Total Trivia

[fire_breeze]

My favourite is "Cricket Critic", not only is it difficult to say it three times fast but also very tricky to say once after a few drinks

I'm not even going to try

 

[fire_breeze]

This list of words that we use in our daily speech were all brought into usage by Shakespeare:

accommodation
aerial
amazement
apostrophe
assassination
auspicious
baseless
bloody
bump
castigate
changeful
clangor
control (noun)
countless
courtship
critic
critical
dexterously
dishearten
dislocate
dwindle
eventful
exposure
fitful
frugal
generous
gloomy
gnarled
hurry
impartial
inauspicious
indistinguishable
invulnerable
lapse
laughable
lonely
majestic
misplaced
monumental
multitudinous
obscene
palmy
perusal
pious
premeditated
radiance
reliance
road
sanctimonious
seamy
sportive
submerge
suspicious

 

[NymphGoddess]

If you are a pregnant woman, if you eat a bowl of cereal each week, it is 87% more likely that will give birth to a boy.

no offense hunny...but thats coincidence...not real stats

 

[smotherman]

If you put a raisin in a glass of champagne, it will keep floating to the top and sinking to the bottom.

 

[smotherman]

Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of linen.

 

[smotherman]

Perfume contains ethyl alcohol and 25% fragrant oils. Cologne is cheaper to produce and to purchase because the oil content in cologne is only 3%. Cologne was named for the German city in which it was first produced. The original formula combined alcohol, lemon spirits, orange bitters and mint oil.

 

[smotherman]

no offense hunny...but thats coincidence...not real stats

No offense hunny? LOL....what a coincidence huh?

I'm not the one that stated that fact. If you don't believe it, take it up with the person that made that stat.

 

[smotherman]

The condom - made originally of linen - was invented in the early 1500's.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Anne Hathaway was eight years older than Shakespeare and three months pregnant when they got married.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

Many Shakespeare life facts are unknown - these are referred to as the Lost Years

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

William Arden, a relative of Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden, was arrested for plotting against Queen Elizabeth I, imprisoned in the Tower of London and executed.

 

[lakesailer_mi]

Arthur C. Clarke won the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Gold medal for his 1946 proposal of a satellite communications system.

 

[garbage can]

The modern flush toilet was invented by Sir Thomas Crapper (1836-1910). The original idea for this bathroom appliance came from Sir John Harrington who invented and installed an early model of a toilet in the palace of Queen Elizabeth.

 

[MSH2]

After the british army was slaughtered at the battle of Isandlwana, mostly by incompetence, and arrogance. A Lt col Bromhill, back at the supply depot at Rorke's Drift lead a completely successful defence of the base. He ordered all of the stores stripped out and used as barricades. When his quartermaster refused to comply with the order, he was put in chains. During the battle the chains were replaced by the newly issued Martini Henry Rifle. The battle still stands as the most Victoria Crosses ever issued in a single battle. Bromhill was courtmartialled and thrown in prison for disobeying orders. Only after three months of campaigning my the media and several protests in London, was he released, promoted and issued with a medal or two

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In 1992, a yo-yo was brought into space by astronaut Jeffry Hoffman on the space shuttle Atlantis.

 

[fire_breeze]

The yo-yo has enjoyed many periods of popularity throughout world history and may be the second oldest toy in the world (after dolls). There are ancient Greek yo-yos made of terra cotta in museums in Athens and yo-yos are pictured on the walls of Egyptian temples. The Yo-Yo is known to have been popular with such important warriors as Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington. First patented in 1866 by James L. Haven and Charles Hettrich, the Yo-Yo has enjoyed periods of popularity for generations with kids from 1 - 100.

 

[RUlookingup]

Among actor Vincent Price's nicknames are King of the Grand Guignol , Bink , Merchant of menace and Renaissance Man.

 

[RUlookingup]

Vincent Price abandoned films in the mid-1970s, going on to present cooking programs for television - he wrote "A Treasury of Great Recipes" (1965) with his second wife, Mary Grant - but had two final roles in The Whales of August (1987) and Edward Scissorhands (1990). He also recorded many Gothic horror short stories for the spoken-word label Caedmon Records.

 

[lakesailer_mi]

The phrase "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" is not a reference to testicles. During 1600's through the mid-1800's, it was necessary to stack cannon balls on ships. On land it is quite easy, a pyramid can be constructed by placing a course of balls close together in a square, and then filling up by placing the next course into the "holes" in the one below. This approach, does not work well on a wooden deck, and the balls tend to roll around.

It was easy to invent a square form (a simple box) which would hold the balls in a square shape on the deck. The courses could then be piled up as on land. These forms became known as "Ball Monkeys." On British ships of the line, they were often made of brass. And were known as Brass Ball Monkeys or simply Brass monkeys.

An interesting thing about differences between brass and iron is that brass expands and contracts more dramatically with changes in temperature. The monkeys were constructed so that the balls fit tightly at "typical" temperatures. So, when it became very cold, the brass monkey would contract appreciably, and force the first layer of balls up off the deck and misshape the all important first course, upsetting the pyramid of balls.

Hence, when it's really cold you can picture cannon balls rolling all over a deck.

Of course personally, I still like the image of a very surprised monkey with his balls frozen off!

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The average human eye can distinguish about 500 different shades of grey.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

In English folklore, Queen Mab was a fairy queen who governed people's dreams.

 

[Gaia_Lorraine]

The word "karate" means "empty hand."

 

[fire_breeze]

To be caught Red Handed

Meaning - To be caught in the act.

Origin: One of the four kinds of offenses in the king's forest, by which the offender is supposed to have killed a deer. In Scotland, in such like crimes they say, "Taken in the fact, or with red hand". The red of course being the blood from the slaughtered animal

 

[fire_breeze]

In Manilla during the 1940's prostitutes tattooed sex acts on their bodies. They would then proposition English speaking sailors by pointing at the pictures.

 

[fire_breeze]

Women with a Ph.D. are twice as likely to be interested in a one-night stand than those with only a bachelor's degree.

What about those with an MA?