# Snapple "Real facts" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280 "2005-08-30T17:03:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![auRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@auRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/auRa)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/21 "2005-08-30T18:44:27Z")
“#140 Holland is the only country with a national dog” Upon googling the Finnish translation of “national dog”, “kansalliskoira” (because googling “national dog” got me all sorts of national dog shows, dog weeks etc. and I didn’t feel like going through 13 pages of info), I find, among others, that \*the national dog of Finland is the Finnish spitz \*the Mastin Español is the national dog of Spain \*Macedonia’s national dog is the Sarplaninac \*the St. Bernard is the national dog of Switzerland. Also, I find that Holland is not the name of the country; rather, it is the Netherlands. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/22 "2005-08-30T18:44:30Z")
Some of the items just recycled nonsense (e.g., the infamous “duck’s quack” item). Others sound to me like they’re quoted from some “Book of Curious Facts” of perhaps 50 years ago. for instance: > [@](#): > > #74 You share your birthday with 9 million others in the world That implies a world population of only 3 point something billion. Or: > [@](#): > > #91 There are more telephones than people in Washington D.C. I imagine that would be true of any metropolitan city now; but a few decades ago it would be more remarkable. Some, like > [@](#): > > #77 No piece of paper can be folded more then 7 times are just patently stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/23 "2005-08-30T19:19:41Z")
Thank you, **Ponder Stibbons**. Urge to kill . . . fading . . . fading . . . ---
**Author:** ![Podkayne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/edb3f5/32.png) [@Podkayne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Podkayne)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/24 "2005-08-30T19:21:29Z")
Oh, and \*\*iamthewalrus(:3= \*\*, too. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/25 "2005-08-30T19:23:53Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] Some, like > [@](#): > > #77 No piece of paper can be folded more then 7 times > [\quote]are just patently stupid. Already addressed earlier but this is a sloppy one. Should be folded in half. Try to fold a piece of paper in half, then again with the new fold perpendicular to the previous, over and over again. ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/26 "2005-08-30T19:39:47Z")
[quote] #28 Chewing gum while peeling onions will prevent you from crying [/quote Not true. You cry because the sulphur compounds in onions make sulphuric acid. It gets into your eyes two ways. One, it hits them directly in the air, and two, you breath it in. How does chewing gum stop either of these? > [@](#): > > #44 The bullfrog is the only animal that never sleeps It just seems false to me, but I couldn’t find any info on it. [quote] #173 Chinese is the most spoken language in the world [/quote Misleading. There are many dialects of Chinese that are very different from one another. Someone who speaks Mandarin will have a hard time talking to someone who speaks Cantonese. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/27 "2005-08-30T19:42:20Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > The first vacuum existed long before horses existed, or indeed the Earth existed. Do they mean the first vacuum cleaner? Yup, the first vacuum cleaners were indeed horse-drawn; they went from house to house and cleaned them out via long hoses fed through the windows. Here’s a [picture](http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10186627&wwwflag=2&imagepos=8) of a very early one. I really can’t bring myself to be pedantic enough to fault them for using “vacuum” to mean “vacuum cleaner”; certainly, that’s what the vast majority of Americans associate with the word. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/28 "2005-08-30T19:42:37Z")
[QUOTE=CookingWithGas] > [@Baldwin](#): > > Try to fold a piece of paper in half, then again with the new fold perpendicular to the previous, over and over again. Indeed. I just tried it with a sheet of ordinary office paper and was unable to get past fold #6. If the sheet were larger than 8.5 x 11 inches, you might, maybe, be able to reach 7. You’d need special extra thin paper — like onion-skin or origami paper — to go any higher than 7 foldings. Even then, I doubt you could go higher than 10. (It seems to me I once tried this very thing years ago, folding origami paper in half over and over, and couldn’t go past 9 or 10.) ---
**Author:** ![spinky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@spinky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinky)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/29 "2005-08-30T19:45:58Z")
Has anyone verified that these are actually from Snapple bottle caps? Not that I’d be surprised if they were, but I’d at least expect them to have culled out duplicates (e.g. #50 and #129, as pointed out already). In my glance at the list, I noticed #70, which was probably found floating around on the internet as computer lore: Linus Torvalds, when writing the linux kernel, created a unit of time called a “jiffy”, which was defined to be 1/100th of a second on the x86 architecture, but it can vary on other architectures. It’s not a standard unit of time. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/30 "2005-08-30T19:54:56Z")
> [@ntucker](#): > > Has anyone verified that these are actually from Snapple bottle caps? Not that I’d be surprised if they were, but I’d at least expect them to have culled out duplicates (e.g. #50 and #129, as pointed out already). I looked at a few of them and they matched up. You too can use the goofy flash animation fun fact generator at [www.snapple.com](http://www.snapple.com). ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/31 "2005-08-30T19:56:30Z")
#155 In 1926, the first outdoor mini-golf courses were built on rooftops in NYC The first minature golf course was built in Tennesse in 1922 by Garnet Carter. The oldest course still in operation is in Rochester NY, and has been open since 1929. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/32 "2005-08-30T19:57:10Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > Not true. You cry because the sulphur compounds in onions make sulphuric acid. It gets into your eyes two ways. One, it hits them directly in the air, and two, you breath it in. How does chewing gum stop either of these? I’ve never tried this personally, but [there’s](http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/4400#102149) [plenty](http://forum.epicurean.com/webbbs/config.pl?read=7306) of [anecdotal](http://www.ehow.com/tips_13796.html) [evidence](http://www.gardenersnet.com/vegetable/onion.htm) out there for it. Certainly chewing gum affects your breathing patterns, and that would change the second factor. Look, folks, I’m all for fighting ignorance, but let’s not fight fire with fire here, OK? Stick to stuff you know to be false and/or misleading. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/33 "2005-08-30T19:59:17Z")
I think Snapple has mislabeled this product. These obviously are not “real” facts. These are imitation diet facts. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/34 "2005-08-30T20:12:05Z")
> [@iamthewalrus(:3=](#): > > I’d guess that it’s the only place where you can see the sun rise over the _Pacific_ and set over the _Atlantic_. If you count the bay that the Panama canal connects to at the northern end as the Atlantic, then there is an east-west span of maybe 40 km. On a hill in the middle on a clear day, you probably could see that. The [Wikipedia map](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/Panamamap.png) I was using for this. > [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > Beaten to it by the walrus!!! Darn you, iamthewalrus(:3=!!! > > Hey, at least I had the decency to give him a chance to go back and figure it out himself. :smack: Just call me mister reading comprehension. > [@Chronos](#): > > And I suspect that there was some cross-talk between numbers 151 and 152… The fastest tennis serve and the fastest bicyclist were the exact same speed? And 154 mph sounds awfully fast for a bike… Isn’t the record somewhere in the 60s? This one is accurate. I actually did a ride with the guy who holds the record. He was drafting a very fast car, but he was turning the pedals himself. (It was at the Southern California Bike Expo fun ride a few years back. Every year they bring a “celebrity” from the bike world to be the guest leader. One year it was this guy. I asked him just how the hell he did it and he told me it was all drafting after about 50MPH. Oh and GREAT BIG GEARS) ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/35 "2005-08-30T20:22:43Z")
#171 The most sensetive parts of the body are the mouth and the fingertips Whoever wrote this one apparently hasn’t discovered their genitals yet. 🙂 #109 Smelling apples and/or bananas can help you lose weight This one made me laugh, but Google turned up a [magazine article](http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0846/is_10_23/ai_n6092122) that cites a scientific study. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/36 "2005-08-30T20:59:48Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > :smack: Just call me mister reading comprehension. > > This one is accurate. I actually did a ride with the guy who holds the record. He was drafting a very fast car, but he was turning the pedals himself. (It was at the Southern California Bike Expo fun ride a few years back. Every year they bring a “celebrity” from the bike world to be the guest leader. One year it was this guy. I asked him just how the hell he did it and he told me it was all drafting after about 50MPH. Oh and GREAT BIG GEARS) [About bicycle drafting](http://www.canosoarus.com/08LSRbicycle/LSR%20Bike01.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Catalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@Catalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catalyst)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/37 "2005-08-30T21:09:23Z")
[QUOTE=bouv] > [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > #173 Chinese is the most spoken language in the world > > Misleading. There are many dialects of Chinese that are very different from one another. Someone who speaks Mandarin will have a hard time talking to someone who speaks Cantonese. Even calling them dialects is misleading; my understanding is that they are more properly a group of related languages that share a writing system. That said, Mandarin _does_ have the most native speakers of any language in the world ([cite](http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/xx.html#People); scroll down a bit). When you include non-native speakers, things get a bit trickier. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/38 "2005-08-30T21:45:30Z")
The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows 'cause they fell off. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/39 "2005-08-30T21:49:11Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > {QUOTE]#138 Hawaii is the only U.S. state that grows coffee > > #139 Hawaii is the only state with one school district Noting the lack of “U.S.” before “state” in #139, I would just point out that New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia are each only one school district. (Even if the term “school district” is not used in Australia.) [/QUOTE] Depends what you mean by district, each county is considered its own district, but since we have a centralized school system… ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2005, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280/40 "2005-08-30T22:07:32Z")
I wrote to them to report a couple of their mistakes, and was dismissed. The response said they “try to” check their facts and that’s that. Bogus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snapple-real-facts/319280.md?page=3)