Tag Archives: words

Orange the fruit vs. Orange the colour

By Ryan | Published: January 29, 2010

I’m gonna let you finish your coffee, but orange juice is the best drink of all time. However, when picking out a good orange juice you must make sure you don’t accidentally get an orange drink. Orange juice, available in all finer refrigerators, comes from orange the fruit. Orange drink, available at all low-budget community [...]

FACT: Poke is the new pink

By Ryan | Published: January 28, 2010

More than just good fashion sense, the colour called pink was named after an almost forgotten real-world meaning of the word. Pink began its life as a verb. To pink, circa 1307, means to poke, stab or make holes in something. The latin ancestry may lead to the word pungere, meaning to pierce. Another branch [...]

The tittle: a dot with purpose

By Ryan | Published: January 18, 2010

You may have noticed I’m a little picky around here about the proper use of words n’ stuff. Fo’ sho. Today I’m a gonna tell y’all about the tiniest part of our written language… the tittle. You’ve heard of the phrase “cross your T’s and dot your I’s” and the tittle is the latter half [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Tagged words | 3 Comments

FACT: the days of the week are named after planets and gods

By Ryan | Published: December 15, 2009

It’s Tuesday! But we came very close to calling this “Marsday” instead of Tuesday. Originally, in the ancient civilizations of Babylon, Greece, and Rome, each day of the week was named for the planets. At the time there were seven planets visible to the naked eye; Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, the Moon and the [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged space, traditions | Leave a comment

FACT: if you fail to fail you might earn an E grade

By Ryan | Published: December 10, 2009

In popular internet culture, declaring a “FAIL” is the best thing since bacon. But today we’re looking at the almost-fail. In North American schools you’re most often given a letter grade: A, B, C, D, or F. But hey now… what happened to E? Some grading systems do include an E grade, like the European [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged measurement | Leave a comment

FACT: a woman in high heels is more deadly than an elephant

By Ryan | Published: November 25, 2009

Not only am I a man, I’m a man who doesn’t always wear matching socks… so women’s high-heel shoes are a mystery to me. How can these ladies bear to stand on their tippy-toes all day? Why put yourself at the mercy of a metal sidewalk vent? Why do you still wear them during winter?!? [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged fashion, history, physics | 3 Comments

FACT: a gorilla’s proper scientific name is gorilla gorilla gorilla

By Ryan | Published: November 24, 2009

I don’t know if somebody along the way failed latin, but the Western Lowland Gorilla’s scientific name really is Gorilla gorilla gorilla. The western gorilla is classified as Gorilla gorilla, and the lowland variety got tagged with the third gorilla, while the Cross River Gorilla is officially dubbed Gorilla gorilla diehli. (at which point two [...]

Posted in Interesting Facts | Also tagged animals | 1 Comment