# What's the most obscure thing you know? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 21, 2002, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345 "2002-03-21T14:41:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/221 "2002-06-21T05:35:59Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by majinborg \* > \*\*-Given most any Starfleet ship, I can tell you its class; I’d be surprised if I couldn’t do so for most of the alien ships too. > \*\* Could you identify the NCC-2010-C for me, perhaps? I friend stumped me with that one a while back. It’s almost certainly not a “canon” ship, as the registry number is too close to the _Excelsior_’s, and as the writers _really_ don’t like to use the “letter” additions to the registry numbers to denote a ship having a predecesor with the same name. (They even found an excuse to “write off” the _Yamato_ being called the NCC-1050-E once by Riker. And he said it ON AIR. Don’t ask me why.) Oh, and another quiz…the U.S.S. _Ajax_ was of what class, and what did it have in common with the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars? 🙂 Ranchoth ---
**Author:** ![Go\_alien](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Go\_alien](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_alien)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/222 "2002-06-21T09:47:48Z")
The only station on the London Underground that doesn’t have any letters from the word “mackerel” in it is “St Johns Wood” ---
**Author:** ![Mystery\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f14d63/32.png) [@Mystery\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mystery_Dog)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/223 "2002-06-21T11:52:08Z")
The names of any two consecutive integers have at least one letter in common. “Britney Spears” is an anagram of “Presbyterians”. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/224 "2002-06-21T13:16:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DMark \* > \*\*If you pick a gerbil up by its tail, its eyes will fall out of their sockets. \*\* Um…I don’t think that’s true. (and yes, I know that you’re not supposed to pick them up by the tail anymore). ---
**Author:** ![majinborg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/db5fbb/32.png) [@majinborg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/majinborg)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/225 "2002-06-21T19:18:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ranchoth \* > \*\* Could you identify the NCC-2010-C for me, perhaps? I friend stumped me with that one a while back. It’s almost certainly not a “canon” ship . . . . \*\* Sorry, I can’t help you with non-canon ships; I should have specified that when I made my boast. > [@](#): > > \*\* Oh, and another quiz…the U.S.S. _Ajax_ was of what class, and what did it have in common with the Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars? 🙂 \*\* The U.S.S. _Ajax_ is an _Apollo_ class starship. The Star Wars[sub]ick, yuck, ptoooie![/sub] connection has me stumped, however. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/226 "2002-06-21T20:39:18Z")
The safest mode of transportation, based on passenger miles, is the elevator. Keith Moon’s favorite drink was Brandy and Ginger Ale, and it’s yummy too! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2002, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/227 "2002-06-21T23:21:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Go alien \* > \*\*The only station on the London Underground that doesn’t have any letters from the word “mackerel” in it is “St Johns Wood” \*\* I actually knew that, sad to say. Have I mentioned that the Catholic Church considers the capybara to be a fish? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bifar > In medieval times (before reliable local maps), parish boundaries were often maintained by a process known as “beating the bounds”, in which the men and boys of the parish would walk around the boundaries of the parish several times a year to restablish them. To ensure that the important markers along the way were remembered, the young boys were beaten (yes, beaten) at them each time. \* > > Sorry, but that sounds very folk etymology to me. I know beating the bounds exists (my village still does it) but were little boys really beaten? Got a cite, me dear? Well, I got it from Alan R. Warwick’s rather enjoyable book **The Phoenix Suburb: A South London Social History** on the history of the Norwood area and the Crystal Palace: > [@](#): > > The parish choir boys, being the youngest members, were an important part of the perambulations. They had to be shown precisely the extent of the boundaries, so that they in their turn could pass on the exact information. Hence the custom of inflicting on the choir boys some sort of beating at the key point of the perambulations the better to instil in their young and impressionable minds the precise extent of the boundaries. An old man of 85 once affirmed that he could always remember each point where he had been beaten. He remembered his perambulaitons without rancour, and had in his turn cheerfully helped to whack his successors. There did not appear to be any law by which the observance of the custom could be enforced.(pp. 9-10) Alas, Warwick does not include footnotes, and I don’t know from which of the umpteen sources in the bibliography he took this tidbit. And since he’s been dead since 1973, I can’t ask him. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/228 "2002-06-22T01:21:30Z")
The Cattleya, known as the moth or corsage orchid does not retain it’s odor when the bloom is cut. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/229 "2002-06-22T17:18:14Z")
I can sing “Jesus loves me” in Navajo. ---
**Author:** ![Trancey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Trancey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancey)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/230 "2002-06-22T18:12:05Z")
i was bored for a good week in math and i wrote down every song i knew off by heart _lyrics wise_ came up to…i think 246 or near 300 ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/231 "2002-06-22T18:34:14Z")
The builder of the Tower of London was named Gundulf the Weeper. ---
**Author:** ![CptHowdy65](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/73ab20/32.png) [@CptHowdy65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CptHowdy65)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/232 "2002-06-22T19:13:46Z")
38 years ago I learned the Pledge of Alligence in Latin - to this day I can still say it… ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/233 "2002-06-22T23:25:35Z")
Origami is the art of paper-folding, but if you’re also allowed to slit or cut the paper, it’s called Kirigami. In all the songs ever recorded by _The Police_, only one features a guitar solo. The only jail cell Harry Houdini attempted to escape from and couldn’t was Preston jail, in Lancashire, north-West England, and he failed because the police guys had forgotten to lock it. NICAM stands for Near Instaneous Compounded Audio Matrix. VHS originally stood for Vertical Helical Scanning, although these days they say it just stands for ‘very high standard’ or something bland like that. _Roget’s Thesaurus_ does not contain the word ‘thesaurus’ or the word ‘gullible’. French speakers use twice as many syllables per sentence as English speakers. The Serbian for “How are you?” is “Kako ste?”. ---
**Author:** ![Baraqiyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@Baraqiyal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baraqiyal)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2002, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/234 "2002-06-22T23:45:22Z")
The original Volkswagen Beatles didn’t have gas gauges. ---
**Author:** ![XCchick22](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/e19b73/32.png) [@XCchick22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XCchick22)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/235 "2002-06-23T02:54:24Z")
I know that male marsupials have forked penises. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/236 "2002-06-23T03:07:59Z")
Yes, but the parts, er, come togehter when er, functioning in the reproductive sense. Didelphis virginiana does not, er, do something that requires the female to “blow vigorously into her pouch.” I am suitably embarassed. I shall play opossum. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/237 "2002-06-23T04:36:50Z")
In China, chinese food is simply called “food”. ---
**Author:** ![Patricinus\_Scriblerus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@Patricinus\_Scriblerus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patricinus_Scriblerus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/238 "2002-06-23T13:47:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Enola Straight \* > \*\*Any real, non-negative number, raised to the fourth power, > has 0,1,5, or 6 as the last digit. \*\* I’m no mathmatician but wouldn’t this be true for any real number raised to the 4th power? Not just a Non Negative?? for example - 3 (to the 4th power) -3 \*-3 \*-3 \*-3 = 81 Please explain or am I way off here? ---
**Author:** ![Patricinus\_Scriblerus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f07891/32.png) [@Patricinus\_Scriblerus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patricinus_Scriblerus)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/239 "2002-06-23T13:57:39Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ellen Cherry \* > \*\* > > After exhaustive (for me) research I find that **jackelope** is correct! > > From the White House web site, which contains biographies of all the presidents: > > [Theodore Roosevelt](http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html) … “With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation’s history.” > > [John F. Kennedy](http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/jk35.html) … “On November 22, 1963, when he was hardly past his first thousand days in office, John Fitzgerald Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s bullets as his motorcade wound through Dallas, Texas. **Kennedy was the youngest man elected President** ; he was the youngest to die.” > > Kennedy was born May 29, 1917. In November 1960, when he was elected he would have been 43, right? Also 43 when he took office the following January. > > Roosevelt was born October 27, 1858, and if elections were also held in November then, he would have just turned 43. So, this means he WAS the youngest, beating Kennedy, who turned 44 four months into his term, by a few months. So why does the White House site say **both** were the youngest elected president?? Grr. \*\* I think that there is a fine distinciton. Roosevelt was the youngest President (took office after an assasination ) while Kennedy is the youngest ELECTED President ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2002, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345/240 "2002-06-23T16:23:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pravnik \* > \*\*In China, chinese food is simply called “food”. \*\* Not true. It may be called “vegetables”, “rice”, "noodles’ ect. instead of “Chinese vegetables.” Chinese food is often referred to by native Chinese speakers as “zhongcai” or “Chinese food” (literally Chinese vegetables). Food is called “shipin” and can be Western or Chinese. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-most-obscure-thing-you-know/99345.md?page=13)