1226
@qikipedia
There is no such thing as ‘a daddy longlegs’. There are at least three different creatures that answer to that name: the cellar spider (an arachnid); the harvestman (an arachnid but not a spider); and the crane fly (an insect, picture below).
Image: neurovelho, CC BY-SA 3.0
1227
@qikipedia
Word of the day: MICROLIPET - someone who is continually getting worked up about absolutely trivial things
1228
@qikipedia
The World Octopus Wrestling Championships took place in 1963 and then never again.
1229
@qikipedia
Word of the day: FORPLAINT - to be tired from complaining so much
1230
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: DIÀNZǏ ZHÀCÀI (Chinese, slang) — a non-demanding entertainment, for instance, a TV show to enjoy after a long day at work, a mental comfort food; literally ‘cyber pickle’.
1231
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: INFRACANINOPHILE — someone who loves underdogs.
1232
@qikipedia
Word of the day: STRUTHIOUS - ostrich-like, used to describe someone who keeps their head in the sand and whose only response to a problem is "problem? what problem?"
1233
@qikipedia
In a UK supermarket, if a salad is described as ‘washed’ that usually means washed in a chlorine rinse.
Dfrg.msc, CC BY-SA 3.0
1234
@qikipedia
Noah Webster popularized many American spellings, such as "center", "color" and "defense".
Not all of his respellings were successful, though. He also suggested "soop" (soup), "iland" (island), and "iz" (is).
1235
@qikipedia
Word of the day: CONCILIABULE - a secret meeting of those hatching a plot
1236
@qikipedia
Kanbari nyūdō is a Japanese spirit that lurks around toilets on New Year’s Eve and tries to lick you.
1237
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: RUMPTYDOOLER (New Zealand slang) — someone or something excellent.
1238
@qikipedia
"In all of human history, there has never been more damage done than by people who thought they were doing the right thing." CHARLES SCHULZ
1239
@qikipedia
Word of the day: SCOFFLAW, n. a US term for one who treats the law with contempt, especially a law that’s difficult to enforce.
1240
@qikipedia
The word ‘wassailing’, as in ‘Here we come a-wassailing’, comes from the Old English greeting ‘wes hāl’ (‘be well’). It became a drinking salutation (‘waes hail’), then the name for the Yuletide drink (‘wesseyl’) and finally the name for the holiday fun when you were drinking it.
1241
@qikipedia
In 2006, The Ig Nobel Prize in Literature went to the Princeton psychologist Daniel Oppenheimer for his paper ‘Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly’. @improbresearch
1242
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: GIMCRACKERY — a collection of showy and useless things.
1243
@qikipedia
The nouns ‘slew’ (a great amount of) and ‘slogan’ are related. Gaelic ‘sluagh’ (crowd) transformed into ‘slew’ and in combination with ‘ghairm’ — ‘sluagh-ghairm’ (war cry) — gave rise to ‘slogan’.
1244
@qikipedia
The word ‘naughty’ is related to the word ‘nought’ and originally meant ‘poor, needy’, then ‘wicked’, then ‘immoral, promiscuous’, and only then ‘disobedient, badly behaved’.
1245
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: PHILODOX - someone who is in love with their own opinions
1246
@qikipedia
The Manx for hedgehog is ‘Arkan sonney’, meaning ‘plentiful little pig’. That's also the name of the legendary ‘fairy pig of the Isle of Man’, who brings good luck if caught.
1247
@qikipedia
Word of the day: DESIDERATE - to long for something you once had
1248
@qikipedia
"Beauty doesn't have to be about anything. What's a vase about? What's a sunset or a flower about? What, for that matter, is Mozart's Twenty-third Piano Concerto about?" DOUGLAS ADAMS
1249
@qikipedia
Word of the day: TINTIDDLE - a witty retort, thought of too late; the English equivalent for l'esprit de l'escalier
1250
@qikipedia
Recorded Australian slang terms for ‘egg’ include ‘bum nut’, ‘butt nugget’, and ‘fart cartridge’.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves