# 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:** 240
**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:** [June 1, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4781 "2026-06-01T14:12:35Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > \*There are probably a thousand metrics by which a statistician can answer the question, “what is the most popular sport in [place]”? Butts in the seats at games? Money earned across broadcast revenue streams? Money earned by merchandise? Fans who say it’s their favorite sport? Etc. Etc. So whether or not the metric _The Economist_ used to come up with the assertation that soccer is #3 here is legit or not, I’ll leave to people more learned about statistics. The article said it was based on “people who say it’s their favorite sport”. But even there, one might distinguish between “favorite to play” and “favorite to watch”, and you also have to take into account that most people like more than one sport, so maybe “liked by the most people” would be a better metric. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2026, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4782 "2026-06-01T14:16:24Z")
Yeah, asking respondents what their favorite sport is seems like kind of an all-or-nothing thing that leaves no room for nuance. For example, I’ll attest that soccer is my favorite sport (to watch), but I’ll also watch baseball and (gridiron) football if there’s a matchup that interests me. So soccer is “popular” with this audience of one, but so are baseball and (gridiron) football. ---
**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:** [June 2, 2026, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4783 "2026-06-02T00:04:58Z")
A friend of mine came back from Paris with a high quality pepper grinder. It has a distinctive logo: [![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9d/Peugeot_2021_Logo.svg/330px-Peugeot_2021_Logo.svg.png) ](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/9/9d/Peugeot_2021_Logo.svg/330px-Peugeot_2021_Logo.svg.png) I wondered if it was a special edition grinder marketing the Peugeot automobile company. Apparently not, it’s a mechanical company that happens to make cars as well. > The Peugeot family of Valentigney, Montbéliard, Franche-Comté, France began in the manufacturing business in 1810 with a steel foundry, which quickly started manufacturing saws; then other hand tools and, circa 1840 to 1842, coffee grinders; in the 1850s, the company introduced waist corsets made with light steel blades; then, in 1874, pepper grinders; and then, circa 1880, bicycles. The company’s entry into the vehicle market was by means of stiff, structured petticoats or crinoline dresses, which used steel rods, leading to umbrella frames, chisels, wire wheels, and bicycles. Armand Peugeot introduced his “Le Grand Bi” penny-farthing in 1882, along with a range of other bicycles. > **[Peugeot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot)** > > Peugeot (.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%}UK: /ˈpɜːʒoʊ/ ⓘ, US: /p(j)uːˈʒoʊ/ ⓘ; French: \[pøʒo\] ⓘ) is a French automobile brand owned by Stellantis. > Peugeot was founded as a family business in 1810 and Automobiles Peugeot was created in 1896, making it the oldest car company in the world. On 20 November 1858, Émile Peugeot applied fo... ---
**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 2, 2026, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4784 "2026-06-02T00:13:19Z")
Similarly it took me a long time to process that the Yamaha that made guitars and the Yamaha that made motorbikes were indeed the same company. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4785 "2026-06-02T00:43:27Z")
Yet I’ve always wondered whether the constant 'heading" the ball leads to brain damage ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4786 "2026-06-02T00:45:04Z")
it’s Strait, not Straight ---
**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 2, 2026, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4787 "2026-06-02T01:03:54Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > Yet I’ve always wondered whether the constant 'heading" the ball leads to brain damage Heading is typically not allowed or restricted in youth soccer in the US for that reason. ---
**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:** [June 2, 2026, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4788 "2026-06-02T01:24:38Z")
And I think they’ve since split off, but Ball Aerospace, that made the optics in the Hubble Space Telescope, was originally the same company as Ball canning jars. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4789 "2026-06-02T03:10:58Z")
> [@Askance](#): > > Similarly it took me a long time to process that the Yamaha that made guitars and the Yamaha that made motorbikes were indeed the same company Yep, I tell people I have a Suzuki and a Yamaha. ---
**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 2, 2026, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4790 "2026-06-02T07:14:06Z")
If you look at the Yamaha logo you will see three tuning forks rotated 120° from one another: [![](https://logos-world.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Yamaha-Motor-Company-Emblem.png) ](https://logos-world.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Yamaha-Motor-Company-Emblem.png) For a time they were the biggest piano manufacturers in the world. Maybe they still are? ---
**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:** [June 2, 2026, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4791 "2026-06-02T12:56:55Z")
> [@needscoffee](#): > > Yep, I tell people I have a Suzuki and a Yamaha. What’s the Suzuki? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4792 "2026-06-02T13:15:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > What’s the Suzuki? They’re both guitars ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2026, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4793 "2026-06-02T13:39:46Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > If you look at the Yamaha logo you will see three tuning forks rotated 120° from one another: One of my best friends got himself a Yamaha e-piano a few years ago after his decades old acoustic piano had gotten untunable. It has a real nice sound. ---
**Author:** ![billy-jack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@billy-jack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billy-jack)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2026, 9:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4794 "2026-06-03T09:50:10Z")
The stock traders want every edge that they can get. I read some time ago that one company built a fiber link, I think from Chicago to New York, for the purpose of getting automatic stock trades in faster than the a normal fiber link. Their special link ws as straight as they could get it there faster than the more common fiber cables that aren’t as careful to minimize the distance. Those very tiny difference in time can apparently make all the distance. One problem is that the speed of light in cable is more than 30% slower than in free air. Something like 124,188 miles per second as opposed to about 186,282 miles per second in free space. Using radio waves, they can get their orders about 50% faster than by fiber optic cables. So they were using some of the old shortwave radio frequencies for this purpose. The article was about using the frequencies for communications between New York and London. I assume that they are also using it for trading purposes across the US as well. Think about it. When you buy shares in a stock, you place the order. These other companies see the order going across and buy the stock while your signal is still going, raising the price a little bit, and then selling it to you when your order arrives at the exchange. This edge is enough that they can make a small amount of money on every transaction coming in from distant stock brokers. They don’t make much on any one transaction, but it can add up dramatically with all the transactions that take place each day. At least, that’s the way I understand it. I am far from expert on this, though. ---
**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 3, 2026, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4795 "2026-06-03T19:03:34Z")
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is justly famous. What doesn’t get cemented into memory are his opening remarks. In which he got heckled from the crowd. I found those in the Ebensburg [PA] Gazette from Nov. 26, 1863. > I appear before you, fellow-citizens, merely to thank you for this compliment. The inference is a very fair one that you would hear me for a little while at least, were I commence to make a speech. I do not appear before you for the purpose of doing so, and for several substantial reasons. In my position it is somewhat important that I should not say any foolish things. (A voice: if you can help it.) It very often happens that the only way to help it is to say nothing at all. Believing that to be my present condition this evening, I must beg of you to excuse me from addressing you further. Imagine generations being forced to memorize _those_ sentences. Lincoln. What a dolt. The famous address is often reported as getting a poor response, but even that newspaper shows he was interrupted twice by applause. A competing papers records four interruptions before “long continuing applause” at the end. Another one makes it five. Not bad for a speech of a mere ten sentences. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2026, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4796 "2026-06-03T19:29:13Z")
My understanding is that the crowd was there not for him, but for the Main Act (Lincoln apparently being a last-minute undercard addition). That Main Act was Edward Everett, apparently an in-demand orator of the day - lengthy oration being a form of entertainment in the days before television and radio (beats the fuck out of minstrel shows, one supposes). The guy went on for _two hours_. Maybe the crowd was just bored at that point. ---
**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:** [June 3, 2026, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4797 "2026-06-03T19:35:05Z")
Was Lincoln before or after Everett? ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2026, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4798 "2026-06-03T21:16:22Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is justly famous. What doesn’t get cemented into memory are his opening remarks. “So then the bartender says ‘Hey, that’s not a duck!’” (Wait for laughter) “Four score and seven years ago…” ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2026, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4799 "2026-06-03T21:23:06Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Was Lincoln before or after Everett? After. He famously said something to the effect of “[Lincoln] said better in two minutes what took me two hours.” ---
**Author:** ![Xocomil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xocomil/32/14927_2.png) [@Xocomil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xocomil)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2026, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/4800 "2026-06-05T21:44:59Z")
Not quite. His father had wanted to pronounce it the French way but retained the more standard pronunciation out of respect for Stephen’s grandfather. Stephen’s dad gave Stephen and his siblings the option of pronouncing it their preferred way. Only Stephen preferred the pretentious pronunciation. It’s lovely that by changing the pronunciation, Stephen honored his dad the way his own father honored _his_ dad by not changing it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=239) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785.md?page=241)