Strance 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.”

• 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.

• Those who study such things report that the average lifespan of a tree in the metropolis of New York City is only seven years.

• In all likelihood, you’ve never run across a moirologist — in fact, they probably don’t even exist in the United States today. However, professional mourners — which is what moirologists are — have a long history, dating back to ancient Greece. Even as recently as the early 1900s, there was a report of a moirologists’ strike in Paris.

• 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.

• An 18-year-old Austrian named Helmut Mezer got his driver’s license and a new BMW with the license plate DEAD1. One week later, with Mezer behind the wheel, the car skidded around a curve at 100 mph, hit an embankment and was thrown 200 feet, landing on its roof in a field and killing Mezer.

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Thought for the Day:

“I’m sick of following my dreams. I’m just going to ask them where they’re going and hook up with them later.” — Mitch Hedberg