The Bible does not contain the word bible.
Author: Greg Ross
Judging a Book by Its Cover
Because of its cover design, some readers briefly imagined that SF author Jack Dann’s 1984 novel The Man Who Melted was called The Man Who Melted Jack Dann. That inspired some readers to search for other such titles, with some success:
- The Joy of Cooking Irma S. Rombauer
- Captain Blood Returns Raphael Sabatini
- Flush Virginia Woolf
- Contact Carl Sagan
Any others? You’ll get extra credit for bending parts of speech (Two Sisters Gore Vidal).
Extra Points for Creativity
“The boy who explained the meaning of the words fort and fortress must have had rather vague ideas as to masculine and feminine nouns. He wrote: ‘A fort is a place to put men in, and a fortress a place to put women in.'”
— Henry B. Wheatley, Literary Blunders, 1893
Great Wall of China
As many as 1 million workers died building the Great Wall of China.
It’s been called the “longest cemetery on Earth.”
In a Word
goluptious
adj. delicious; voluptuous
Palindrome Years
2002 was a palindrome year — it reads the same forward and backward.
They occur only once a century. The next one will be 2112.
TKO
In 1983, the Journal of the American Medical Association called for a ban on boxing. The editor, George Lundberg, called boxing an “obscenity” that “should not be sanctioned by any civilized society.” Since then, the American Neurological Association, the American Academy of Neurology and the British, Canadian and Australian medical associations have also called for abolishing the sport.
Among boxers with 20 or more professional fights, the AMA says three out of four show brain deterioration.
Divisibility Rules
A number is divisible by 3 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 3.
A number is divisible by 4 if the number formed by the last two digits is divisible by 4.
A number is divisible by 8 if the number formed by the last three digits is divisible by 8.
A number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9.
Homebodies
Only about 400 people have ever left Earth’s atmosphere. Only 12 have walked on the moon.
Animal Trials
Witches weren’t the only ones in danger during the Middle Ages. In 1386, when a pig tore a French child’s face, the tribunal of Falaise put it on trial, ultimately sentencing it to be maimed and hanged in human clothing.
In 1474 the Swiss town of Basel tried a rooster for sorcery (it had allegedly produced an egg) and burned it at the stake.
Likewise wolves, snakes, crows, bats, owls, rats — even dogs and cats were put on trial. Like women, animals were considered demonic whenever men couldn’t understand their behavior.