does anyone have any weird facts?

[LemonyBrainAid]

Originally Posted by Zeph

Purple = Turtle
Silver = Pilfer

maybe?

Unfortunately, AFAIK, they are only half-rhymes.

[Hom3r]

A large percentage of U.S. paper currency is contaminated with traces of cocaine

The correct answer is true. You thought this was just an urban legend, didn't you? In fact, a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that 79 percent of the currency tested bore minute traces of cocaine.
This does not imply that the majority of our currency has been directly handled by drug dealers or users, however. Cocaine is a very fine powder that is easily transferred from one bill to another, and can spread through ATMs and money-counting machines
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Chocolate is poisoniuos to dogs
Chocolate contains a substance called theobromine (a compound related to caffeine), which can sicken and kill family pets. Three factors determine how toxic the sweet stuff will be to a particular animal: the type of chocolate, the size of the animal and the amount of chocolate ingested. The most dangerous confections are unsweetened baker's chocolate and powdered cocoa, the least, white chocolate.
Symptoms of theobromine poisoning include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle tremors, restlessness and increased urination. In severe cases, cardiac arrhythmia and seizures can result. The possibility that an animal will kill itself with chocolate is very low. More likely it will get a nasty tummy ache. In any case, it is still prudent to keep all chocolate far away from pets.
__________________

A farmer thought he was just putting dinner on the table when he picked up an axe and beheaded one of his chickens. Turned out he had a legend on his hands after the now headless rooster bobbed and weaved back to the henhouse and lived for 18 more months †� without a head
Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colo., did indeed own the world's only surviving headless chicken, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. He wielded the infamous axe in September 1945, unaware that he and his rooster would go down in history.
The animal, now dubbed Mike and celebrated with a festival, Web sites and various magazine articles, apparently survived because the blade missed his jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. The axe blow landed high enough that most of the chicken's brain stem and one ear remained intact. Olsen kept the animal fed and watered by inserting an eyedropper directly into his gullet. Eighteen months after the chicken lost his head he choked to death in a motel room. Residents of Fruita remember Mike as "a big fat chicken who didn't know he didn't have a head."
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http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/my...quiz/quiz.html

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Scarlett

and some facts...

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

False: http://www.snopes.com/military/statue.htm

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

The last one is false:

As revealed on QI: http://www.qi.com/

Purple, contrary to assertions on innumerable websites, has two English words that rhyme with it. These are 'hirple' and 'curple'. Hirple means to hobble along with one leg dragging behind the other, half way between a walk and a crawl. Curples are the leather straps passed under the tails of horses.

http://b3ta.com/questions/uselessinformation/page9/

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the South Pacific.

That's one *possible* explanation see:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/articles/nineyards.htm

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

The word originates in the 18th century, it was subsequently applied to one "tick" of the system timer interrupt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiffy

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

False, there was never any such law.

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-rul1.htm

[Hom3r]

Spike Milligan has engraved on his tombstone "I told you I was ill"

Tea Bags were invented by an American named Thomas Sullivan in 1908

[AndrewJ]

Lada's are able to do 100mph.

Originally Posted by Graham

False: http://www.snopes.com/military/statue.htm

We had that before in the "Did you know" thread Graham, and I think the thought was it applied in the UK, but not over the pond in the USA, it would be interesting to know the actual facts about this, but maybe you are correct.

[AndrewJ]

4x4's driven by mothers are seen off road.








All be it in town on the pavement.

[Sipowicz]

Originally Posted by david.ewles

Spike Milligan has engraved on his tombstone "I told you I was ill"

But not in English! The Gaelic translation is in my sig .

[Theodoric]

Originally Posted by yesman

Tea Bags were invented by an American named Thomas Sullivan in 1908

Benny Hill once defined a Hebrew as a male teabag.

[makikomi]

Ant have five noses.

An octopus has three hearts.

The skin of a soap bubble is 10,000 times thinner than the breadth of a human hair.

The elephant is the only animal with 4 knees (as in all legs bending like our knees.)

I find that my mind soaks up all sorts of trivia.....

I'd post more but it's boiling hot and my brain isn't coping well with the heat.

[Halcyon]

The weekend of 18th - 19th June 2005 was one of the hottest of the year.

[AndrewJ]

it is sunny in the UK.

[Halcyon]

It is physically impossible
for pigs to look up into the sky.


(Though I guess if you took it and sat it upright then it could).

[daz300]

seven sausage facts ..

(1) the word sausage is derived from the latin word salus, which means something salted .

(2) dick turpin worked as a butcher.

(3) sausages are eaten at 71% of all uk BBQs .

(4) Queen victoria liked sausages but insisted that the meat in them had to be hand chopped rather then minced .

(5) sausages were called bangers during the world war 2 because they exploded when fried, due to the water content.

(6) 90% of british households buy sauasges and 50% buy them once a month .

(7) sausages are mentioned in the homer's odyssey : "these goat sausages sizzing here in the fire"