# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 25, 2024, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785 "2024-07-25T15:06:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**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:** [August 25, 2024, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/281 "2024-08-25T17:46:45Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Back in the era of telephone books, it was normal and expected. People wanted their address to be available publicly… > The people who were worried about it would hide their name, not their address. For example, single women living alone would sometimes not list their full first name, only the initial. I had my name without the address and I recall that that was very common. I think you have it backwards. It was definitely common for women to just use an initial and last name. Either one wasn’t considered unlisted so it was free. They charged a nominal amount for an unlisted number which I always thought was bullshit. It’s astounding that that not too long ago you could look in a book or call 411 and get anyone’s address and phone number in the entire country. At some point they started charging you fifty cents or something if you exceeded a certain number of 411 calls per month (5?). One of my housemates was infuriating because they were too lazy to use the phone book and we were charged for dozens of 411 calls a month. ---
**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:** [August 25, 2024, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/282 "2024-08-25T23:31:18Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > The other one was sorted by addresses: all the streets, alphabetically too, then by number, and all the names of the users in that particular house with their respective numbers. In Sydney Australia we had that too, in the form of the [Sands Postal Directory](https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/495003) from 1858 to 1932–33. Absolutely invaluable for ancestry research! ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/283 "2024-08-26T10:54:45Z")
Literally stumbled into an absolutely amazing life story while doing a minor “this day in history” project for an event in a couple of weeks. This guy (who is still alive) was a champion swimmer from Armenia back in the 70s. > **[Shavarsh Karapetyan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavarsh_Karapetyan)** > > Shavarsh Vladimiri (Vladimirovich) Karapetyan (Armenian: Շավարշ Կարապետյան; born May 19, 1953) is a retired former Soviet finswimmer, best known for saving the lives of 20 people in a 1976 incident in Yerevan. > Karapetyan was born on May 19, 1953, in Armenia's third largest city of Kirovakan (now called Vanadzor), then part of the Soviet Union. His family moved to Yerevan in 1964, where Shavarsh finished eight years of school and then attended a technical school for auto-mechanics. On the advice ... And by pure happenstance, he was involved in _three separate_ random crisis situations where he was personally responsible for saving many lives. - In 1974 he was a passenger on a bus that lost control with no driver, and he managed to get behind the wheel and prevent the bus from plunging into a gorge. - In 1976 he witnessed another bus crash into a lake. He immediately dove in and began dragging people out of the bus; in the end he got three dozen people to shore. Not all of them survived, but the ones who did owe their lives to him. - In 1985 he was on the grounds of a sports complex when a fire broke out. He joined the firefighters and helped carry people to safety. In the second and third incidents, he himself was hospitalized for injuries suffered during his rescue efforts. I can’t decide if he himself is a little cursed, or if the people around him are blessed. Maybe both. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/284 "2024-08-26T13:49:39Z")
I learned that “calling a spade a spade” referred to the shovel, not the card suit. Also, it’s a deliberate mistranslation of a Greek phrase meaning “calling a trough a trough.” ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/285 "2024-08-26T13:55:32Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > it’s a **deliberate** mistranslation of a Greek phrase > [bolding mine] Interesting: What was the intention, if they mistranslated trough deliberatedly as spade? Why? What for? ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/286 "2024-08-26T14:06:32Z")
I had no idea that Sesame Street once had a Muppet named [Donald Grump](https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Donald_Grump) that of course parodied the orange one fairly mercilessly. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/287 "2024-08-26T14:08:00Z")
Don’t know. The translator didn’t explain! One linguistic expert (don’t recall the name) speculated because the words were somewhat similar sounding, and the Greek word also referred to something used for “hygiene,” and it wouldn’t carry any connotations of “private parts” usage. But that was just one person’s opinion. Interesting that the idiom exists in other languages, [although the object changes from one country to another.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade) ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/288 "2024-08-26T14:13:17Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Interesting that the idiom exists in other languages Of course! Only German is boring in this case. We say “die Dinge (or: das Kind) beim Namen nennen”, that is: to call (the) things (or: the child) by their name. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/289 "2024-08-26T14:15:07Z")
> [@Cervaise](#): > > I can’t decide if he himself is a little cursed, or if the people around him are blessed. Maybe both. Either way, he’s probably a person to avoid. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/290 "2024-08-26T14:16:49Z")
I don’t see any indication that it was a deliberate mistranslation. [https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/call\_a\_spade\_a\_spade#English](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/call_a_spade_a_spade#English) > A mistaken translation of [Ancient Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek) _[τὰ σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%CF%84%E1%BD%B0_%CF%83%E1%BF%A6%CE%BA%CE%B1_%CF%83%E1%BF%A6%CE%BA%CE%B1,_%CF%84%E1%BD%B4%CE%BD_%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7%CE%BD_%CE%B4%E1%BD%B2_%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7%CE%BD_%E1%BD%80%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AC%CF%83%CF%89%CE%BD&action=edit&redlink=1)_ (tà sûka sûka, tḕn skáphēn dè skáphēn onomásōn, “calling figs figs, and a trough a trough”). The word _[σκάφη](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7#Ancient_Greek)_ (skáphē, “trough”) was mistranslated by the Renaissance scholar [Desiderius Erasmus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus) as _[σκαφείον](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF%CE%BD&action=edit&redlink=1)_ (skapheíon, “digging tool”). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/291 "2024-08-26T14:23:24Z")
I learned this week that the word “hello” has a much later origin than I realized. It only began to be used in the 1820’s. So historical figures as recent as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin never heard the word. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/292 "2024-08-26T16:44:39Z")
What’d people say as a colloquial greeting before then? ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/293 "2024-08-26T16:50:18Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > > > The other one was sorted by addresses: all the streets, alphabetically too, then by number, and all the names of the users in that particular house with their respective numbers. > > In Sydney Australia we had that too, in the form of the [Sands Postal Directory](https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/495003) from 1858 to 1932–33. Absolutely invaluable for ancestry research! Montreal had the same thing - from the 1840s until the 1990s. All the (annual) directories are online with free access. In addition, there was a “classified” section (by type of business). It’s interesting looking at categories such as “LAUNDRIES, Chinese” year by year, and noting the hundreds of them that were around in the 1920s. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/294 "2024-08-26T16:50:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I learned this week that the word “hello” has a much later origin than I realized. It only began to be used in the 1820’s. After Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he suggested “Ahoy” be used as the standard greeting when answering it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/295 "2024-08-26T17:11:28Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > What’d people say as a colloquial greeting before then? _Greetings_ was one. They would also say _good morning_, _good afternoon_, or _good day_. Maybe an occasional _how do you do_ for variety. _Hail_ was another common greeting but Hitler ruined that for everyone. Here’s another surprising one. While _hello_ only dates back about two hundred years, _hi_ has been around for over five hundred years ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/296 "2024-08-26T17:35:27Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > After Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, he suggested “Ahoy” be used as the standard greeting when answering it. This is why Montgomery Burns uses “ahoy-hoy” as a greeting when he answers the phone. It’s one of many little touches suggesting how old-fashioned he is, and probably the most obscure one. > **[Mr. Burns's Phone Greeting Is One Of The Simpsons Cleverest Jokes](https://screenrant.com/burns-simpsons-phone-joke-clever-history-reference-explained/)** > > Mr. Burns answers the phone with "ahoy hoy." ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/297 "2024-08-26T17:59:42Z")
Similar to _The Onion_’s fictional editor T. Herman Zweibel, supposedly born in 1868 and having a career in journalism for over 115 years. His editorials frequently featured archaisms such as the excessive use of hyphenated-nouns. ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/298 "2024-08-26T18:04:28Z")
Mark Twain makes the “Hello-Girl” and the phrase “Hello Central” one of the recurrent jokes of “A Conneticut Yankee…”. Here, for instance ([Chapter XLIV: A post-script by Clarence](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm#c44)): > Was that the child?.. Hello-Central!.. she doesn’t answer. Asleep, perhaps? Or in [Chapter XV: Sandy’s tale](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/86/86-h/86-h.htm#c15): > The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur’s land.” > > “Hello-girl?” > > “Yes, but don’t you ask me to explain; it’s a new kind of a girl; they don’t have them here; one often speaks sharply to them when they are not the least in fault, and he can’t get over feeling sorry for it and ashamed of himself in thirteen hundred years, it’s such shabby mean conduct and so unprovoked; the fact is, no gentleman ever does it—though I—well, I myself, if I’ve got to confess—” > […] > …when I used to wake in the soft summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say “Hello, Central!” just to hear her dear voice come melting back to me with a “Hello, Hank!” that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it. So in 1889 the phrase was common enough to make a joke of it, but fresh enough to know it was not old. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2024, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/299 "2024-08-26T18:06:23Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > I don’t see any indication that it was a deliberate mistranslation. > > [call a spade a spade - Wiktionary, the free dictionary](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/call_a_spade_a_spade#English) > > > A mistaken translation of [Ancient Greek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek) _[τὰ σῦκα σῦκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%CF%84%E1%BD%B0_%CF%83%E1%BF%A6%CE%BA%CE%B1_%CF%83%E1%BF%A6%CE%BA%CE%B1,_%CF%84%E1%BD%B4%CE%BD_%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7%CE%BD_%CE%B4%E1%BD%B2_%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7%CE%BD_%E1%BD%80%CE%BD%CE%BF%CE%BC%CE%AC%CF%83%CF%89%CE%BD&action=edit&redlink=1)_ (tà sûka sûka, tḕn skáphēn dè skáphēn onomásōn, “calling figs figs, and a trough a trough”). The word _[σκάφη](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%B7#Ancient_Greek)_ (skáphē, “trough”) was mistranslated by the Renaissance scholar [Desiderius Erasmus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desiderius_Erasmus) as _[σκαφείον](https://en.m.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%CF%83%CE%BA%CE%B1%CF%86%CE%B5%CE%AF%CE%BF%CE%BD&action=edit&redlink=1)_ (skapheíon, “digging tool”). Someone wrote a book-length treatise about the history of this expression. **[Former U of Vermont professor Wolfgang Mieder](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/09/19/224183763/is-it-racist-to-call-a-spade-a-spade)** seems to be the source of the idea that Erasmus was playing with language rather than making a translating error. I cannot directly vouch for his scholarship. > **[Call a Spade a Spade](https://books.google.com/books/about/Call_a_Spade_a_Spade.html?id=ftNZAAAAMAAJ)** > > This book is an attempt to trace the origin, history, dissemination, and meaning of the well-known proverbial expression «to call a spade a spade.» The first four chapters discuss the previous scholarship on this classical phrase turned proverb,... ---
**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:** [August 26, 2024, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/300 "2024-08-26T18:08:15Z")
For this feat, Mieder won the E. Pluribus Minimus Award for finding the smallest subject ever to write a book about. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=16)