American building designers often skip the number 13 when numbering their floors, because 13 is considered an unlucky number.
The Chinese are similarly superstitious — they omit the fourth floor, because the word “four” sounds like “death” in Mandarin.
Folk remedies to prevent nightmares:
Or take a small child free of sin, soak it in a bath for a couple of hours, then dry it on a goat or a sheep. The next night, sleep with the naked baby in your bed and you’ll never have nightmares again.
The most difficult word in the world to translate is ilunga, according to a 2004 survey of 1,000 linguists.
The word comes from the Tshiluba language spoken in the southeastern Congo. It means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time and to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.”
It’s ironic that hopscotch has come to be known as a little girl’s game, because it couldn’t have a more masculine pedigree. The first hopscotch courts were used in military training exercises in ancient Britain during the early Roman Empire. Footsoldiers wearing field packs and full body armor ran through courts 100 feet long, much as football players run through truck tires today.
Imitating the soldiers, Roman children drew their own smaller courts and added a scoring system, which has been preserved remarkably well for more than a thousand years as the game has spread to France (where it’s called “Marelles”), Germany (“Templehupfen”), the Netherlands (“Hinkelbaan”), India (“Ekaria Dukaria”), and even Vietnam (“Pico”) and Argentina (“Rayuela”).
Today’s children still draw their hopscotch courts with the word “London” at the top, without knowing that they’re representing the Great North Road, a 400-mile Roman road from Glasgow to London that was frequently used by the Roman military.
The appropriate word here is “Bleeaagh.” In 897, Pope Stephen VI dug up the decomposing body of his predecessor and put it on trial for violating church law. Formosus, who had been dead for nine months, was found guilty and buried again. Rome turned against Stephen, who was eventually strangled in prison. It’s known as the cadaver synod or, in Latin, the “synodus horrenda.”
National Spelling Bee winning words:
Unusual phobias:
Politicophobia is defined as “abnormal” dislike of politicians.
The shortest word containing six unique vowels in alphabetical order is facetiously.
Subcontinental has them in reverse order.
Euphemisms for vomiting:
Also: horking, yakking, yarfing, yorxing. “Grasp the subject,” wrote Cato, “the words will follow.”
When you’re busy dying, it can be hard to think of a pithy exit line. Actual last words:
On her way to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette stepped on the executioner’s toe. Her last words were “Pardonez-moi, monsieur.”
