What does this have to do with the BrailleNote? Here we go again with off-topic messages... <sigh>
Lisa ----- Original Message ----- From: "jim taylor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "braille note" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Blink Link" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2004 10:21 AM Subject: [Braillenote] weird facts ---- Original Message ------ From: "John at Wall & Co" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [ncwfsa] weird facts Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004 08:12:24 -0000 Friends, I set out below the contents of an email from an American friend of mine, and my comments. > Obscure facts that everyone should know > A dime has 118 ridges around the edge. > A cat has 32 muscles in each ear. > A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue. > A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours. > A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds. > A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a > second. > A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes. > A snail can sleep for three years. > Al Capone's business card said he was a used furniture > dealer. > All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln > Memorial on the back of the $5 bill. > Almonds are a member of the peach family. > An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain. > Babies are born without kneecaps. They don't appear until > the child reaches 2 to 6 years of age. > Butterflies taste with their feet. > Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have > about 10. > "Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters > "mt". > February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to > have a full moon > In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been > domesticated. > If the population of China walked past you, in single file, > the line would never end because of the rate of > reproduction. > If you are an average American, in your whole life, you > will spend an average of 6 months waiting at red lights. > It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open. > Leonardo Da Vinci invented the scissors. > Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable. > No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, > silver, or purple. > On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the > Parliament building is an American flag. > Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose > and ears never stop growing. > Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite. > Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated. > "Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left > hand;lollipop"with your right. > The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. > The Bible does not say there were three wise men; it only > says there were three gifts. > The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each > gallon of diesel that it burns. > The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a > radar tube and a chocolate bar melted in his pocket. > The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" > uses every letter of the alphabet. > The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze > completely solid. > The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same > whether they are read left to right or right to left > (palindromes). > There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar. > There are more chickens than people in the world. > There are only four words in the English language which end > in "dous": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and > hazardous. > There are two words in the English language that have all > five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious." > There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewables > Vitamins. > Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur. > TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the > letters only on one row of the keyboard. > Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a > dance. > Women blink nearly twice as much as men. > Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two > weeks;otherwise it will digest itself. Hi Arlene: I enjoyed this list. I have the following comments:- 1. I am not surprised that the average person's left hand does 56% of the typing. I heard that the keyboard was designed to slow people down; and as most people are right handed, making the left side of the keyboard more used than the right helps that objective. It would not be so snappy, but I would re-draft the statement to read:- "In an average document, 56% of the letters typed are on the left side of the keyboard." 2. "Horrendous" is American, not English - a controversial comment, as we are sometimes said to be divided by a common language - and we Brits are always stealing your good words - and horrendous is one of them. If I'm not careful, you will charge a copyright royalty whenever we use it - and we use it very often!! 3. A serious challenge: Is it correct that "our eyes are always the same size from birth"? I had my left eye removed when I was eight; my right when I was thirty. Each was replaced by an artificial eye. At the age of 45, I was having a social lunch with an eye surgeon, when he casually asked me why my left (artificial) eye was smaller than my right (I later checked, and he was right!) I told him about the different ages at which my eyes were removed, and he commented that, of course, eyes continue to grow in size until you reach adulthood. Incidentally, the difference was so small that I concluded he must have had amazingly good sight himself - I had handled them for a long time, and not noticed it. After all that, many thanks for the list. It makes fascinating reading. Warm regards John To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Groups Links To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ncwfsa/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! 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