# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/361 "2020-05-29T22:07:41Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > My fellow typesetters and I, back in the days of yore, referred to parentheses as “toenails” and an exclamation point was a “bang.” For ease of communication, way fewer syllables. You probably used the term dingbat before Archie Bunker, too! ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/362 "2020-05-29T22:08:30Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > My fellow typesetters and I, back in the days of yore, referred to parentheses as “toenails” and an exclamation point was a “bang.” For ease of communication, way fewer syllables. In college, my fellow programmers referred to the exclamation point as “bang” as well. The command prompt on the computer we used was a “bang” When I graduated, a friend and fellow programmer got me a desk sign that said “!Breezy” (my nickname)… 😛 In unix, \*\*\< \*\*and **\>** are sometimes referred to as “suck” and “blow” respectively, because of what they do on the command line. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/363 "2020-05-30T01:45:43Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Mark Waugh should have switched to ice hockey. The NHL then would have have had two players with the same last name, but with no letters in common: Mark Waugh and Patrick Roy, pronounced the same. How the _fmeep_ do you make “Roy” and “Waugh” sound the same? [Patrick Roy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Roy) would have used the French pronunciation of “Roy”, [ʁwa], and while “Waugh” is one of those horrible ambiguous English spellings with a thousand pronunciations, none of them sound like [ʁwa]. Though YouTube seems to indicate that “Waugh” is pronounced like “wa”. So close-ish and kind of rhyming, but not the same. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/364 "2020-05-30T02:17:43Z")
Depending on who you ask, Ohio was not a state until 1953 instead of 1803. The idea is Congress screwed up admitting Ohio in 1803. When they “fixed” that in 1953 they made Ohio a state retroactive to 1803. ---
**Author:** ![Bullitt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bullitt/32/5725_2.png) [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/365 "2020-05-30T02:33:09Z")
Australia and Antarctica each span 9 time zones. Russia and the United States, with their various territories, each span 11 time zones. But the country that spans the most time zones, with its territories, is France — 12 time zones. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/366 "2020-05-30T14:29:07Z")
If you like statistics, the Harper’s Magazine “Index” is often interesting. (If you click on the link, when you mouse over it will show you where it got the number. I copied a few to show a sample below and it included sources) > [@](#): > > Factor by which Google searches for “bidet” increased in March : 7 > June 2020 • Source: Google (NYC) > By which searches for “bread recipes” increased : 3.3 > June 2020 • Source: Google (NYC) > Percentage of Americans who say they would spend most of a two-week quarantine learning a new skill : 3 > June 2020 • Source: YouGov > Who say they would spend most of it watching television or movies : 35 > June 2020 • Source: YouGov > **[Index Archive](https://harpers.org/harpers-index/)** ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/367 "2020-05-30T15:18:43Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Depending on who you ask, Ohio was not a state until 1953 instead of 1803. The idea is Congress screwed up admitting Ohio in 1803. When they “fixed” that in 1953 they made Ohio a state retroactive to 1803. One of the arguments tax resisters employed was based on that. Ohio was one of the states ratifying the 16th amendment allowing Federal income tax and, since this was in 1911, it wasn’t a ‘real’ state yet. Of course, six more states ratified the amendment after the requisite 36 states was reached, three of them within a day of Delaware’s ratification – the one that put it over the top – the last three within a month,\* so it would have passed even without Ohio. Only four states rejected ratification\* and two reached no decision at all. - New Hampshire rejected ratification, then passed it five days later, both actions after Delaware so it was all moot anyway. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/368 "2020-05-30T16:27:14Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > You probably used the term dingbat before Archie Bunker, too! Oh yes. And one of our favorite in-jokes was “Pass me an umlaut.” Guess you had to be there… ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/369 "2020-05-30T18:23:53Z")
> [@Bullitt](#): > > Australia and Antarctica each span 9 time zones. In case you’re wondering, like I did, why Antarctica doesn’t span 24 time zones, it’s because there are no official time zones there, but there are nine major research stations which each use the local time most convenient for them. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/370 "2020-05-30T18:59:51Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/371 "2020-05-30T19:05:18Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > How the _fmeep_ do you make “Roy” and “Waugh” sound the same? [Patrick Roy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Roy) would have used the French pronunciation of “Roy”, [wa], and while “Waugh” is one of those horrible ambiguous English spellings with a thousand pronunciations, none of them sound like [wa]. Though YouTube seems to indicate that “Waugh” is pronounced like “wa”. So close-ish and kind of rhyming, but not the same. When pronounced farther back in the mouth as it is in French, “R” does sound quite a bit like “W”. Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2020, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/372 "2020-05-31T13:25:32Z")
Plymouth, Montserrat is a ghost town but still legally the capital of the country. It was abandoned because a volcano eruption destroyed most of it. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/373 "2020-06-01T13:53:45Z")
25% of the US trade with Canada goes over the **privately owned(!)** [Ambassador Bridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambassador_Bridge). ---
**Author:** ![Biotop](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/biotop/32/321_2.png) [@Biotop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biotop)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/374 "2020-06-01T16:33:15Z")
On average, Mercury is the closest planet to Earth and is indeed the closest planet to any other planet in our solar system. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/375 "2020-06-01T16:39:31Z")
> [@Biotop](#): > > On average, Mercury is the closest planet to Earth and is indeed the closest planet to any other planet in our solar system. I assume this is because Mercury is always very close to the center of the solar system while the other planets are spread far apart in their orbits. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/376 "2020-06-01T17:11:30Z")
> [@Zyada](#): > > In college, my fellow programmers referred to the exclamation point as “bang” as well. The command prompt on the computer we used was a “bang” In Unix/Linux systems, a file that starts with the two characters #! is treated specially when it is executed. This sequence “hash exclamation-point” is often pronounced “shebang”, which I think is wonderful. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/377 "2020-06-01T17:36:36Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I assume this is because Mercury is always very close to the center of the solar system while the other planets are spread far apart in their orbits. And Venus and Mars, with orbits closer to Earth, spend a lot of time on the ‘other’ side of the sun, while Mercury, on average, stays pretty close to it. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/378 "2020-06-01T21:49:57Z")
The most valuable banknote issued by any country? A $10,000 note issued by Singapore and Brunei, valued at about $7100 USD (as of today). > **[Singapore and Brunei issue joint banknote - Wikinews, the free news source](https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Singapore_and_Brunei_issue_joint_banknote)** > [@](#): > > In 2014, Singapore the mammoth S$10,000 banknote, one of the world’s largest value banknotes, citing “risks associated with large value cash transactions." Although it is no longer being printed, the S$10,000, which is worth around US$7,400, remains in circulation and continues to be accepted as legitimate legal tender. But once deposited in the banking system, all S$10,000 notes will be returned to the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)—the institution responsible for issuing notes and setting monetary policy—to be destroyed. > **[The Largest Value Banknotes in the World](https://nomadcapitalist.com/finance/largest-value-banknotes-world/)** > > Do you know what are largest value banknotes in the world? Let’s take a look. Apparently Brunei plans to continue printing it. 141 of those babies would be worth about $1M USD. ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/379 "2020-06-01T22:13:48Z")
On the other end of the spectrum, while I don’t know if it’s the least valuable banknote ever issued, in the 1920s Canada issued [25¢ banknotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawn_Canadian_banknotes). Although it’s no longer in the current version of that page, when I first stumbled across that [page](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Withdrawn_Canadian_banknotes&oldid=249691626)\* it stated they were issued “in an effort to combat an influx of lesser-valued American currency”. \*I have no idea what Wikipedia rabbit hole brought me to Withdrawn Canadian Banknotes. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2020, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/380 "2020-06-01T22:29:02Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > The most valuable banknote issued by any country? A $10,000 note issued by Singapore and Brunei, valued at about $7100 USD (as of today). > > [Singapore and Brunei issue joint banknote - Wikinews, the free news source](https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Singapore_and_Brunei_issue_joint_banknote) > > [The Largest Value Banknotes in the World](https://nomadcapitalist.com/2018/02/02/largest-value-banknotes-world/) > > Apparently Brunei plans to continue printing it. 141 of those babies would be worth about $1M USD. > [@WildaBeast](#): > > On the other end of the spectrum, while I don’t know if it’s the least valuable banknote ever issued, in the 1920s Canada issued [25¢ banknotes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawn_Canadian_banknotes). Although it’s no longer in the current version of that page, when I first stumbled across that [page](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Withdrawn_Canadian_banknotes&oldid=249691626)\* it stated they were issued “in an effort to combat an influx of lesser-valued American currency”. > > \*I have no idea what Wikipedia rabbit hole brought me to Withdrawn Canadian Banknotes. OTOH, the coin with the highest nominal value of all time was a one billiard mark coin. Of course that was during the [hyperinflation of 1923 in Germany](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic). From German wiki: > [@wiki](#): > > Die Notmünze mit dem höchsten Nominalwert aller Zeiten, das 1-Billion-Mark-Stück der Provinz Westfalen von 1923,[6] die durch die Hyperinflation zum geplanten Ausgebetermin bereits entwertet war,… > > The emergency coin with the highest nonimal value of all time, the 1-billiard-mark-coin from the province of Westphalia, [was already devalued] by the hyperinflation at the date of release,… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=20)