851
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The ‘wheady mile’ is an old Shropshire term meaning the last bit of a journey that goes on much longer than you thought it would.
852
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In medieval Europe, royal courts often had a special person called mustardarius who was in charge of growing and preparing mustard.
853
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Be pleasant until ten o'clock in the morning and the rest of the day will take care of itself. ELBERT HUBBARD 1856-1915
854
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During the Second World War, British officer John ‘Mad Jack’ Churchill took a sword, a longbow and bagpipes into battle.
855
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A ‘libfix’ is a part of a word that’s ‘liberated’ and used to create new words. Libfixes include the ‘gate’ from Watergate (making eg plebgate and partygate); the ‘athon’ in marathon (eg walkathon and telethon); and the ‘licious’ in delicious (eg bootylicious, babelicious).
856
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: PÉNISPLIQUER (Canadian French, neologism) — mansplaining; ‘expliquer’ is French for ‘explain’.
857
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In 2009, Irish police wrote more than 50 tickets to "Prawo Jazdy".
Prawo Jazdy is Polish for "driving licence".
858
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A popular textbook on statistical mechanics begins as follows:
859
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Word of the Day: OMNIBIBULOUS — someone who drinks everything.
860
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To protect itself from parasites while it sleeps, the parrotfish encases itself in a bag of mucus burped from its gills. (Image: RobertoCostaPinto, CC-SA-4.0)
861
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Scientists have discovered when shrikes, a type of carnivorous bird, are flying overhead, Mongolian voles trim the grass around them because shrikes associate cut grass with poor hunting grounds.
862
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Word of the Day: VILLAINSPLAINING (neologism) — endless monologuing by a movie baddie about the specifics of their evil scheme.
863
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The Dutch town of Nieuwkoop has a literal ‘red light district’ for bats. At night, the town is lit by red street lights that are less disruptive to bat activity than white ones.
864
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A church clock in Worsley, Manchester strikes thirteen each day. The Duke of Bridgewater supposedly had it made in the 18th century to stop workers extending their lunch breaks, as 13 strikes at 1pm was much harder to miss than a single one.
865
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People think cynics are smarter than optimists, but cynics actually do worse on tests of cognitive ability.
866
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A sense of disconnect between what you have objectively achieved and your feelings about it, an inability to see your own success, is called PRODUCTIVITY DYSMORPHIA.
867
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The pobblebonk frog is so called because when it croaks it sounds like it’s saying the word ‘pobblebonk’ (Image: Will Brown)
868
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Because your vocal folds need a humid environment to be elastic enough to produce certain sounds correctly, tonal languages — like Mandarin Chinese — are much more common in humid regions of Earth.
869
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Word of the day: MERRYNEUM (neologism) - the odd week between Christmas and the New Year
870
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Richard Norris Williams was advised to have his legs amputated after he survived the sinking of the Titanic, but he instead walked it off and won the Men’s Doubles Championships at Wimbledon in 1920.
871
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San Francisco allows residents to "adopt a drain" and name it.
Names include "Drains of Castamere", "Grate Expectations" and of course, "Drainy McDrainface".
872
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In the 18th century, small cannons were sometimes mounted on camels.
873
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"The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
874
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There are no fewer than seven mountains called "Mollie's Nipple" in Utah.
875
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Word of the day: ABIBLIOPHOBIA - fear of running out of things to read
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A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves