The Amazing Book of Useless Information: More Things You Didn't Need to Know but Are About to Find Out by Noel Botham

Author:Noel Botham [Botham, Noel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Reference, General, Humor
ISBN: 9780399534683
Google: 9jyPgZybQo4C
Amazon: 0399534687
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

A FRESH TAKE

Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells.

Elizabeth Taylor

The duration of a film should not exceed the capacity of the human bladder.

Alfred Hitchcock

AT LAST

Telesphobia: The fear of being last.

LINGUISTICALLY CHALLENGED

ORIGIN STORIES

The study of word origins is called etymology.

The word “honcho” comes from a Japanese word meaning “squad leader” and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.

“Second string,” meaning “replacement or backup,” comes from the Middle Ages. An archer always carried a second string in case the one on his bow broke.

No term existed for “homosexuality” in ancient Greece—there were only a variety of expressions referring to specific homosexual roles. Experts find this baffling, as the old Greek culture regarded male/male love in the highest regard. According to several linguists, the word “homosexual” was not coined until 1869 by the Hungarian physician Karoly Maria Benkert.

The word “coach” is derived from the word kocsi, a wagon from the village of Kocs, Hungary.

“Long in the tooth,” meaning “old,” was originally used to describe horses. As horses age, their gums recede, giving the impression that their teeth are growing. The longer the teeth look, the older the horse.

“Aromatherapy” is a term coined by French chemist René Maurice Gattefossé in the 1920s to describe the practice of using essential oils taken from plants, flowers, roots, and seeds in healing.

The phrase “on cloud nine” originally referred to the Cumulonimbus cloud, which is the tallest of all the types of cloud genera and was originally number nine on the list developed at the 1896 International Meteorological Conference. However, the order of cloud genera was later changed and Cumulonimbus is now listed at number ten.

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