# 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:** 487
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9733 "2024-06-18T21:20:00Z")
Hurricanes don’t cross [the ecuator](https://imgur.com/gallery/hurricanes-apparently-dont-cross-equator-CaEqp56): Not the best cite, agreed, but it looks logical. Coriolis would have them change the sense they spin, and that does not happen. First they would have to stop, and then they would have no energy left and they would no longer be hurricanes. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9734 "2024-06-18T22:47:11Z")
Curious about the back-formation, inasmuch as we already know that “pea” is a back-formation of “pease”, an uncountable word (like “water”) that most likely came from the Latin. It seems unlikely that we had “chickpease”. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2024, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9735 "2024-06-18T22:52:10Z")
I’m not sure I understand your objection. Is a pea not the seed that grows in a pod, i.e.: a legume or a pulse? Beans, lentils, garbanzos (chick peas), faves or favas, are they not just peas? ---
**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:** [June 18, 2024, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9736 "2024-06-18T23:57:35Z")
Etymonline is always my go-to [chickpea | Etymology of chickpea by etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/chickpea#:~:text=also%20chick%2Dpea%2C%201712%2C,as%20chihhra%20(German%20Kichererbse)). Apparently it was previously chich-pease ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9737 "2024-06-19T00:13:32Z")
> [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](#): > > a cravat (a precursor of the necktie) The word **cravat** comes to us from **Croatia** , via French > **[Cravat (early) | History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cravat_(early)#History)** > > According to 1828 encyclopedic The art of tying the cravat: demonstrated in sixteen lessons, the Romans were the first to wear knotted kerchiefs around their necks, but the modern version of the cravat (French: la cravate) originated in the 1660s. During the reign of Louis XIV of France, Croatian mercenaries were enlisted in 1660 wearing a necktie called a tour de cou. The traditional Croat military kit aroused Parisian curiosity about the unusual, picturesque scarves distinctively knotted In 16... ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9738 "2024-06-19T00:36:21Z")
Coffee is a fruit. The “beans” are the seeds that are removed from the fruit. ---
**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:** [June 19, 2024, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9739 "2024-06-19T00:47:02Z")
I understand cocoa to be the same. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9740 "2024-06-19T01:17:56Z")
Cacao fruit is significantly different, though. Coffee produces clusters of “cherries”, which each contain two, or sometimes one seeds. Cacao produces large seed pods that hold a lot of seeds (like scores of them). The flesh of cacao fruit also gets used for stuff, including, surprise surprise, booze. Coffee cherries apparently can be brewed into a sort of tea (with caffeine). It seems caffeine is a toxic substance that the plants produce to combat predation, which may explain why these plants are predominantly tropical. As far as the coffee cherry goes, you do not want to read about Kope Luwak, the civet-crap coffee. It is quite expensive – I tried it once and found it meh. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2024, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9741 "2024-06-19T05:35:49Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The flesh of cacao fruit also gets used for stuff, including, surprise surprise, booze. What’s it called? Any idea what it tastes like? ---
**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:** [June 19, 2024, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9742 "2024-06-19T05:45:46Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > What’s it called? Any idea what it tastes like? Here ya go: > **[Chocolate Liqueur: Everything You Need to Know | The Chocolate Professor](https://www.thechocolateprofessor.com/blog/chocolate-liqueur-101)** > > Everything you need to know about chocolate in alcohol form, including the differences between chocolate liqueur, crème de cacao and chocolate liquor. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9743 "2024-06-20T01:35:22Z")
Today I learned that a former professional baseball player named George Spriggs (1937-2020) was the only man to play for both the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues and the Kansas City Royals of Major League Baseball. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9744 "2024-06-20T13:25:59Z")
TIL (ok, last night) that dragonflies migrate like birds every year. > **[Dragonflies Embark on an Epic, Multi-Generational Migration Each Year](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dragonfly-undertakes-epic-multi-generational-migration-each-year-180971190/)** > > Monarch butterflies aren't the only migratory marathoners in North America ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9745 "2024-06-20T18:19:21Z")
Let’s see if I can get this genealogy straight. Hannah Hall, music hall performer, mother of Sydney, married a music hall performer, Charles Chaplin, and took his name. In 1889, they had a son, Charles Chaplin, Jr., who was legally adopted by Charles. However, Charles was a bounder and Hannah soon left him and had a brief fling with another music hall performer, George Dryden Wheeler, known as Leo Dryden. She had a son named George Dryden Wheeler, Jr. Father and son quickly departed. Son grew up to be known as Wheeler Dryden and was eventually reunited with his half-brother and worked on his films. After he moved to America Wheeler married a ballet dancer and had a son named Spencer Charles Dryden. When they moved to L.A. he took the boy around to all the jazz clubs, where he became a proficient drummer. Eventually Spencer was lured by the S.F. rock scene and at the advanced age of 28, he replaced Skip Spence as the drummer for Jefferson Airplane. “Lather” - the 30-year-old boy who didn’t want to grow up - was written by his lover, Grace Slick, presumably about him. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9746 "2024-06-20T19:46:00Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Hannah Hall, music hall performer, mother of Sydney, married a music hall performer, Charles Chaplin, and took his name. In 1889, they had a son, Charles Chaplin, Jr., who was legally adopted by Charles. Why would the elder Charles legally adopt his own son? What am I missing? ---
**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 20, 2024, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9747 "2024-06-20T19:54:30Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Why would the elder Charles legally adopt his own son? What am I missing? He was not the biological father of Charles Chaplin Jr. > [@](#): > > In about 1883, at approximately 18 years, she became involved with Sydney Hawkes (possibly Sidney Hawke), who took her to the South African gold-mining district of Witwatersrand, where, according to the psychiatrist Stephen Weissman in his 2008 book Chaplin: A Life, she was forced into prostitution. [In 1884, pregnant by Hawkes, she returned to London, where she again lived together with Charles Chaplin. In 1885, she gave birth to Sydney, Hawkes’ son,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Chaplin#Early_life) and soon returned to the stage, performing at the Royal Music Hall in the northern French city of Le Havre. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9748 "2024-06-20T20:27:01Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > He was not the biological father of Charles Chaplin Jr. From your Wiki cite: > She married Charles on 22 June 1885 at St John’s Church, Walworth. And > On 16 April 1889, she gave birth to a second son, Charles Spencer Chaplin, now better known as Charlie Chaplin. Appears to me he was the biological father of Charles Chaplin Jr. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2024, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9749 "2024-06-20T20:53:26Z")
Knew I was going to screw up something. Charles Sr. became the legal guardian of Sydney, Hannah’s first son. (@TriPolar Other sources say that Syd’s father is not Hawes but unknown.) He was the legal father of Charles, Jr. ---
**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 20, 2024, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9750 "2024-06-20T21:31:02Z")
My apologies. I read that wrong. Still a question then. But @Exapno_Mapcase cleared it up. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2024, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9751 "2024-06-23T19:30:49Z")
Back to Lewes we go\*. Lewes Priory was founded between 1078 and 1082, and operated more-or-less continuously until it’s dissolution by Henry VIII in November 1537. We were wandering around the remains of the buildings today, including the Monks’ Toilet (12th Century). There, the information board provides two facts which, taken together, intrigued me. > For a time there may have been up to a hundred monks at the Priory. And, regarding the toilets > There were at least 59 cubicles. Say what??? The severe and spartan lifestyle of a medieval monk meant that much of the time many of them, in effect, had their own personal toilet? Or at least there were enough cubicles to do so. [Confirmatory source](https://www.lewespriory.org.uk/monks-toilet-12-century). And that naturally leads on to the question - **why???** Well, the only thing I have been able to find with any sort of explanation is a [website aimed at school children](https://www.lewespriory.org.uk/Monks-at-the-Priory), which says: > At the Priory there were 59 toilet cubicles. The monks only had very short breaks between the church services they had to attend and so it was important that they didn’t have to queue for the loo. Not convinced. j \* - it’s the _seventh_ time I’ve posted something about Lewes in this thread. An endlessly surprising and fascinating place. To my great shame, although we’ve been going there fairly regularly for - oh, 25 years? - we only visited the priory for the first time earlier this year. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2024, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/9752 "2024-06-23T19:46:37Z")
Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry was the first black actor to have a successful film career, to get featured billing in a movie, and to become a millionaire. You might know him better as [Stepin Fetchit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stepin_Fetchit). > Perry played comic-relief roles in a number of films, all based on his character known as the “Laziest Man in the World”. In his personal life, he was highly literate and had a concurrent career writing for The Chicago Defender. He signed a five-year studio contract following his performance in the film, In Old Kentucky (1927). The film’s plot included a romantic connection between Perry and actress Carolynne Snowden,[9] a subplot that was a rarity for black actors appearing in a white film during this era.[10] Perry also starred in Hearts in Dixie (1929), one of the first studio productions to boast a predominantly black cast.[11] > Perry was good friends with fellow comic actor Will Rogers.[4] They appeared together in David Harum (1934), Judge Priest (1934), Steamboat 'Round the Bend (1935), and The County Chairman (1935). > In 1940, Perry temporarily stopped appearing in films, having been frustrated by his unsuccessful attempt to get equal pay and billing with his white costars.[6] He returned in 1945, in part due to financial need, though he only appeared in eight films between 1945 and 1953. He declared bankruptcy in 1947, stating assets of $146.[4] > He found himself in conflict during his career with civil rights leaders who criticized him personally for the film roles that he portrayed. In 1968, CBS aired the hour-long documentary Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, written by Andy Rooney (for which Rooney received an Emmy Award)[17] and narrated by Bill Cosby, which criticized the depiction of black people in American film, and especially singled out Stepin Fetchit for criticism. After the show aired, Perry unsuccessfully sued CBS and the documentary’s producers for defamation of character.[6] > In the 2005 book Stepin Fetchit: The Life and Times of Lincoln Perry,[26][27] African-American critic Mel Watkins[28][29][30] argued that the character of Stepin Fetchit was not truly lazy or simple-minded,[31] but instead a prankster who deliberately tricked his white employers so that they would do the work instead of him. This technique, which developed during American slavery, was referred to as “putting on old massa”, and it was a kind of con art with which black audiences of the time would have been familiar.[6][32][33] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=486) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=488)