... Buddy's Trivia Page 3 ...

Jack is the most common name in nursery rhymes.
Japan is the largest exporter of frog's legs.
Jeremy Bentham, a British philosopher who died in 1832, left his entire estate to the London Hospital provided that his body be allowed to preside over its board meetings. His skeleton was clothed and fitted with a wax mask of his face. It was present at the meeting for 92 years.
Jerusalem is derived from the Hebrew words "Yiru-Shalom" ... city of peace.
Jewish Sanhedrim ... was a court which took its form from the seventy elders appointed to assist Moses in the government. After the captivity it became a permanent court ... The president was called "Ha Nasi" (the prince), and the vice-president "Abba" (father) ... These seventy men would sit in a semicircle, thirty-five on each side of the president; the "father" being on his right hand, and the sub-deputy, on his left. All questions of the Torah (Law) were settled by the Sanhedrim, and those who refused obedience were excommunicated.
Julius Julius was the first of a dozen caesars. The words "kaiser" and "czar" are both forms of the same word and the same title.
Just twenty seconds worth of fuel remained when Apollo 11's lunar module landed on the moon.
Kermit the Frog is left-handed.
Kilts originated in France, not Scotland.
King Henry III of France, Louis XVI of France and Napoleon all suffered from ailurophobia, the fear of cats.
Kiss … the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicular muscles in a state of contraction.
Knuckle down ... an expression meaning to get serious with work. It comes from the game of "marbles" played for many centuries in England and also popular in American cities till about 50 years ago, marbles involves hitting spherical pieces of colored stone or glass with a flick of the finger. If you're serious and want to shoot the marble the right way, you have to have your knuckles touching the ground. You have to knuckle down, an expression that began in the streets and ended up in the corporate suites.
Koran … the sacred book of the Muslims, who regard it as the revelation of Allah. The name Koran, or Qur'an, is from the Arabic stem Qara'a ("to read," "to recite"), and means the "Reading," (or the "Recitation," or the "Book"). It is also called "Alkitab" (The Book), "Furquan" ("liberation," "deliverance," "of the revelation"), "Kitab-ul-lah" (Book of God), or "Al-tanzil" (The Revelation). It is smaller than the New Testament, and has no chronological order or logical sequence.
Krakatoa in 1883 had the largest volcanic eruption in human history. The increasingly large explosions killed 36,000 people (give or take a few). The blast was heard thousands of miles away. Ash caused hazy skies and gorgeous sunsets all over the planet for weeks. The tidal waves were so strong that they were still several feet high when they reached South Africa. Today a new island has grown where Krakatoa was ... and it's an active volcano.
Lack of water is the number one trigger of daytime fatigue.
Lead Pencil ... the average lead pencil will draw a line 35 miles long or write approximately 50,000 English words. More than 2 billion pencils are manufactured each year in the U.S. If these were laid end to end, they would circle the world nine times.
Less than 3% of Nestlé's sales are for chocolate.
Less than one per cent of the 500 Chinese cities have clean air; respiratory disease is China's leading cause of death.
Licorice ... the word comes from the Greek word glyks (sweet) anda rhiza (root), meaning "sweet root." Licorice has been used medicinally since 500 B.C. It is an important tonic, often called "the grandfather of herbs."
Lieuben ... a German lunatic, bet that he would succeed in turning up a pack of cards in a certain order stated in a written agreement. He turned and turned the cards ten hours a day, doing this non-stop for twenty years, he repeated the operation 4,246,028 times, when at last he succeeded.
Lincoln was moved 17 times before he was finally permanently entombed in the year, 1901.
Los Angeles' full name is "El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula"
Love in tennis ... why is a zero called "love"? When tennis first became popular in France, a round zero on the tennis scoreboard looked something like an egg and was therefore CALLED an egg. The word for egg in French is "l'oeuf". When transferred to America, "l'oeuf" was pronounced "love".
Lynch ... which means, "mob-law" ... is law administered by private persons. According to Webster (writer of some little dictionary) ... the word lynch refers to a Mr. James Lynch, a farmer, of Piedmont, in Virginia. The tale is that, as Piedmont, on the frontier, was seven miles from any law court, the neighbors, in 1686, selected James Lynch, a man of good judgment and great impartiality, to pass sentence on offenders ... His judgments were so judicious that he acquired the name of Judge Lynch, and this sort of law went by the name of Lynch law ... In time, the word, "lynch" came to mean anything but judicious ... it became a plague on the USA ... nothing for us to be proud of.
Macaroni ... a coxcomb, a dude, (Italian, un macceherone). The word is derived from the Macaroni Club, instituted by a set of flashy men who had travelled in Italy ... The Macaronies were the most exquisite fops that ever disgraced the name of man ... vicious, insolent, fond of gambling, drinking, and duelling ... They were (about 1773) the curse of Vauxhall Gardens.
Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.
Maine is the toothpick capital of the world.
Marathon … there's a reason the annual marathons are 26 miles long. In 490 BC (9/28), the Greeks defeated the Persians at Marathon. A Greek soldier ran 26 miles to tell Athenians of the victory and died after his announcement. His feat provided the model for the modern marathon race. There's also another explanation: In 490 BC (9/2) Phidippides of Athens set out on his famous run that inspired the Marathon. Phidippides was sent to seek troops from Sparta to help against the invading Persian army. Phidippides left Marathon for the city of Sparta, 26 miles away. The Spartans were unwilling to help, until the next full moon, due to religious laws. September 4th, Phidippides returned the 26 miles Marathon without Spartan troops. A little research and you should know which version is correct
Marilyn Monroe had six toes on her feet.
McJob ... A low-paying, non-challenging job with few benefits or opportunities, typically in the service sector. (Coined by Douglas Coupland, in his novel Generation X, after McDonald's fast-food chain)
Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny) was allergic to carrots.
Men can read smaller print than women; women can hear better.
Men of "short stature" ... (vertically challenged but "greater than the rest") who became very powerful and famous were ... Flavius Aetius (commander of the Roman army), Agesilaus; Alexander the Great (scarcely average height), Attla the Hun, Byron, Cervantes, Claverhouse, Condé the Great, Cowper, and O. Cromwell, Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Kepple (called "Little Kepple"), Louis XIV (barely 5'5") ... Marshal Luxembourg, Mehemet Ali, Angelo; Napoleon I (le petit caporal) was according to his school certificate, 5' ... Lord Nelson, St. Paul, Pepin le Bref, Philip of Macedon, Richard Savage, Shakespeare; Socrates, Theodore II King of the Goths, Timon the Tartar (self-described as lame, decrepit, and of little weight) ... Dr. Isaac Watts, and Joseph Levy (who by the way, owned the men's clothing chain called Crawford Clothes, and bought the McAlpin hotel in NYC just to house his flagship store) ... I suppose it is not how tall you stand as much as how big you think ... right?
Mental hallucinations ... the mind informing the senses, instead of the senses informing the mind. There can be no doubt that the senses may be excited by the mind (from within, as well as from without) .. Macbeth saw the dagger of his imagination as distinctly as the dagger which he held in his hand ... And then Malebranche declared that he heard the voice of G-d ... Descartes thought he was followed by an invisible person, telling him to pursue his search for truth. Goethe says that, on one occasion, he met an exact counterpart of himself. Sir Walter Scott was fully persuaded that he had seen the ghost of the deceased Byron. All such hallucinations (due to mental disturbances) are of such stuff as dreams are made of.
Methane gas can often be seen bubbling up from the bottom of ponds. It is produced by the decomposition of dead plants and animals in the mud.
Michael Jordan made more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Mint is an herb names after the nymph, Minthe, the daughter of Cocytus, and a favorite of the big boy Pluto ... Seems that this nymph was metamorphosed by Pluto's wife (Proserpine) out of jealousy - into the herb called after her name.
Mondegreens ... misheard song and poetry lyrics. The expression originated with a British writer who misheard the last lines of a poem called "The Bonny Earl of Murray." The real lines are "They ha'e slain the Earl of Murray, and they laid him on the Green," but she heard "They ha'e slain the Earl of Murray, and Lady Mondegreen."
Money isn't made out of paper, it's made out of cotton.
Monopoly ... was invented during the Great Depression by Charles B. Darrow of Germantown Pennsylvania. Mr. Darrow, like. many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and he worked out the details of the game primarily to amuse himself during this period. Prior to the Depression, Darrow and his wife vacationed in the resort town of Atlantic City, New Jersey. When it came to naming the streets on the game board, Darrow naturally adopted those of his favorite vacation spot. The first games were handmade. Darrow gave them to friends and sold a few through a Philadelphia department store. As the demand for the game grew, Darrow could not keep up with the orders and arranged for Parker Brothers to take over the game. Since 1935 when Parker Brothers acquired the rights to the game, it has become the leading proprietary game not only in the United States but throughout the Western world. the game is published under license in twenty five countries and in fifteen foreign languages. You might be interested to know that more Monopoly money is printed in a year, than real money throughout the world.
Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
More American workers (18%) call sick on Friday than any other day of the week. Tuesday has the lowest percent of absenteeism (11%).
More Americans have died in automobile accidents than have died in all the wars ever fought by the United States.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.
More steel in the US is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.
More than 2500 left handed people are killed every year from using right handed products.
More than 50% of the p eople in the world have never made or received a telephone call.
Moscow is so called from the river Moscowa, on which it is built, and the great monarch of Moscow is a large bell weighing 193 tons, 21 feet high, and 21 feet in diameter.
Moslem (or Moslemin which is the plural of Mussulman, and sometimes written Mussulmans), is a Turkish word, and meanstrue believer.
Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
Most lipstick contains fish scales. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.
Most snakes can go a full year without eating any food.
Mother Goose is a name associated with nursery rhymes. She's a real woman, born in Boston, and her eldest daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Fleet, the printer ... Mrs. Goose used to sing the rhymes to her grandson, and Thomas Fleet printed the first edition in 1719.
Mr. Rogers is an ordained minister.
Mt. Everest, in Nepal (in case you don't know), is 29,305 feet high.
MTV first aired at 12:01 AM on August 1, 1981. The first video was 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by the Bugles.
Multiplication by eleven … 111,111,111 x 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321. An interesting extension of counting by elevens (undecimal counting) is seen in the ISBN (International Book Numbering System) of published books. Any ISBN comprises ten digits. If you multiply the first by ten, the second by nine, the third by eight, and so on, summing the results as you go along, the result will always be divisible by eleven.
Murphy's Oil Soap is the chemical most commonly used to clean elephants.
Nanosecond ... one-billionth of a second. Far beyond the range of human perception, nanoseconds are relevant to computers.
Napoleon made his battle plans in a sandbox He was also terrified of cats.
Naturalists use marshmallows to lure alligators out of swamps.
Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon with his left foot first.
New Jersey has a spoon museum with over 5,400 spoons from almost all the states.
Nicotine is so named from Jean Nicot, Lord of Villemain, who purchased some tobacco at Lisbon in 1560 ... introduced it into France ... and had the honour of fixing his name on the plant. Our word tobacco is from the Indian tabaco (the tube used by the Indians for inhaling the smoke).
Nile River ... it is so long that had it been formed in the United States, it could have stretched from New York to Los Angeles. But then maybe the pyramids would have been built in Kansas and instead of Mother's Day, Americans could have celebrated Mummy's Day.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
No one knows where the shoe pinches like the wearer ... could refer to the "subjective good, de gustabus non disputandem" ... or, "of taste there is no disputing" (thank you, Dr. Alice Jourdain), and was said by a Roman sage who was blamed for divorcing his wife, with whom he seemed to live happily.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.
Nobel Prize resulted from a late change in the will of Alfred Nobel, who did not want to be remembered as a propagator of violence-he invented dynamite.
Non-dairy creamer is flammable.
Not worth a rap ... means something is worth very litter ... now I know why it is called "rap" music.
Nova Scotia is Latin for “New Scotland.”
November 11, 1999 was an odd day, meaning that all of the digits were odd, 11-11-1999. The next odd day will be 1-1-3111 (over a thousand years away).
Nunation is the adding of the letter N to the initial vowel/syllable of a name, examples would be: Nol for Ol[iver], Nell for Ell[en], Ned for Ed[ward].
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
O' is a common prefix in Irish or Scottish names, and means "of" ... the prefix "Mac" in Scottish names means "son of" ... (MacAlpin, MacPherson, MacIvor, MacTurk, old MacDonald, MacDuff, and even Macbeth) ... similar to the prefix "ibn" found in Arabic names or "ben" which you will find in Hebrew names. For example, to list a few of our sages: Akiba ben Joseph, Simeon ben Levi, Judah ben Asher, Eleazar ben Samuel, Sa'adia ben Joseph, Yochanan ben Zakkai, and Jesus ben Sirach, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (otherwise known as the Rambam) ... oh, and yours truly, Henoch ben Nachmin ... the thought of putting my name next to the Rambam is beyond human imagination ... hey, it's my page and I can take liberties ... And speaking of Macbeth (see above), did you know that the story is taken from Holinshed, who copied it from the History of Scotland, by Hector Boece or Boyce, in seventeen volumes (1527) ... This history, written in Latin, was translated by John Bellenden (1531-1535) ... anyway, the trivia is that history states that Macbeth slew Duncan at Bothgowan, near Elgin, in 1039, and not as Shakespeare says, at his castle of Inverness ... but the Bard had his reasons ... Now his wife, Lady Macbeth, btw whose real name should have been "Ambition" as that was her real sin, would stop at nothing to gain her ambition ... Her masterful mind sways the weaker Macbeth to "the mood of what she liked or loathed" ... She is a Medea, or Catherine de'Medici, or Cæsar Borgia in female form ... Let this be a lesson to all my male readers ... Anyway, her real name was Graoch, and she was, in fact, the granddaughter of Kenneth IV, killed in 1003, while fighting against Malcolm II
O.K. was originally a telegraphic symbol for "all right" ... we know the origin is "orl korrect, which was an early spelling of "all correct."
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
Ohio is listed as the 17th state in the U.S., but technically it is number 47. Until August 7, 1953, Congress forgot to vote on a resolution to admit Ohio to the Union.
Olympic Gold Medal ... youngest person ever to win this medal was Margorie Gestring, from the United States. In 1936 she won the gold medal in diving when she was only 13 years and 268 days old.
On a Canadian two dollar bill, the flag flying over the Parliament building is an American flag.
On an average work day, a typist's fingers travel 12.6 miles.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
On average, a 4-year-old child asks 437 questions a day.
On the Q.T ... is slang for "confidentially" or "quietly." And its origin is the first and last letters of the
One glass of water shuts down midnight hunger pangs for almost 100% of the dieters studied in a U-Washington study.
One million Americans, about 3,000 each day, take up smoking each year, and most of them are children.
One ounce of gold can be drawn to 43 miles.
One second is defined to be the amount of time that it takes an atom of cesium-133 in a particular state to emit 9,192,631,770 wavelengths of radiation.
Onions get their distinctive smell by soaking up sulfur from the soil.
Only 2 blue moons (the saying 'only once in a blue moon ' refers to the occurrence of two full moons during one calendar month) are to occur between now and 2001. Those times are January 1999 and March 1999.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, John Hancock and Charles Thomson. Most of the rest signed on August 2, but the last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
Only two people signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th. The last signature wasn't added until 5 years later.
Ottowa (capital of Canada) has more snow than any other national capital in the world.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears ever stop growing.
Out of "Pandora's Box" flew all the evils that flesh is heir to, and these have ever since continued to afflict the world ... But remember, the last thing that flew from the box was Hope.
Over 40 million Ritz crackers are purchased every day.
Paper is derived from papyrus or Egyptian reed ... which was used at one time for the manufacture of a writing material ... Bryan Donkin, in 1803, perfected a machine for making a sheet of paper to any required length.
Paraph ... in a signature, a final squiggle or flourish. Although it may seem to have resulted simply from flamboyance, its original function, during the Middle Ages, it was to discourage forgery.
Paul Revere's Ride ... on April 18, 1775, three men (Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott)
Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
Pearls are believed to be the result of an abnormal secretory process which is caused by an irritation of the mollusk as a result of the intrusion into the shell of some foreign body, as a grain of sand, an egg of the mollusk itself, or even perhaps some parasite ... btw, if you didn't know, pearls melt in vinegar.
We hold pearls in very high regard, even using the precious little things as a synonym for something that is small and very valuable, as in pearls of wisdom. So it's important to be able to tell the real thing from the wannabes. Now how do we do that?
The real pearl is a mollusk's concretion, the most essential ingredient of which is aragonite. Not clear enough criteria for you? Ok, check the price - real ones cost more.
All right, enough fooling around. Put the "pearl" in your mouth and slosh it softly across your teeth (be careful not to swallow it). Does it feel totally smooth? If it does, it's fake. The real thing feels slightly gritty. You can trust this test because it's used all the time by people whose livelihoods depend on it: professional jewel thieves.
Pepsi originally contained pepsin, thus the name.
Percentage of Africa that is wilderness is 28%; percentage of North America that is wilderness is 38%.
Percentage of American men who say they would marry the same woman if they had it to do all over again: 80%; percentage of American women who say they'd marry the same man: 50%.
Perfume really means "from smoke" (Latin, per fumum), the first perfumes having been obtained by the combustion of aromatic woods and gums ... Their original use was in sacrifices ... I suppose to counteract the offensive odors of the burning flesh.
Perillos of Athens made a brazen bull for Phalaris, Tyrant of Agrigentum, intended for the execution of criminals. They were shut up in the bull, and, fires being lighted below the belly, the metal was made "red hot." The cries of the victims, reverberating, sounded like the lowing of the bull. Phalaris admired the invention, but tested it on Perillos himself ... served him right.
Pet superstores now sell about 40 percent of all pet food.
Peter and John de Carvajal ... on being condemned to death on circumstantial evidence, appealed without success to Ferdinand IV. of Spain. On their way to execution they declared their innocence ... and summoned the king to appear before G-d within thirty days ... Ferdinand was quite well on the thirtieth day, but was found dead in his bed next morning.
Phatic communication … communication meant to generate an atmosphere of social relationship rather than to convey some information. Coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski (1884-1942), from Greek phatos, from phanai (to speak), which also gave us prophet and aphasia (loss of ability to understand language as a result of an injury). When you bump into your neighbor on your way out and say, "How are ya?" you're engaging in phatic communion. The idea is not to inquire your neighbor's state of affairs but simply to create a feeling of shared goodwill. Later, at work, when you discuss weather with someone at the water cooler, it's the same idea.
Pinocchio was made of pine, and in Italian, means “pine head.”
Plastic lawn flamingos outnumber real flamingos in the U.S.A.
Plato taught that matter is eternal and infinite, but without form or order; and that there is an intelligent cause, the author of everything. He maintained that we could grasp truth only so far as we had elevated our mind by thought to its divine essence.
Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, an Indian chief of Virginia ... she rescued Captain John Smith when her father's hand was on the point of killing him. She subsequently married John Rolfe, and changed her name to Rebecca.
Poecilonym ... a synonym for synonym (I bet you thought that "synonym" didn't have a synonym).
Polar bears are left-handed.
Portmanteau (obviously French) ... besides meaning a carrying case for clothes, usually with two compartments, it also means a word formed by simply placing two words next to each other, e.g. lovesick, where you see words blended together in such a way that each participating word contributes a fragment of its whole, both in letters and in meaning to the new word. Lewis Carroll gave them this moniker in his 1872 classic "Through the Looking-Glass". He coined some great portmanteaux (plural), such as "chortle" (chuckle + snort), "slithy" (slimy + lithe), and "jounce" (joll + bounce). Other examples of portmanteaux are "bodacious" (bold + audacious), "infotainment" (information + entertainment, "smog" (smoke + fog), tween (teen + between) like a youngster between middle childhood and adolescence, usually between 8 and 12 years, "vespiary" (Latin 'vespa' meaning wasp + apiary, or a place where bees are kept).
Potato-talk (German,kartoffel gesprach) the chit-chat common in Germany at the five o'clock tea-drinkings ... when the women would take their work inside and talk mainly of food stuff.
Pound for pound (kilo for kilo), hamburgers cost more than new cars.
Preliminary research indicates that 8-10 glasses of water a day could significantly ease back and joint pain for up to 80% of sufferers.
Pro and Con means for and against ... "Con" being a contraction of contra.
Procrustes was a robber of Attica, who placed all who fell into his hands upon an iron bed. If they were longer than the bed, he cut off the redundant part; if shorter, he stretched them till they fitted it. Any attempt to reduce men to one standard, one way of thinking, or one way of acting, is called placing them on Procrustes' bed, and the person making the attempt is called Procrustes.
Prometheus means forethought, and one of his brothers was Epimetheus or afterthought.
Pumpernickel ... The name "pumpernickel" was coined by Napoleon's troops during the Napoleonic Wars. His men complained that although they were often poorly fed, there was always bread for Napoleon's favorite horse, Nicoll. Thus the word "pumpernickel" was coined--pain (bread) pour (for) Nicoll.
Pumpkin ... references to pumpkins date back many centuries. The name "pumpkin" originated from the Greek word "large melon" which is "pepon". Pepon was changed by the French into "pompon". The English changed "pompon" to "pumpion". American colonists changed "pumpion" into "pumpkin"

We continue with our trivia …Seven More Pages… does all this really matter?
To return to the ... Navigator ... click right here.