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Tell me something useless but interesting I don't know. No googling allowed. Corrections welcomed.

545 replies

YourMaNoBraBackOfMyCar · 17/12/2013 16:36

I love these threads so please tell me all manner of useless info. [Thanks]

Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a Friday the 13th.

OP posts:
TwoLeftSocks · 03/01/2014 22:19

I didn't know that Zing. I think the adults (and sometimes children) used to drink it as tea, to ward off the marsh ague.

HoratiaDrelincourt · 03/01/2014 22:25

If you eat too many poppy seeds (from memory it's as many as you'd find on two or three poppy seed rolls) then you'd fail a drugs test.

That's one of DH's favourite factoids.

SuburbanRhonda · 03/01/2014 22:47

Tippex was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith of 60s pop group The Monkees.

ZingChoirsOfAngels · 03/01/2014 22:49

I'm not surprised at that Horatia !

TheBunsOfPanettone · 04/01/2014 23:53

The word describing fear of submarines is ipobrichiophobia

Yes, I have it Grin

ControlGeek · 05/01/2014 17:50

The inventors of sellotape spent considerable time trying to work out how to get the glue to stick fast to one side of the tape whilst peeling easily off the other - before one of them realised that the glue did this naturally anyway!

Tinkertaylor1 · 05/01/2014 17:56

PEANUTS ARE NOT ACTUALLY NUTS!!! They are from the pea family Shock

Perhaps to the poster waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back regarding newborns looking like their dad, maybe it's a primal thing so their fathers don't eat them?

PigletJohn · 05/01/2014 17:59

3M had a researcher trying to develop a new glue for paper. He was very unsuccessful, because his product kept peeling off. This was completely useless, obviously.

Until someone realised.... post-its!

ControlGeek · 05/01/2014 18:02

pigletjohn I wonder if that's what I was thinking of, rather than sellotape?

Dingleinthevillage · 05/01/2014 18:22

Are Hull City still in the FA cup? Know nothing about football but in my mind the colouring in thing justifies a bet!

TwoLeftSocks · 06/01/2014 11:45

Armadillos are always born as quadruplets and are one of the few animals that can catch leprosy.

Also, they can hold their breath for about five minutes, which helps when they cross rivers as they simply walk along the river bed rather than swim.

And they can jump six feet into the air.

BelfastBloke · 06/01/2014 12:28

Dingle - I just happened to be studying the FA Cup fixtures just now.
Hull City are still in the FA Cup. I don't understand what you meant about 'the colouring in thing".

Practicalpam · 06/01/2014 15:02

Scraps of waste or broken glass is known as cullet.

PunkHedgehog · 08/01/2014 11:32

The orangutan who played Clint Eastwood's film companion Clyde also appeared on British television in the zoo vet series One By One. And in another film he played a chimpanzee - for this he had his fur dyed and wore false ears.

HoratiaDrelincourt · 08/01/2014 12:40

False chimp ears has me snorting in a very undignified manner Grin

Snoozybird · 08/01/2014 13:05

Royston Vasey the fictional village in The League of Gentleman, was named after comedian Roy Chubby Brown's real name

Dawndonnaagain · 08/01/2014 13:22

May have been noted, I shall read properly later, but apologies if this is a repeat:
We do not know for sure that Queen Charlotte was black.

Fuck stood for: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, as those who had children out of wedlock were dealt with by the ecclesiastical courts.

PunkHedgehog · 13/01/2014 14:08

Almost all etymologies based on acronyms (fuck, posh from 'port out starboard home' etc) are wrong. Acronyms only started being used as words in around the mid-20th C (so things like laser).

Fuck is derived from a Dutch word.

HoratiaDrelincourt · 13/01/2014 14:23

What Punk said about acronyms, although technically the Dutch word and English word (and German and probably various Scandinavian words too) derive from a common ancestor.

DrNick · 13/01/2014 14:24

in courts they really DO say " take him down"

IKR

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