# 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:** 168
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3341 "2025-10-13T19:32:53Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > **רוּת** is close to English “root”, isn’t it (acknowledging that the “r” is different in Hebrew)? @Alessan ? @Babale ? It’s pronounced with a hard “T” and not a “th” but it’s the same name as Ruth etymologically. > [@bordelond](#): > > ### Interjection > > **רוּת** [•](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Hebrew_transliteration) (rut) > > 1. _(radio telecommunications, especially military)_ [roger](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/roger#English) Same logic as Roger - Ruth means R which means Received. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3342 "2025-10-13T19:38:06Z")
Can confirm. I’m pretty sure the word “Root” for “Roger” was selected because it also started with an R. There are a few more semi-loanwords like that in Hebrew radio-speak, most prominently the word for “Over” - “עבור”, which means to pass, cross, transfer etc., and is pronounced “Avor”. As an aside, my mother’s middle name was Ruth, my sister’s middle name is Ruth, and both my nieces’ (from my brother and sister) middle names are also Ruth. It’s a family tradition we hope will continue for many generations. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2025, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3343 "2025-10-13T19:42:07Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > herefore the name Ruthenia is completely artificial, made up Latin and has nothing to do with rowers, rowing or oars. I think @Elmer_J.Fudd may have been speaking of **[the etymology of “Russia” itself](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Russia)** (perhaps of _Rus/Rusi_). ---
**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:** [October 13, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3344 "2025-10-13T19:47:06Z")
Yes, he surely did. I was just adding that as Russia did not exist back when Latin was spoken, the name Ruthenia had to be made up later. Like Radio Vatican had to make up Latin words for TV, penicillin or aeroplane. And this word, Ruthenia, has nothing to do with rowing. It is etymologically made up. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3345 "2025-10-13T19:47:20Z")
I suspect Ruthenia is just a latinized version of Land of the Rus (Ruth=Rus is just sound-alike) ---
**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:** [October 14, 2025, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3346 "2025-10-14T01:23:20Z")
From [etymonline.com](http://etymonline.com) > ruthenium (n.) > > metallic element, 1845, named by Russian chemist Karl Klauss, who first isolated it, from a name proposed earlier (1828) in reference to a metal extracted from ores from the Ural Mountains of Russia (see [Ruthenian](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Ruthenian)). With metallic element ending [-ium](https://www.etymonline.com/word/-ium). > > Ruthenian (adj.) > > 1850, of or pertaining to the western Ukrainian people (earlier _Ruthene_, 1540s), from Medieval Latin _Rutheni_ “the Little Russians,” a derivative of _Russi_ (see [Russia](https://www.etymonline.com/word/Russia)). For consonant change, compare Medieval Latin _Prut(h)eni_, from _Prussi_ “Prussians.” Another word in the same sense was _Russniak_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3347 "2025-10-14T01:29:05Z")
It sometimes seems like Russia’s every claim to fame is actually Ukrainian. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3348 "2025-10-14T02:19:20Z")
Until 1600, the population of Siberia was no more than 160,000. Siberia is most of Russia in area. Until 1600, Russia was an eastern area that had a reasonable population and Siberia that was a large region with relatively few people. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 11:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3349 "2025-10-14T11:13:48Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I suspect Ruthenia is just a latinized version of Land of the Rus (Ruth=Rus is just sound-alike) I knew the history and ethnic self-identification of that part of Europe was complicated, but Wikipedia boggles the mind: > **[Ruthenia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenia)** > > Ruthenia\[a\] is an exonym, originally used in Medieval Latin, as one of several terms for Rus'. Originally, the term Rus' land referred to a triangular area, which mainly corresponds to the tribe of Polans in Dnieper Ukraine. Ruthenia was used to refer to the East Slavic and Eastern Orthodox people of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Austria-Hungary, mainly to Ukrainians and sometimes Belarusians, corresponding to the te His... ---
**Author:** ![merrick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58956e/32.png) [@merrick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/merrick)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3350 "2025-10-14T15:21:06Z")
Until 1600, most of Siberia wasn’t part of Russia. Yermak didn’t begin his campaigns until 1581, the first Russian city in Siberia (Tyumen) was founded in 1586 and the Khanate of Sibir wasn’t finally defeated until 1598. The great Russian expansion through Eastern Siberia from the Yenisei to the Pacific occurred in the 17th century. ---
**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:** [October 14, 2025, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3351 "2025-10-14T16:01:50Z")
Today I learned surveillance cameras perform over [20 billion scans of vehicles in the U.S. each month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flock_Safety). ---
**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:** [October 14, 2025, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3352 "2025-10-14T16:33:58Z")
The name «Россия» appears to derive from the Byzantine Greek “Ρωσία” which does not look particularly close to “Ruth”, but the country is sometimes called «Русская Земля» (Russian Land). The difference seems to be that «Русский» confers Russian ethnicity while «Россиский» is used to mean any person who lives in the country, not necessaily an ethnic Russian. Peter the Great declared the Rossiskaya Imperiya to show that Russia ruled over many people beyond just ethnic Russians, which, as language happens, eventually got shortened to “Rossiya”. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2025, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3353 "2025-10-14T23:09:00Z")
Watching a youtube haunted attraction video today I found out the Michael Myers mask from Friday The 13th was based on a “death mask” of William Shatner created by the Star Trek makeup department. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2025, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3354 "2025-10-15T01:29:35Z")
Today I came across an interesting [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9LTxVuASN0) about a British career soldier and police officer named[William E. Fairbairn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_E._Fairbairn). Fairbairn’s career was shaped by his operating in one of the most challenging venues for law enforcement that has existed since Robert Peel created modern police forces: Pre-World War Two Shanghai. Shanghai was an important port city where multiple foreign powers [had carved out extraterritorial enclaves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_International_Settlement); the legal and political situation there was further complicated by the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the following troubled [“warlord” period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_Era). Exactly what government one theoretically answered to could depend on which side of a street you were on. Needless to say, central authority was often lacking. During Fairbairn’s tenure Shanghai actually was the “wretched hive of scum and villainy” we associate with Indiana Jones or “Terry and the Pirates”. The line between criminals and government officials was often blurry, and criminal cartels were more likely to kill police officers than submit to arrest. Faced with these difficult circumstances, Fairbairn and his associate Eric Sykes developed techniques and equipment to allow his police force to operate in paramilitary fashion. These included a custom martial arts fighting style he developed, a specially designed fighting knife, semi-automatic pistols modified for zero-delay drawing and firing and techniques for using same, even an early type of body armor. Fairbairn survived literally hundreds of firefights and knife attacks, making Elliot Ness’s “Untouchables” look like British rural constables by comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3355 "2025-10-15T01:37:29Z")
Someone working on the 1980 movie _Friday the 13th_ took a 1975 mask that was supposed to make the wearer look like William Shatner. They changed it by making the eye holes bigger and removing the eyebrows and sideburns. They then painted it white and had the killer wear it. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3356 "2025-10-15T12:28:59Z")
I am restoring a laptop to Windows. For the first time (for me) in this kind of process, no WiFi was available when I reached the stage where you have to connect the device to the WiFi to continue the installation. I was dead in the water until I discovered this life-saver work around in the process: > **Use the OOBE\BYPASSNRO command** > > \*\* During the “Let’s connect you to a network” screen, press Shift + F10 to open a command prompt.\*\* > \*\* Type oobe\BypassNRO and press Enter.\*\* > \*\* Your computer will restart and return to the setup process.\*\* > \*\* When you reach the network screen again, you will see a new option: “I don’t have internet”.\*\* > \*\* Click “I don’t have internet” and then “Continue with limited setup” to proceed.\*\* Once you finish the basic setup, you can get your WiFi adapter initiated and continue with the necessary system updates. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2025, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3357 "2025-10-15T17:15:23Z")
“Waring”. To me (sounds exactly like “wearing”), the name refers to a device for turning food things into a mush (or purée). So what is the origin of the name? Apparently, Fred Waring was a musician. You might consider his music _mushy_, but the real reason it was the Waring Blendor [sic] was because Fred provided financing, to the (ahem) tune of a majority share in the company. ---
**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:** [October 15, 2025, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3358 "2025-10-15T18:00:06Z")
I was looking up Leonard Rossiter for another thread, and saw that he appeared in a film as Joseph Pujol, better known as _Le Petomane_, the renowned French “Fartist”. On Pujol’s Wikipedia site I found the following 1900 silent film of him in action: > **[Le Pétomane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_P%C3%A9tomane)** > > Joseph Pujol (June 1, 1857 – August 8, 1945), better known by his stage name Le Pétomane (/ləˈpɛtəmeɪn/, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}French pronunciation: \[ləpetɔman\]), was a French flatulist (professional fartist), comedian and entertainer. He was famous for his remarkable control of the abdominal muscles, which enabled him t It... The film shows him performing in front of a very large “trumpet”, very much like the one in the Dickson Experimental Sound Film of 1894 > **[The Dickson Experimental Sound Film](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dickson_Experimental_Sound_Film)** > > The Dickson Experimental Sound Film is a film made by William Dickson in late 1894 or early 1895. It is the first known film with live-recorded sound and appears to be the first motion picture made for the Kinetophone, the proto-sound-film system developed by Dickson and Thomas Edison. (The Kinetophone, consisting of a Kinetoscope accompanied by a cylinder-playing phonograph, was not a true sound-film system, for there was no attempt to synchronize picture and sound throughout playback.) The f... The Dickson Sound Film is the earliest surviving movie with sound – the sound being recorded on an Edison cylinder. The cylinder in that case has been found, repaired, and its sound synched with the movie, so today we have the whole package. (There were earlier experiments with recording sound and image simultaneously, but they have not survived). It’s pretty clear that someone recorded not only the image of Pujol, but also his auditory performance. There’s no other reason to record him o n film, especially with the blatantly obvious audio recording device, if they weren’t doing that. So it’s possible that somewhere there exists a cylinder recording the performance of Le Petomane, and that one day it might be re-united with the images. Or it might have been lost to time, and we can only imagine what it contained. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3359 "2025-10-15T18:02:25Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Or it might have been lost to time, and we can only imagine what it contained. A worse loss than the Library of Alexandria! ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/3360 "2025-10-15T18:34:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Joseph Pujol, better known as _Le Petomane_, the renowned French “Fartist”. Heh heh. Pujol. Anyway… Delmar Blvd. is an important road in St. Louis, running from the downtown convention center west into University City on the suburbs. The Delmar Loop (mostly in U. City but extending a few blocks into St. Louis proper) is a big entertainment and restaurant district, and (less fun) it’s also known for the Delmar Divide, where north and south of Delmar have radically different property values, racial demographics, etc. There are lots of places called Del Mar, meaning “of the sea”, and one might think that Delmar Blvd. is one of them. As it turns out, it’s actually a portmanteau of “Delaware" and “Maryland”, which were the home states of two large property owners along the road in its early history. The much smaller Mardel Ave. has a similar origin. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=167) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=169)