Strange BUT TRUE
It was Canadian journalist, editor and poet Mark Abley who made the following sage observation: “Modern English is the Walmart of languages: convenient, huge, hard to avoid, superficially friendly and devouring all rivals in its eagerness to expand.”
Those who study such things report that the average lifespan of a tree in the metropolis of New York City is only seven years.
On any given day, Google conducts approximately 63,000 searches per second.
The next time you get a chance, you might want to check the pressure of your car’s tires; if they’re not inflated to the correct pressure, you’re contributing to the $9 million in fuel that is wasted due to improper tire pressure, according to the Department of Energy.
The small Central American country of Costa Rica has more species of mammals and birds than are found in all of the contiguous United States and Canada combined.
Robert Wright, journalist, scholar and author of bestselling books about science, is cited as saying: “Like a lawyer, the human brain wants victory, not truth; and, like a lawyer, it is sometimes more admirable for skill than virtue.”
Famously flamboyant country singer and songwriter Dolly Parton once entered a
Dolly Parton look-alike contest … and lost.
The small Asian country of Bhutan, nestled in the mountains between China and India, had no access to TV until 1999.
You’ve doubtless heard of narcolepsy, a medical condition that causes sufferers to sleep excessively — sometimes up to 18 hours a day. You’re probably not familiar with philagrypnia, though. People with this condition — I won’t call them “sufferers” — require only three or four hours of sleep a day. What would you do with all that extra time?
20th-century American humorist and journalist
Don Marquis declared: “Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.”
Kangaroos can reach speeds of up to 44 mph, but they can’t take a single step backward.
In the Shetland Islands you can find a breed of small, hardy cows that eat fish.
Did you ever wonder why the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks — better known as the Elks Lodge — chose that particular animal as its symbol? Other animals were considered and rejected for a variety of reasons: Foxes were thought to be too cunning, beavers too destructive, and bears too coarse and brutal.