
  110. In a study of 200,000 ostriches over a period of 80 years, no one reported a single case where an ostrich buried its head in the sand
  111. It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
  112. A pregnant goldfish is called a twerp.
  113. Rats and horses can't vomit.
  114. "The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
  115. Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over a million descendants.
  116. A lot of photocopier faults world-wide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.
  117. The oldest standing building in Australia is Captain James Cook's house, brought over from England brick by brick.
  118. Paul McCartney's real first name is James - Paul is his middle name. Thus, all the Beatles (including Ringo, whose first name is Richard) were named after kings.
  119. The hole inside a CD is exactly the same size as an old Dutch 10 cent coin, called the "dubbeltje".
  120. Killer whales are not, technically, whales. They are orcas, a relative of the porpoise and the dolphin.
  121. If you stroke a shark from nose to tail, it is smooth. If you stroke it the other way, it is rough, and on some species, can even give you hand lacerations.
  122. Elephants are the only land mammals that can't jump.
  123. More about elephants: If you add up the circumference of two feet, you get exactly the elephant's height.
  124. Your foot is nearly the same length as your forearm as measured from the inside of the elbow to the wrist.
  125. In 10 minutes, a hurricane expends more energy than all of the nuclear weapons in the world combined.
  126. On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
  127. Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
  128. A snail can sleep for three months.
  129. "Go" is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
  130. Americans eat on average 18 acres worth of pizza every day.
 
During your lifetime, you'll eat about 60,000 pounds of food, that's the weight of about 6 elephants.

Some ribbon worms will eat themselves if they cant find any food.

Dolphins sleep with one eye open.

The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is over 9000 years old.

In space, astronauts cannot cry properly, because there is no gravity, so the tears can't flow down their faces.

There are more plastic flamingos in the U.S, than real ones.

About 3000 years ago, most Egyptians died by the time they were 30.

More people use blue toothbrushes, than red ones.

A sneeze travels out your mouth at over 100 m.p.h.

Your ribs move about 5 million times a year, every time you breathe.

In the White House, there are 13,092 knives, forks and spoons.

Slugs have 4 noses.

Recycling one glass jar, saves enough energy to watch T.V for 3 hours.

Lightning strikes about 6,000 times per minute on this planet.

Owls are one of the only birds who can see the color blue.

The average American/Canadian drinks about 600 sodas a year.

It was once against the law to slam your car door in a city in Switzerland.

There wasn't a single pony in the Pony Express, just horses.

Honeybees have a type of hair on their eyes.

The starfish is one of the few animals who can turn it's stomach inside-out.

Eskimo ice cream is neither icy, or creamy.

A jellyfish is 95 percent water.

In Bangladesh, kids as young as 15 can be jailed for cheating on their finals.

The katydid bug hears through holes in its hind legs.

A company in Taiwan makes dinnerware out of wheat, so you can eat your plate.

More Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money printed throughout the world.

The elephant is one of the few mammals that can't jump.

The penguin is the only bird who can swim, but not fly.

Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States.

One quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet.

America once issued a 5-cent bill.

You'll eat about 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.

Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and month.

Babe Ruth wore a cabbage leaf under his cap to keep him cool. He changed it every 2 innings.

Fortune cookies were actually invented in America, in 1918, by Charles Jung.

A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for 69 years! Wow.

A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue.

Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.

Here are some interesting numbers to look at! (*1997)
166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in the U.S.
1,525,000,000 miles of telephone wire a strung across the U.S.
123,000,000 cars are being driven down the U.S's highways.
85,000,000 tons of paper are used each year in the U.S.
56,000,000 people go to Major League baseball each year.


Bats always turn left when exiting a cave.

The praying mantis is the only insect that can turn its head.

In Tokyo, they sell toupees for dogs.
 
Terry_Lasseter said:
Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented. It was ruled "Gentlemen Only...Ladies Forbidden"...and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.
Click to expand...

Does it Stand for "Gentlemen Only, Ladies Forbidden"?
Did the word "golf" originate as an acronym for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden"? That's a common old wives' tale. Or, in this case, more likely an old husband's tale.

No, "golf" is not an acronym for "gentlemen only, ladies forbidden." If you've ever heard that, forget it immediately. Better yet, find the person who told you and let them know it's not true.

Like most modern words, the word "golf" derives from older languages and dialects. In this case, the languages in question are medieval Dutch and old Scots.

The medieval Dutch word "kolf" or "kolve" meant "club." It is believed that word passed to the Scots, whose old Scots dialect transformed the word into "golve," "gowl" or "gouf."

By the 16th Century, the word "golf" had emerged.

Sources: British Golf Museum, USGA Library
 
Terry_Lasater said:
In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts... So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them "Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down."

It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
Click to expand...

What's the origin of the expression "mind your P's and Q's"?

Dear Cecil:

Where does the expression "mind your P's and Q's" come from? Does it mean politeness and quietness? Also, I recently came across the phrase "a labor organizer traveling on the q.t." What does q.t. stand for? --Kimberly T., New York City

Dear Kimberly:

As usual, we've got theories by the yard, facts by the angstrom. The more fanciful explanations for "mind your p's and q's" include:

- It originated in British pubs as an abbreviation for "mind your pints and quarts." Supposedly this warned the barkeep to serve full measure, mark the customer's tab accurately, etc.

- It meant "mind your pea (jacket) and queue." Queues (pigtails) were often powdered, and wifeypoo was telling hubby to keep the cruddy kid stuff off his collar. An even dumber variation of this involves "pieds," French for "feet," and says minding your p's and q's means combing your hair and polishing your shoes, or something like that.

- P and q stands for "prime quality." According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to be P and Q was a regional expression meaning top quality. It first shows up in a bit of doggerel from 1612: "Bring in a quart of Maligo, right true: And looke, you Rogue, that it be Pee and Kew."

The simplest explanation is that the expression refers to the difficulty kids have distinguishing lower-case p and q, mirror images of each other. Mind your you-know-whats was thus a teacher's admonition to students. Plausible? Yes. Sexy? No. Such is the fate of a slave to facts.

SOURCE: The Straight Dope
 
Terry_Lasater said:
Coca-Cola was originally green.
Click to expand...

Claim: Coca-Cola was originally green.

Status: False.

Origins: Though Come fly with me this tidbit of knowledge has been widely distributed as part of an Internet "Did You Know?" list, at no time in Coca-Cola's history has that beverage been green. The original formula called for caramel to give Coca-Cola its rich brown color, and although the recipe has undergone some changes through the years, none of them affected the ultimate color of the product.

(Brown also hides impurities in any given batch, something the backroom chemist who invented Coca-Cola in 1886 kept well in mind as he proceeded with his formulation. These days syrup producers and bottlers have no impurities to hide, but back in the "three copper kettles in somebody's basement" days, covering up what might have inadvertently dropped into the mix was a concern, and brown hid indiscretions remarkably well.)

Coke has at times been bottled in green glass bottles, which perhaps explains the popularity of this particular rumor.

Source: Snopes
 
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