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Did you know?

Nov 6, 2009 Did You Know

So these circulate all the time in those pesky forwarded emails.  I thought Why not have a space for them on the blog?  Besides, if any readers fumble on this post and can debunk any of these, it’d be fun and one would learn something as well.  Using “Google is my friend”, I have debunked a few of these already and am posting my results in parantheses for all to see.  So here it goes:

• “Stewardesses” is the longest word typed only with Left Hand (For those touch typists who type with two hands out there)
• “Lollipop” is apparently the longest word typed only with your right hand.  (Both of these are not true, I found a list of words on the web that can easily debunk both of these statements and here’s that list: AFTERCATARACTS (plural for a condition that sometimes follows cataract surgery), TESSERADECADES and TETRASTEARATES are the longest words which can be typed using only the fingers of the left hand. The first word appears in a Merriam-Webster medical dictionary; the second is in W2. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are ABSTRACTERS, ABSTRACTEST, AFTEREFFECT, AFTEREFFECTS, AFTERTASTES, AFTERWARDS, ASSEVERATED, ASSEVERATES, BEGGARWEEDS, CASEBEARERS, CRABGRASSES, DATABASES, DECEREBRATE, DECEREBRATED, DECEREBRATES, DESECRATERS, DESEGREGATE, DESEGREGATED, DESEGREGATES, DEVERTEBRATED, EFFERVESCED, EFFERVESCES, EXTRAVASATES, GAZETTEER, READDRESSED, READDRESSES, REAGGRAVATES, REASSEVERATE, RESEGREGATE, RESEGREGATED, RESEGREGATES, REVEGETATED, REVEGETATES, REVERBERATE, REVERBERATED, REVERBERATES, SASSAFRASES, STAGECRAFTS, STATECRAFTS, STAVESACRES, STEWARDESSES, SWEATERDRESSES, SWEETBREADS, TERRACEWARDS, TRADECRAFTS, VERTEBRATES, WASTEWATERS, WATERCRAFTS, WATERCRESSES.
  JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (a fast-growing flower or a brand name for a type of toy) is the longest word found in abridged dictionaries that can be typed using only the fingers of the right hand. Other such words (some of which are not in dictionaries) are HOKYPOKY, HOMONYMY, HOMOPHONY, HOMOPHYLY, HYPOLIMNION, HYPOPHYLL, HYPOPHYLLIUM, HYPOPHYLLUM, HYPOPYON, ILLINIUM, ILLUMINOPOLY, KINNIKINNIK, LOLLIPOP, LUPULINUM, MILLIMHO, MILLIOHM, MIMINYPIMINY, MINIKINLY, MINIMILL, MONOHULL, MONOPHONY, MONOPOLY, NIPPONIUM, NONILLION, PHYLLOPHYLLIN, POLLINIUM, POLONIUM, POLYONOMY, POLYPHONIUM, POLYPHONY, UNHOLILY)
• In English language, no words rhyme with “Orange”, “Month”, “Silver” or “Purple”.  (While this may seem true in our current state of English language, you can always use archaic English language or different dialects of English language and debunk this fact.  Month can be seen as a rhyme for “oneth”, Orange also has one “sporange”,  and so does silver “chilver” , and finally for purple we have “Curple”
• “Dreamt” is the only English word that ends with a “mt”.  (It seems that there is also adreamt and undreamt, hence this fun fact is not so true).
• Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears don’t stop growing. (Not true so it seems, our eyes do grow, though they are very close to the adult eyes).
• The sentence “Quick Brown Fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every letter in the alphabet.  (And most probably that’s why it is always a sentence used when trying to teach people how to touch-type, however it should be noted that this is not the only sentence that uses every letter in the alphabet).
• These two words in English language have all the vowels in order: abstemious and facetious  (Vowel order – a e i o u)
• “Typewriter” is the longest word that can be made using all letters on ONE row of the keyboard. (Again, it seems that there are several other words that can be typed using one row of the keyboard and are longer than “Typewriter”, you can google for an exhaustive list of these words as well, so this is not true).
• A goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds! (not True, a Goldfish actually has a memory span of 6 seconds)
• A “Jiffy” is actually a unit of time indicating 1/100th of a second. (Here again, these emails are not quite on the ball — In computer engineering, a jiffy is the length of one cycle, or tick, of the computer’s system clock. In the past, this was often equal to one period of the alternating current powering the computer: 1/60 second in the U.S. and Canada, usually 1/50 second elsewhere. More recently the jiffy has become standardized, more or less, as 0.01 second (10 milliseconds). The word jiffy, with its ordinary meaning of an instant or very brief time, appeared in English during the eighteenth century, but its origin is not known.
  In chemistry and physics, a jiffy is equal to a “light centimeter,” that is, the time required for light to travel a distance of one centimeter. This is a very brief interval indeed, about 33.3564 picoseconds. This definition of the jiffy was proposed by the American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis (1875-1946), who was one of the first to apply principles of quantum physics in chemistry.
  SOURCE: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
• A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes (Again, wrong, Sharks Don’t Blink — now that’s a fun fact)
• A cat has 32 muscles in each ear (Not true, a Cat has actually 30 muscles in each ear)
• An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.
• Babies are born without kneecaps (they appear between the age of 2 and 6 years)  —– (Again, these pesky “Fact” emails are wrong on this one, this is NOT true)
• February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full moon! (Again, we are being fed lies — there have been other years where no full moon was recorded and there will be more in future.  February 1809, 1847, 1866, 1885, 1915, 1934, 1961, 1999 did not have a full moon!
  
• Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite (Indeed they are as they are used to make Glycerin, which is part of Nitroglycerin, but directly, no they are not used in dynamite)
• Elastics last longer when refrigerated
• The cruise liner QE2 moves only 6 inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns (talk about going green — and that would be true if it was true, however, it seems that the QE2 actually moves 50 feet / gallon)
• The microwave was invented after a researcher walked past a radar tube and a chocolate bar in his pocket melted.
• The Winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagra Falls froze completely over (and the same thing happened in 1911 as well ; oh and this deserves a special look, in fact, have a look at this link for more information on this — whether its true or not, is still being debated so it seems )
• Women Blink twice as much as men (hmm, well this is not true and nothing is proven about that as blinking is affected by emotional state, health, age, etc.)

These were the only ones I received in my email, so if you find more of these fun facts and are attempting to debunk them, post ‘em here, lets do that together.

Tags: Did You Know