# Weird (true!) facts you’ve learned recently **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 28, 2018, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266 "2018-04-28T15:33:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/141 "2018-05-02T20:07:20Z")
It’s a true fact! Jefferson had to invent barbed wire to keep them from murdering everyone in the UVA dorms. You can look it up. (That phrase has been attributed to Casey Stengel but he stole it from Shakespeare.) ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/142 "2018-05-02T20:49:34Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > which would be exactly the same problem you’d have with Atheist. Whatever come after the “A” (or “un”) surely must be an understood or defined concept? > > That’s a borrowed word and yes the word “communicado” is a real word, it has to be otherwise the “in” part makes no sense. > > the definition is irrelevant. If the construction is using “a” as a greek-style prefix to mean “not” or “without” then whatever follows it has to represent what it is “not” or “without”. Thank you for not being contemptuous. That was a very solent response. That’s a word, right? > [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > How many of the honest true facts listed here are actually true? The thread title should be “Weird ‘facts’ you’ve learned recently.” ---
**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:** [May 2, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/143 "2018-05-02T21:03:30Z")
I did, however, have occasion the other day to refer to a pair of happy-looking pigs as being very gruntled. And the thing about blueprints was a minor plot point in _A Canticle for Liebowitz_\*. After a nuclear apocalypse, an order of monks is dutifully preserving as much of the old knowledge as they can, but without understanding most of it. So they (at least for a while) painstakingly reproduce the blue background of old diagrams, using expensive blue pigments, because they don’t know that it’s not important. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/144 "2018-05-02T21:25:53Z")
I learned this a long time ago, but it’s still my favorite: There’s more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/145 "2018-05-02T22:21:10Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > That most of the Native Americans who died on The Trail of Tears did so in the internment camps rather than on the march itself. Starvation, exposure and disease were the primary causes. And that the Trail of Tears (Cherokee) was during the \*Van Buren \*administration, not Jackson’s. Mostly caused by corruption and incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/146 "2018-05-02T22:22:30Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > Any given pound of ground beef contains meat from up to hundreds of different cows. **CAN** contain. But if they grind it at the butchers, likely only one or a few. It’s those chubs that are the culprit. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/147 "2018-05-02T23:13:37Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > One that I discovered a few years ago but I’ve had lots of fun explaining to engineers whose first language isn’t English is the origin of “blueprint”. To us, that word just Doesn’t Make Sense; often, our names for those things are similar to English “plan” and would mean “flat drawing”, making the English “plan” a false friend. Blueprint comes from a [specific reproduction technique](https://www.britannica.com/technology/blueprint) which was popular in some countries but unknown in others. Knowing the origin of that “nonsense” word makes it a lot easier to recall it and avoid the false friend, which helps in those international meetings. In the plural, “plans” in English can refer to a technical or architectural design on paper, as well, including but not limited to a blueprint. The word “blueprint” originated because duplicated design drawings actually used to be that color, made by shining light through the original ink-and-paper drawing onto photosensitive paper that turned blue where the light struck it, and stayed white where it was shielded by the ink. Since it was about the earliest viable method for reproducing a drawing, the technology took root in the 19th century and continued through most of the next. Despite its achronistic aspect, it continues to hang on today. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/148 "2018-05-03T00:09:24Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > It’s those chubs that are the culprit. Reported for fat shaming in MPSIMS. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/149 "2018-05-03T01:07:30Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Theist has a specific meaning which isn’t the exact opposite of atheist. I though theist came to be when people wanted a way to split believers into theists and deists. Before that, most people considered the opposite of atheist to be “normal people”. > [@CurtC](#): > > Thank you for not being contemptuous. That was a very solent response. That’s a word, right? . . . . Solent and effable. ---
**Author:** ![caligulathegod](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/caligulathegod/32/9685_2.png) [@caligulathegod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/caligulathegod)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/150 "2018-05-03T02:08:27Z")
> [@dropzone](#): > > Little known facts: He doesn’t write his own material (the authors are mentioned in the closing credits) and he works out of Prague. Little known fact: One of his writers is Eddie Deezen, AKA Eugene from Grease and tons of cartoon voices. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/151 "2018-05-03T07:18:55Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > In the case of atheist, the negation intended by the “a-” prefix is not of “theist,” a person who believes in god, but of “the[os],” god. An atheist is an athe[os]-ist, not an a-theist. Understanding what that meant before the word “theist” came into use some time later only required understanding the Greek root _theos_, not the meaning of the non-existent word “theist.” I think this is where we are all talking at cross-purposes. I’m not saying that “theist” came into use at the same time as “atheist” but when it did come into use you could not claim that it sprang from nowhere. It is clearly taken from the word “atheist” because even though it is suggested that it came from a french word, there was a conscious choice behind the construction of the that french word and the choice of it and subsequent anglicisation to express a concept. I do not buy that the word “theist” bears no relation to the word “atheist”. Someone pointed out that “communicado” isn’t in a english dictionary, true. But one could easily imagine, through common usage, that it does find its way in there sometime in the future as a slang term meaning “able to be contacted”. If that happened I would claim that “communicado” was invented/created as a word at the same time as “incommunicado”. This has happened to “gruntled”. it is in the dictionary as a back-transformed opposite of “disgruntled” and again, I would argue that it was coined and “invented” at the same time as “disgruntled”. Still, I think we are veering into a philosophical area akin to trees falling in woods and I can see when a pub-argument has run its course and I’m not going convince anyone with my opinion. Let’s get back to minced cows. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/152 "2018-05-03T08:02:32Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > The word “blueprint” is dying out at the professional level and being replaced by the word “drawing,” which is now universally the term of art in pretty much any business. It’s kind of a shame, really. I hope “blueprint” holds on a little. Non-specific, too. [These](https://www.google.es/search?q=goya+aguafuertes&safe=active&rlz=1C1GGRV_enFR787FR787&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjssM7yienaAhUEtBQKHee8BxIQ_AUICigB&biw=1366&bih=637) are drawings but they’re not _planos_. > [@74westy](#): > > Podes: a point on a sphere 360 degrees from another point on the sphere. 180, or you’re back to the same spot. ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/153 "2018-05-03T11:29:46Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I don’t see how that is possible seeing as inventing the word “atheist” means also inventing the word “theist” > [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > I think this is where we are all talking at cross-purposes. I’m not saying that “theist” came into use at the same time as “atheist” but when it did come into use you could not claim that it sprang from nowhere. No one claimed that it sprang from nowhere. When a word “springs up” (is coined), it’s silly to claim that it existed all along. > [@](#): > > It is clearly taken from the word “atheist” because even though it is suggested that it came from a french word, there was a conscious choice behind the construction of the that french word and the choice of it and subsequent anglicisation to express a concept. No. No one claimed that _theist_ came from a French word. What was claimed was that _atheism_ and _atheist_ came from French words. The coining and usage of _atheism_ could have done by those having no idea about the Greek prefix “a”; just knowledge of a French word’s meaning is needed. When was it taken from _atheist_? Some time later? So they came into being at the same time yet one was taken from the other later? Hmm. > [@](#): > > I do not buy that the word “theist” bears no relation to the word “atheist”. :rolleyes: No one claimed that. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2018, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/154 "2018-05-03T11:31:21Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > 180, or you’re back to the same spot. I’m afraid you’ve been _whooshed_. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2018, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/155 "2018-05-03T13:43:01Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > . . .180, or you’re back to the same spot. I guess you could say, “That’s the point.” ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/156 "2018-05-03T19:13:31Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > I learned this a long time ago, but it’s still my favorite: > > There’s more hydrogen in a gallon of gasoline than in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. Could not confirm this–can you provide a cite? How can a gallon of 100% hydrogen have less hydrogen than a gallon of anything that is not 100% hydrogen? Is the density of liquid hydrogen that low? And you must be including hydrogen bound into compounds or gasoline wouldn’t have any hydrogen at all. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/157 "2018-05-03T19:17:57Z")
Around 1/6th of gasoline is hydrogen and according to Wikipedia at least, gasoline is 10 times as dense as liquid hydrogen. Unless you have insider knowledge due to your username 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/158 "2018-05-03T19:18:34Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Could not confirm this–can you provide a cite? How can a gallon of 100% hydrogen have less hydrogen than a gallon of anything that is not 100% hydrogen? Is the density of liquid hydrogen that low? And you must be including hydrogen bound into compounds or gasoline wouldn’t have any hydrogen at all. Actually, I did track it down. Liquid hydrogen does have a very low density, 70.8 kg/m[sup]3[/sup]. Gasoline is about 719.7 kg/m[sup]3[/sup]. Gasoline is about 14% hydrogen, bound into hydrocarbon molecules. So a cubic meter of gasoline has about 100.8 kg of hydrogen, more than in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/159 "2018-05-03T19:22:37Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > So a cubic meter of gasoline has about 100.8 kg of hydrogen, more than in a gallon of liquid hydrogen. There are 264 gallons in a cubic meter, making it rather an unfair comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2018, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266/160 "2018-05-03T19:37:50Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > Could not confirm this–can you provide a cite? How can a gallon of 100% hydrogen have less hydrogen than a gallon of anything that is not 100% hydrogen? Is the density of liquid hydrogen that low? And you must be including hydrogen bound into compounds or gasoline wouldn’t have any hydrogen at all. I can’t find a direct cite, but it’s easy to find that gasoline is about 10 times denser than liquid hydrogen. Gasoline is almost entirely hydrocarbons. Of these, alkanes will have slightly more than 2 hydrogen per carbon, some aromatics and alkenes may have less than 2, so around 2 hydrogens per carbon overall is probably a reasonable estimate. The relative mass of carbon to hydrogen is 12:1, so that estimates the fractional amount of hydrogen by mass to be 2/14, i.e. more than 10%. As you say, all the hydrogen is gasoline is bound in hydrocarbons, since hydrogen would escape as a gas. ETA: multi-ninjaed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-true-facts-you-ve-learned-recently/813266.md?page=9)