Things You Should Know But Probably Don't

[sleepyhead]

informative lists, well not all of them are true but thanks anyway.

"a duck's quake doesn't echo even on caves".

[StrongInTheArm]

11. Chocolate affects a dog's heart and nervous system; a few ounces will kill a small sized dog.

This one seems to be possible:

Want to give your dog hyperthermia, muscle tremors, seizures? Put it into a coma? Or simply kill it? If so, feed it chocolate this Christmas - ideally posh dark chocolate containing particularly high levels of theobromine.

Theobromine is a bitter alkaloid of the cocoa plant found in chocolate. Although harmless to humans, it can cause vomiting, diarrhoea, convulsions and even death in animals that digest theobromine slowly, such as dogs. The lethal dosage is between 250 and 500mg per kg of body weight. So if Rover's a chihuahua, that chocolate button will be more toxic than if he were a rottweiler.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2225631,00.html

[dee_el07]

I also knew no.11.. and no.9..

[chicgeek]

Originally Posted by sleepyhead

informative lists, well not all of them are true but thanks anyway.

"a duck's quake doesn't echo even on caves".

That's also a myth. Duck's quacks do in fact echo.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by chicgeek

That's also a myth. Duck's quacks do in fact echo.

I can vouch for this.

Back in my youthful days, when duck love was still frowned upon, I ended up eloping with my duck Suzy to the Polynesian Island of Niue. We lived in a cave there, and Suzy's quacks echoed quite clearly.

Alas, women change the minute you marry them, and we separated in under a year. (Still technically married.)

[potchie]

i like it.. that's true there are a lot of things, we thought we knew. but really not...

[chicgeek]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I can vouch for this.

Back in my youthful days, when duck love was still frowned upon, I ended up eloping with my duck Suzy to the Polynesian Island of Niue. We lived in a cave there, and Suzy's quacks echoed quite clearly.

Alas, women change the minute you marry them, and we separated in under a year. (Still technically married.)

um

[Pretend]

Originally Posted by chicgeek

um

I'm with her...

[Steveorm3l]

This topic is becoming all about hemp now haha

[kristeejo]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I can vouch for this.

Back in my youthful days, when duck love was still frowned upon, I ended up eloping with my duck Suzy to the Polynesian Island of Niue. We lived in a cave there, and Suzy's quacks echoed quite clearly.

Alas, women change the minute you marry them, and we separated in under a year. (Still technically married.)

maybe YOU just couldn't make her echo anymore??

[ewomack]

Research projects!!! Whoo HOOOOO!!!

3. The dot over the letter "I" is called a "tittle".

Pretty much true. I had to look this up at work very discretely.

10. Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine are brother and sister.

True.

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

I've never heard this. It rings of urban legend. Getting a shark to explode in water would be quite a task without explosives.

15. Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine..

Many things were sold as "medicine" in the 19th century. Coca-Cola is one famous example. (it did contain cocaine, but only for a short time, though the official company line is that it did not; "Coca" is the plant that cocaine derives from and "Cola" is the plant that caffeiene derives from, so with a small stretch "Coca-Cola" means "Cocaine Caffiene" No wonder it's so popular!). The "health effects" of many early products (once industrialization got going) was a marketing scheme. Much like "limited edition" or "collectible" is today. Ketchup seems to date back to at least 1727.

16. Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower' because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.

True, as far as I can tell.

18.. Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.

Mostly true: Bronze. The fifteenth Academy Awards were held in March, 1943 and because of the war, the statuettes were made out of plaster rather than the traditional bronze. There was also one wooden Oscar, presented to Edgar Bergen in 1938 for his 'outstanding comic creation' - Charlie McCarthy, his ventriloquist dummy! From here.

20. The name Wendy was made up for the book Peter Pan; there was never a recorded Wendy before!

Not entirely true.

21. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver!

True. Also: month, ninth, pint, wolf, opus, dangerous, marathon, and discombobulate.

22. Leonardo DaVinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa's lips.

Scissors predate DaVinci, though they were often called "shears."

27. The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law, which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

This is often debunked as an urban legend.

[StrongInTheArm]

12. Orcas (killer whales) kill sharks by torpedoing up into the shark's stomach from underneath, causing the shark to explode.

There is the ring of truth in this one. Although most orcas are bigger than normal sharks and hunt in pods, a couple of well placed bites from an orca would be all that is needed against a shark. But...

Killer whales do hunt baby whales. They are no match for a fully grown whale which could out distance them in no time, but if a mother is with a calf she will attempt to protect it by placing herself between calf and attackers. The orcas usually dive, increase speed and ram the calf from underneath. This is done repeatedly until the calf dies from internal injuries, they then eat its tongue and leave the rest.

This behaviour was recorded last year off the coast of Canada I believe by a number of site seeing boats taking tourists to see whales. The attack they witnessed lasted a considerable amount of time. Apparently a several pods of orcas joined forces to attack a mother and calf. While one pod attacked the mother to keep her occupied, another would attack the calf, while yet another rested. They would then swap roles.

It was very traumatic for the tourists watching, but they reported that the mother and calf eventually escaped. Marine experts concluded that the calf and mother did so by getting closer to shore where the depth of water was reduced to less than 60 meters. This meant the orcas could not generate enough speed to attack from underneath and so gave up the attack.

[ewomack]

True enough about Orcas, but the sharks would never "explode." Orcas will also attack baby sea lions and, before eating them, will "play" with them by repeatedly tossing them up in the air. "The Blue Planet" has some rather harrowing footage of this. The poor sea lion was sometimes hurtled up 20 feet or more. No one knows why they do this, but the sea lion was not amused.

[Hahh]

I found this one funny:

7. 315 entries in Webster's 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.