The toothbrush was invented in Alabama.
The proof? If it had been invented anywhere else, it would be called a teethbrush.
SDMB Mods have done such a great job cracking down on real problems that they are now called upon to handle cases of poor grammar, misspellings, and double-posts.
Persian carpets are spun from the hairballs coughed up by Persian cats. The time spent in the animals’ stomach toughens the fibres to the point that they can be woven into a durable yet beautiful fabric.
Steel is edible.
Isaac Newton invented thirteen new types of cheese, but which of the modern English cheeses they actually are is a closely-guarded secret.
In Wales, it is illegal for two virgins to marry. A wedding ceremony in Aberystwyth only last week had to be abandoned on these very grounds.
The machine that draws the UK national lottery does not select six balls (plus a bonus ball) at random. A hidden computer processes that week’s entries and calculates which set of numbers will result in the lowest total payout according to the published rules. The rest is down to electronics. Strangely, paying out the big prizes doesn’t matter: the real profit lies in minimising the number of fixed £10 payouts.
All of Charles Dickens’s novels were based on unpublished plays by William Shakespeare, of whom Dickens was a lineal (though illegitimate) descendant.
Although a Killer Zombie cocktail can render you riotously drunk, it never afflicts the drinker with a hangover.
While the Queen of England is dining, the first person presenting himself or herself at the kitchen door of whichever residence she is occupying is entitled to request a free meal. However, directly Her Majesty arises from the table any uneaten or unfinished courses must be packed and taken away, not eaten on the premises. These are packed in valuable 18th-century wooden boxes originally the property of Queen Anne, which a designated member of the Royal Household will collect discreetly within twelve hours.
Under the Laws of Cricket, it is legal for a kangaroo to deputise for an ill member of the away side in any match taking place in Australia, provided he has not already begun his innings.
Good news! At an international mathematics conference just last week, the assembly voted to eliminate the number wisserteen, because “it was a constant source of argument and friction within the academic community.”
The same conference also eliminated the number 13 because it was so unlucky.
Similar reasoning was used by scientists when they voted out Pluto from being a planet in 2006. It wasn’t that it is too small (Pluto is almost three times the size of Mercury after all) or that is too far away (Uranus is farther away in oddly numbered years). The winning arguments were based on political philosophy. Pluto comes from ancient Greek and gives us terms like ‘Plutocracy’ (i.e. rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth). Astronomy is well known to be the biggest stronghold of Marxist thinking in academia. They believed Pluto should be discredited based strictly on its offensive name. Scientists in related fields objected but the results stood to the shock of elementary school children all over the world.
I thought Pluto, being the least popular Disney character, was more or less “voted off the island” because of that.
Thanks! Ignorance fought!
People in 2012 still believed Einstein was right.
This is what happens when the popular press reports on academic matters. They did NOT eliminate it, the simply demoted it to a dwarf number, similar to what they did to Pluto when they demoted it to a dwarf planet.
Somebody better clarify the relationship between Pluto and wisserteen.
The internet domain “straightdope.com” was originally registered by Tommy Chong and hosted a forum for heterosexual pot smokers (straight dope, get it?). Members discussed pot and hot women.
The Chicago Reader brought a trademark suit against Chong which led to a long court battle including a court room incident where Cecil Adams was dragged out of the room by a bailiff kicking and screaming “give me straightdope.com or give me death!” and “Truth? You can’t handle the truth!”
The case eventually ended up before SCOTUS who ruled in favor of The Chicago Reader. The majority opinion included the statement “Cheech was funnier”. The dissent argued “No way, Tommy’s the best!”
Cecil Adams has been tried for murder 6 times after people that insulted him online disappeared. Each time, he’s been found not guilty due to a lack of evidence. The only body parts ever recovered were two anuses found in storm drains in Cecil’s neighborhood.
davidm and Boyo Jim reported missing!
American money will no longer contain the words " In God We Trust " because Americans are now all atheists.
America’s new cash motto will be, “In Ath We Trust.”
Thank you Boyo Jim. tThe reason will be the jobs program for the Republicans.
The sound of a cat’s hiss is actually originated from a symbiotic nematode living in a cat’s throat.
Enough cats purring in the same frequency can cause detectible earthquakes.
It has been proven that negative wisserteen is the only negative number whose square root is a real number. However, every mathematician who has tried to calculate that number has gone screamingly insane.
A 1991 attempt using the most advanced super-computer of the day produced only the enigmatic result “BOB” before the machine caught fire and exploded killing several of the attending scientists. No further attempts using artificial intelligence have been undertaken.
Because “BOB” was rendered in all capital letters, there have been endless debates over whether it should be construed as a proper noun or a verb. A minority of scientists (specifically; bald, male, tone-deaf Armenians) believe that “BOB” was the computers attempt to communicate the number 808 or a number beginning with those digits, but mainstream scientists have called this position “Poopyheadedness” or “Anti-BOBism.”
The so-called “Lost Pyramid of Giza” is a square plot of land discovered by archaeologists in 1978 that was leveled in apparent preparation for the construction of another pyramid. But no other artifacts or records have been found and so nothing further is known about it.
Another school of archaeologists have term the site “the lost parking lot of Giza”, contending that early Egyptians used primitive foot-powered personal vehicles. A little known piece of TV trivia is that the animations of autos in the cartoon series The Flintstones were based on Egyptian renderings found at the Giza site.
The modern modifiable office workspace was first proposed by Quint Bickel, a mid-level manager at a major banking firm. The fabric covered walls and dull colors gave workers a false sense of privacy that made them more productive but let him keep tabs on what they were doing.
However, due to an unfortunate spelling error, the Q. Bickel Workstation was never credited to him.