Useless InformationDid you know that crabs wee through their eyes? That maidenhair moss is so called because Anglo-saxons thought it looked like pubes? That Albanians have 17 different words for moustache? Astound us with your utterly useless and obscure knowledge.
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chthonic, Thu 17 Mar 2005, 14:48)
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A few moreFrom "The book of lists". I more or less knew the gist of the following facts but looked them up to post. So the added details are for your enjoyment. (And, yes, I used them with mitigated success with the opposite sex at parties.)
1.In 1854, IBM-France asked J. Perret, a professor, to translate the word "computer". He proposed "ordinateur" from archaic theological vocabulary (God being the world's "ordinator", the one who brings order to it).
2. Of all conquerors, Gengis Khan is the one who conquered the most: 7 800 000 squared kilometers. Runner-up Alexander the Great pales at less than half the amount of teritory: 3 500 000 squared kms.
3. 11 states without armies: Andorra, Costa Rice, Dominique, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Maurice, Monaco, Nauru, Saint-Martin, Salomon, and Western Samoan Islands. Many of them, as you probably realized, are only small islands. Still, all maintain a police force.
(, Sat 19 Mar 2005, 8:42, Reply)
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