Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1)

Not just now coming to light, business has been the business of the Unification Church all along. True World Foods dominates the sushi supply industry, they have few competitors to outside of independent operators. Their businesses were originally funded by church fundraisers, mainly stupid youth begging for money, and then the church carried it out of the country. It’s right wing political positions were seen in the ownership Washington Times until 2010. Currying favor in the Reagan administration the church evaded close examination of its business activities often operating under the disguise of religion.

The most visited country by foreigners in a recent year is France . Source: Countries ranked by International tourism, number of arrivals (indexmundi.com)

The most visited city by foreigners in a recent year is Bangkok . Source: TOP 20 :chart_with_upwards_trend: Most Visited Cities in the World :airplane: (2022 Updated) (travelness.com)

And what’s interesting about this word is that its root words don’t break in the obvious or expected place. “Helico” is from “helix,” the Greek for spiral, and “pteron,” Greek for wing.

So the cop-ter break is based on English orthography, and is “wrong” from the POV of the Greek roots.

Does anyone know what a *weenus (wenis, weenis)*is? It’s the slang word for the loose skin at the joint of your elbow. AND no matter how hard you pinch it, it doesn’t hurt. :woman_shrugging:

It hurts if you pinch it with your fingernails.

(memo to self: just because the internet tells you a “fact,” that doesn’t compel you to go and test it.)

Same for the other words on @Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker’s list.

“helicopter” from helix-pteron (Greek “spiral” + “wing”), but in English heli-copter, leading to “copter” and “heliport”.

“alcoholic” from al-kuhl-ic (Arabic “the” + “antimony” + English suffix), but in English alco-holic, leading to “holic”.

“hamburger”, from Hamburg-er (a German city + English suffix), but in English ham-burger, leading to “cheeseburger”, etc.

“labradoodle”, from labrador-poodle (two dog breeds), but now separated into labra-doodle, leading to “goldendoodle”, etc.

Funny then that frankfurters get called franks instead of furters.

After reading that, I had to test it.

If I straighten my arm and pinch the skin on the outside of the elbow rather than the inside (you know, the gnarly skin?), it doesn’t hurt much if at all. I checked both elbows, too.

If you have an available test subject, you should test them, on the theory that it is like tickling - you can’t tickle yourself.

No test subjects available, but I’m pretty sure pinching doesn’t work like that. I certainly feel it when I pinch elsewhere.

Yes, but this is in no small part due to France being a transit country for all those that come to Spain or Italy by car from Northern Europe. It is difficult to get this statistic right.

Wow! It’s true :open_mouth:

You can have both at the same time.

All my bottom sheets have a label on the short side. I don’t need to read it; I just need to find it.

I was mostly kidding (I don’t have one either or I wouldn’t have farmed out the research). I do notice that my right elbow (where I tested and felt no pain) has lingering odd ‘pressure’ feel to it.

Right, but I was pointing out that the break between “cop” and “ter” takes the P from “pter” and sticks it onto the end of “helico.” In that respect it’s different from the other examples.

Sorry that I wasn’t clear enough. Each of the examples splits a root. “copter” is splitting “helico”. “holic” is splitting “kuhl”. “burger” is splitting “Hamburg”. “doodle” is splitting “labrador”.

Nitpick: in this case, no it’s not. That is the grammatically correct splitting of the root word in German, Ham-burg. The origin lies in the word “Burg” which means castle, and “Ham” came from “Hamma”, which meant some kind of “crooked forest or stream”. So in the beginning, Ham-burg was a castle next to a crooked forest or stream. Sorry, I only have a German link:

Wie kam die Stadt Hamburg zu ihrem Namen? - Hamburger Abendblatt.

Thanks! I noticed that in the list of ‘rebracketings’, I’d never heard anyone refer to an addicted drinker as a “Holic”.

And, as is my wont, it flowed from there.

Right, that is where the place-name “Hamburg” comes from. But its use in “hamburger” is a reference to the place name, not the compound noun. That is, a hamburger is a food prepared as residents of Hamburg do, and not something related to a castle by a river bend.

Wiktionary does a good job with German, as far as I can tell. Follow through to Hamburg, as well.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hamburger#German

Do residents of Hamburg actually eat anything Americans would recognize as a hamburger?

Of course they do, there are many McDonalds, Burger Kings and other burger places in every German city, but nobody in Hamburg thinks that they are eating a specialty from Hamburg, nor is there any original meal from Hamburg called Hamburger.

But do they sell “Berliners”? I’m fond of the “ich bin ein” variety.