# 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:** 192
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3829 "2022-02-28T20:39:19Z")
Has there been a second recorded use? ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3830 "2022-02-28T20:39:51Z")
Clearly here, just now. ---
**Author:** ![74westy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/74westy/32/3950_2.png) [@74westy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/74westy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3831 "2022-02-28T20:41:55Z")
I meant third. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Bicycle\_Bill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bicycle_bill/32/6208_2.png) [@Bicycle\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bicycle_Bill)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3832 "2022-02-28T21:56:33Z")
St. Urho’s Day, which is celebrated on March 16th, owes its existence to the near-universal celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, and the legend of St. Patrick having driven all the snakes out of Ireland. Sometime in the middle 1950s, Finnish-Americans in Northern Minnesota created the fictional St. Urho and promulgated the ‘legend’ of the saint driving the grasshoppers out of Finland. Statues of the saint usually depict him with a giant grasshopper impaled on the tines of a pitchfork. [![](https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/2769001197_bc115c9d3f.jpg) ](https://farm4.static.flickr.com/3184/2769001197_bc115c9d3f.jpg) _(statue of St. Urgo erected in Menahga, MN)_ _ **-“BB”-** _ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3833 "2022-02-28T22:30:28Z")
> [@Bicycle\_Bill](#): > > St. Urho’s Day, which is celebrated on March 16th, owes its existence to the near-universal celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, and the legend of St. Patrick having driven all the snakes out of Ireland. Sometime in the middle 1950s, Finnish-Americans in Northern Minnesota created the fictional St. Urho and promulgated the ‘legend’ of the saint driving the grasshoppers out of Finland. Statues of the saint usually depict him with a giant grasshopper impaled on the tines of a pitchfork. Heard about him and his statue. They sure coulda used him in Utah during Pioneer days. He’s prettier than a seagull > **[Seagull Monument](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_Monument)** > > .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct,.mw-parser-output .geo-inline-hidden{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}40°46â€Č11″N 111°53â€Č34″Wï»ż / ï»ż40.76972°N 111.89278°Wï»ż / 40.76972; -111.89278 > The Seagull Monument is a small monument situated immediately in front of the Salt Lake Assembly Hall on Temple Square, in Salt Lak... ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3834 "2022-02-28T22:42:13Z")
> [@Bicycle\_Bill](#): > > Finnish-Americans in Northern Minnesota created the fictional St. Urho and promulgated the ‘legend’ of the saint driving the grasshoppers out of Finland. There’s a story that they placed it the day before Syttende Mai but they couldn’t rouse the staid Norwegian immigrants into competition, so they moved it to its current date because the Irish were willing to play along. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3835 "2022-02-28T22:53:23Z")
The well-known “Carol of the Bells” had a very different origin, welcoming spring. It’s Ukrainian in origin. ([‘Carol of the Bells’ wasn’t originally a Christmas song | Rice News | News and Media Relations | Rice University](https://news.rice.edu/news/2004/carol-bells-wasnt-originally-christmas-song)) ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3836 "2022-02-28T23:36:09Z")
On a similar note\*, the melody of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” was written by Felix Mendelssohn as part of a cantata praising Johann Gutenberg and the invention (in Europe, anyway) of the printing press. \* For once, no pun intended. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2022, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3837 "2022-02-28T23:48:03Z")
On a related note, I recently read _On the Banks of Plum Creek_ where a swarm of grasshoppers destroyed the Ingalls’ crops two years running. I wondered why we didn’t have those swarms anymore so I looked it up and found out that the “grasshoppers” were [Rocky Mountain Locusts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocky_Mountain_locust) and they went extinct in 1902. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3838 "2022-03-01T00:00:48Z")
Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, AA Milne, the son of Alfred Tennyson and numerous others, all played on the same amateur cricket team. And by all accounts they were terrible. It was named ‘Allahakbarries’. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3839 "2022-03-01T00:43:14Z")
Not a fact, but something irresistable. The Only Known Photograph of Schroedinger’s Cat > ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3840 "2022-03-01T00:48:03Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, PG Wodehouse, AA Milne, the son of Alfred Tennyson and numerous others, all played on the same amateur cricket team. And by all accounts they were terrible. It was named ‘Allahakbarries’. Sounds like the sports version of the [Rock Bottom Remainders.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Bottom_Remainders) ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3841 "2022-03-01T01:41:21Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > The Seinfeld episode “The Label Maker” (the “Risk” episode) is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first recorded use of the word “regifter.” Wouldn’t be surprised if Seinfeld coined a number of words, given its unspoken goal of codifying previously unspoken ‘rules’
 
 like “Double-Dipping”. Nobody’d really brought it to light before, let alone made a rule against it, or a term for it. I mean, it took a show about the minutiae of modern culture to even bother with it. Oh, and other shows were full of likeable protagonists, so none of them would dip a bitten chip in the communal bowl again. I mean, Andy Griffith? Mary Tyler Moore? Jennifer Aniston? Too “nice”. Now, anyone on “Always Sunny” would, but wasn’t that after Seinfeld? (And perhaps informed by it?) ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3842 "2022-03-01T02:20:23Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > On a related note, I recently read _On the Banks of Plum Creek_ where a swarm of grasshoppers destroyed the Ingalls’ crops two years running. I wondered why we didn’t have those swarms anymore so I looked it up and found out that the “grasshoppers” were [Rocky Mountain Locusts] and they went extinct in 1902. I’m amazed that it was actually possible to drive them into extinction; usually severely destructive insect pests can be reduced but not eliminated, even with modern methods. Apparently grasshopper infestations remained a problem nonetheless: [![](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/big-hopper.jpg) ](https://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/big-hopper.jpg) ---
**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:** [March 1, 2022, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3843 "2022-03-01T02:26:07Z")
> [@Bicycle\_Bill](#): > > Sometime in the middle 1950s, Finnish-Americans in Northern Minnesota created the fictional St. Urho and promulgated the ‘legend’ of the saint driving the grasshoppers out of Finland. In Finland, Minnesota: > **[Tree Trunk St. Urho, Finland, Minnesota](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/11467)** > > 18 feet high, carved from a single tree, open-mouthed St. Urho shouts the grasshoppers out of Finland and into Lake Superior. > The joke among locals is that Urho stands in the town triangle because Finland is too small to have a town square. Also the song
 [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/QcXrpVJdcJQ/maxresdefault.jpg "St Urho's Day Polka") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcXrpVJdcJQ) ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3844 "2022-03-01T14:44:37Z")
In Colorado, the [Failure Scholarship](https://www.commercecitysentinel.com/stories/failure-award-scholarship-applications-being-accepted,389876) is awarded to a young artist who tried something new and it did not work out at all. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2022, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3845 "2022-03-01T16:51:41Z")
> [@digs](#): > > 
 like “Double-Dipping”. Nobody’d really brought it to light before, let alone made a rule against it, or a term for it. I mean, it took a show about the minutiae of modern culture to even bother with it. Hmmm 
 I could swear we used the term or something similar when I was in grammar school in the 80s (I started high school in the fall of '89.) I see it does show up on lists of terms Seinfeld created or popularized, but I see counter-arguments that people have known the term as far back as the 50s. I certainly don’t trust my memories alone, but I do remember being castigated as a kid for dipping the same chip twice before Seinfeld apparently made it a thing. ETA: So far as I can find, though, the term’s first notable appearance is in that Seinfeld episode, so perhaps we didn’t use that term until late (maybe just said “don’t dip twice”), but I could swear the idea of not doing that was around. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3846 "2022-03-01T17:18:44Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I certainly don’t trust my memories alone, but I do remember being castigated as a kid for dipping the same chip twice before Seinfeld apparently made it a thing. I don’t trust memories much, either, but I don’t think there was any objection to double dipping when I was in high school (c1980). This was a time when nobody worried about passing a joint or a bottle around a circle of half a dozen or more kids, so I don’t think anybody was too concerned about someone else’s spit in the onion dip. ---
**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:** [March 1, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3847 "2022-03-01T17:31:51Z")
It is possible I am completely making up memories. I have a memory of a friend telling me it was gross when I did it at his house, and he moved away in 1988, but I may be conflating him with another friend a few years later. Some of us were also squicked out by things like “backwash” or using the same spoon as someone else in the 80s, so I don’t see dipping twice as being that much different. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2022, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/3848 "2022-03-01T19:02:26Z")
I don’t speak any of the Slavic languages, but my ear still picks up things. We were watching the documentary “Winter on Fire”, which is about the 2014-15 Ukraine revolution. When the people were chanting, I realized that their name for their country is four syllables. While the West says “YOU-crane or u-CRANE”, native speakers say something like “oo-cra-NEE-eh”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=191) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=193)