My Little Sister's Jokes > List of Interesting Facts > Set: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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WD-40.  It's just not for rusted bolts ...
  • WD-40 attracts fish. Spray a LITTLE on live bait or lures and you will be catching the big one in no time. Also it's a lot cheaper than the chemical attractants that are made for just that purpose. Keep in mind though, using some chemical laced baits or lures for fishing are not allowed in some states.
  • Use it for fire ant bites. It takes the sting away immediately, and stops the itch.
  • WD-40 is great for removing crayon from walls. Spray on the mark and wipe with a clean rag.
  • Also, if you've discovered that your teenage daughter has washed and dried a tube of lipstick with a load of laundry, saturate the lipstick spots with WD-40 and re-wash. Presto! Lipstick is gone!
  • If you sprayed WD-40 on the distributor cap, it would displace the moisture and allow the car to start.
  • Wd-40, long known for its ability to remove left-over tape mung (sticky label tape), is also a lovely perfume and air freshener! Sprayed liberally on every hinge in the house, it leaves that distinctive clean fresh scent for up to two days!
  • Seriously though, it removes black scuff marks from the kitchen floor! Use WD-40 for those nasty tar and scuff marks on flooring. It doesn't seem to harm the finish and you won't have to scrub nearly as hard to get them off. Just remember to open some windows if you have a lot of marks.
  • Bug guts will eat away the finish on your car if not removed quickly! Use WD-40!

It's important to know all this stuff.

Submitted by Dave, Bolder, Co.
 

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This Month's Addition of Totally Useless Facts
  • Coca-Cola was originally green.
  • Every day more money is printed for Monopoly than the US Treasury.
  • Men can read smaller print than women can; women can hear better.
  • The state with the highest percentage of people who walk to work: Alaska
  • The percentage of Africa that is wilderness: 28% (now get this...).
  • The percentage of the remainder of North America that is wilderness: 38%
  • The cost of raising a medium-size dog to the age of eleven: $6,400
  • The average number of people airborne over the US any given hour: 61,000
  • Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
  • The world's youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
  • The youngest pope was 11 years old.
  • The first novel ever written on a typewriter: Tom Sawyer.
  • Those San Francisco Cable cars are the only mobile National Monuments.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • "I am." ..(or "I do.") the shortest complete sentences in the English language.
  • Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.
  • No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Super bowl.
  • The only two days of the year in which there are no professional Sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL): the day before and the day after the Major League  Baseball All-Star Game.

Submitted by Sister Wink, The Bronx, NY.
 

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More totally useless Interesting facts ...
  • 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".
     
  • 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 or what we know today as the honeymoon.
     
  • 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 their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's"
     
  • 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.
     
  • In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

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Candidates for the "Stella" Award - the most frivolous lawsuit in the U.S.

In 1994, a New Mexico jury awarded $2.9 million U.S. in damages to 81-year-old Stella Liebeck who suffered third-degree burns to her legs, groin and buttocks after spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on herself. This case inspired an annual award called the "Stella Awards".  Below are this years entries ...

  1. January 2000: Kathleen Robertson of Austin Texas was awarded $780,000 by a jury of her peers after breaking her ankle tripping over a toddler who was running amuck inside a furniture store. The owners of the store were understandably surprised at the verdict, considering the misbehaving little rodent was Ms. Robertson's son.
     
  2. June 1998: 19 year old Carl Truman of Los Angeles won $74,000 and medical expenses when his neighbor ran over his hand with a Honda Accord. Mr. Truman apparently didn't notice there was someone at the wheel of the car, when he was trying to steal his neighbor's hubcaps.
     
  3. October 1998: Terrence Dickson of Bristol, Pennsylvania was leaving a house he had just finished robbing by way of the garage. He was not able to get the garage door to go up, because the automatic door opener was malfunctioning. He couldn't re-enter the house because the door connecting the house and garage locked when he pulled it shut. The family was on vacation. Mr. Dickson found himself locked in the garage for eight days. He subsisted on a case of Pepsi he found, and a large bag of dry dog food. Mr. Dickson sued the homeowner's insurance claiming the situation caused him undue mental anguish. The jury agreed to the tune of half a million dollars.
     
  4. October 1999: Jerry Williams of Little Rock, Arkansas was awarded $14,500 and medical expenses after being bitten on the buttocks by his next door neighbor's beagle. The beagle was on a chain in its owner's fenced-in yard, as was Mr. Williams. The award was less than sought because the jury felt the dog may have been provoked by Mr. Williams who, at the time, was shooting it repeatedly with a pellet gun.
     
  5. May 2000: A Philadelphia restaurant was ordered to pay Amber Carson of Lancaster, Pennsylvania $113,500 after she slipped on soft drink and broke her coccyx. The beverage was on the floor because Ms. Carson threw it at her boyfriend 30 seconds earlier during an argument.
     
  6. December 1997: Kara Walton of Claymont, Delaware successfully sued the owner of a night club in a neighboring city when she fell from the bathroom window to the floor and knocked out her two front teeth. This occurred while Ms. Walton was trying to sneak through the window in the ladies room to avoid paying the $3.50 cover charge. She was awarded $12,000 and dental expenses.

And just so you know that cooler heads do occasionally prevail:

  1. Kenmore Inc., the makers of Dorothy Johnson's microwave, were found not liable for the death of Mrs. Johnson's poodle after she gave it a bath and attempted to dry it by putting the poor creature in her microwave for, "just a few minutes, on low," The case was quickly dismissed.

Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.

Editors note:  The validity of the specific items listed in the Stella Awards have been called into question by the American Trail Lawyers Association ...
 

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Someone out there either has far too much spare time or is deadly at Scrabble.
  • George Bush: When you rearrange the letters: He bugs Gore
  • Dormitory: When you rearrange the letters: Dirty Room
  • Evangelist: When you rearrange the letters: Evil's Agent
  • Desperation: When you rearrange the letters: A Rope Ends It
  • The Morse Code: When you rearrange the letters: Here Come Dots
  • Slot Machines: When you rearrange the letters: Cash Lost in em
  • Animosity: When you rearrange the letters: Is No Amity
  • Mother-in-law: When you rearrange the letters: Woman Hitler
  • Snooze Alarms: When you rearrange the letters: Alas! No More Z's
  • A Decimal Point: When you rearrange the letters: I'm a Dot in Place
  • The Earthquakes: When you rearrange the letters: That Queer Shake
  • Eleven plus two: When you rearrange the letters: Twelve plus one

Submitted by Bill, Narberth, Pa
  

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More Totally useless facts You Never Knew
  • Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
  • The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
  • No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times. (try it)
  • The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
  • A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brothers' first flight.
  • American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
  • Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
  • Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
  • The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
  • Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
  • Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
  • All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
  • Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
  • The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca Cola, and Budweiser, in that order!
  • And the best for last..... Turtles can breathe through their butts.

Submitted by Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.
  

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Back in the 1800's the Tates Watch Company of Massachusetts . . .

. . .wanted to produce other products and, since they already made the cases for pocket watches, decided to market compasses for the pioneers traveling west. 

It turned out that although their watches were of finest quality, their compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California. This, of course, is the origin of the expression: "He who has a Tates is lost!"

Submitted by Dave, Bolder, Co.
  

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More Interesting Factoids. Did you know .........

  • It is impossible to lick your elbow.

  • A shrimp's heart is in their head.

  • People say "Bless you" when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond *History note!!!*

  • If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. if you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.

  • 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 (or attempted to do so - apart from Bones ).

  • It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.

  • A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

  • Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabetic Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas. 

  • More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

  • Rats and horses can't vomit.

  • Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.

  • The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.

  • Wearing headphones for just an hour will increase the bacteria in your ear by 700 times.

  • If the government has no knowledge of aliens, then why does Title 14, Section 1211 of the

  • Code of Federal Regulations, implemented on July 16, 1969, make it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles?

  • In every episode of Seinfeld there is a Superman somewhere.

  • 23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks.

  • In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders.

  • Most lipstick contains fish scales. {Huh? I don't want to think about it...}

  • Cat's urine glows under a black-light.

  • Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.

  • Over 75% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.

Submitted by Mike, Golden, Co.

*History note - That of course assumes everyone knows that the heart stops for a millisecond, but for most of us as one reader pointed out, quite correctly: "The tradition dates back to the Great Plague where the first symptoms of catching the illness were sneezing. The original phrase was actually God Bless You and (quite obviously) the intention was that by asking God to bless you, he would save you from the plague.

Many thanks to Paul for pointing this out to us!  
  

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Weird Things You Would Never Know!!
  • Butterflies taste with their feet.
  • A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.
  • In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
  • On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
  • On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
  • Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
  • Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
  • Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
  • Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
  • It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
  • Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
  • The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
  • A snail can sleep for three years. (Not true, here is a link to the Indiana University website that will give you some accurate info.  http://www.indiana.edu/~libweb/campus/libsink.html)
  • No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH".
  • Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
  • Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
  • The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
  • All polar bears are left handed.
  • In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
  • An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
  • TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
  • "Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
  • A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
  • The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
  • Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Submitted by Marianne, Columbia, Md.
 

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Why the English Language Is Hard to Learn
  • The bandage was wound around the wound.
  • The farm was used to produce produce.
  • The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
  • We must polish the Polish furniture.
  • He could lead if he would get the lead out.
  • The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
  • Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
  • A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
  • When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
  • I did not object to the object.
  • The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
  • There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
  • They were too close to the door to close it.
  • The buck does strange things when the does are present.
  • A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
  • To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
  • The wind was too strong for us to wind the sail.
  • After a number of injections my jaw got number.
  • Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
  • I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
  • How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly: 

  • Boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
  • If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
  • If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of either one of them, what do you call it?
  • If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
  • By the way, how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike?
  • How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?
  • And where are all those people who ARE spring chickens or who would ACTUALLY hurt a fly? Where did the beauty who was OUT OF THIS WORLD go?
  • You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
  • English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible. However, when the lights are out, they are invisible.
  • Why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

Confusion, thy name is English!

Submitted by Dave, Bolder, Co.
  

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The Story Behind the Jack-O'-Lantern to America.

Jack was a legendary, stingy drunkard. He tricked the Devil into climbing an apple tree for a juicy apple and then quickly cut the sign of the cross into the tree trunk, preventing

the Devil from coming down. Jack made the Devil swear that he wouldn't come after his soul in any way. The Devil promised. However, this did not prevent Jack from dying.

When he arrived at the gates of heaven, he was turned away because he was a stingy, mean drunk. Desperate for a resting place, he went to the Devil. The Devil, true to his word, turned him away.

"But where can I go?" pleaded Jack. "Back where you come from," spoke the Devil.

The night was dark and the way was long, and the Devil tossed him a lighted coal from the fire of Hell. Jack, who was eating a turnip at the time, placed the coal inside and used it to light his way. Since that day, he has traveled the world over with his Jack-O'-Lantern in search of a place to rest.

Irish children carved out turnips and potatoes to light the night on Halloween. When the Irish came to America in great numbers in the 1840s, they found that a pumpkin made an even better lantern, and so this "American" tradition came to be.

Submitted by Wink, The Bronx, NY
  

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Why the American Flag Is Folded 12 Times
  • The first fold of our flag is a symbol of life.
  • The second fold is a symbol of our belief in eternal life.
  • The third fold is made in honor and remembrance of the veterans departing our ranks who gave a portion of their lives for the defense of our country to attain peace throughout the world.
  • The fourth fold represents our weaker nature, for as American citizens trusting in God, it is to Him we turn in times of peace as well as in time of war for His divine guidance.
  • The fifth fold is a tribute to our country, for in the words of Stephen Decatur, "Our Country, in dealing with other countries may she always be right; but it is still our country, right or wrong."
  • The sixth fold is for where our hearts lie. It is with our heart that we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands one Nation under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.
  • The seventh fold is a tribute to our Armed Forces, for it is through the Armed Forces that we protect our country and our flag against all her enemies, whether they are found within or without the boundaries of our republic.
  • The eighth fold is a tribute to the one who entered into the valley of the shadow of death, that we might see the light of day, and to honor mother, for whom it flies on Mother's Day.
  • The ninth fold is a tribute to womanhood; for it has been through their faith, their love, loyalty and devotion that the character of the men and women who have made this country great has been molded.
  • The tenth fold is a tribute to the father, for he, too, has given his sons and daughters for the defense of our country since they were first born.
  • The eleventh fold, in the eyes of a Hebrew citizen represents the lower portion of the seal of King David and King Solomon, and glorifies in their eyes, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
  • The twelfth fold, in the eyes of a Christian citizen, represents an emblem of eternity and glorifies in their eyes, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
  • When the flag is completely folded, the stars are uppermost reminding us of our nation's motto, "In God We Trust."

After the flag is completely folded and tucked in, it takes on the appearance of a cocked hat, ever reminding us of the soldiers who served under General George Washington, and the sailors and marines who served under Captain John Paul Jones, who were followed by their comrades and shipmates in the Armed Forces of the United States, preserving for us the rights, privileges, and freedoms we enjoy today.

Submitted By Andy, Gettysburg, Pa.  

Go to set: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 

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