801
@qikipedia
Word of the day: BAYARD - one blind to the light of knowledge, who has the self-confidence of ignorance.
802
@qikipedia
This is from NASA’s Apollo 10 mission’s transcript… (Image: Apollo 10 Mission, NASA/JSC)
803
@qikipedia
Welsh mathematician, Robert Recorde, invented the ‘equals’ sign. In 1557 he wrote: ‘noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle.’
804
@qikipedia
Word of the day: CLATTERFART - a talkative person.
805
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: KUCHINAOSHI (Japanese) — a nice food that you eat in order to get rid of the bad taste of something you have just consumed, a palate cleanser; literally, a ‘mouth fix’.
806
@qikipedia
According to Merriam-Webster, the word ‘colleague’ is most commonly used with such words as ‘fellow’, ‘esteemed’, and ‘distinguished’. The word ‘coworker’ is often used with such words as ‘difficult’, ‘bossy’, and ‘annoying’.
807
@qikipedia
After the Scottish Reformation, the lands of the Church were divided by the Crown into temporary lordships. The act of creation of these lordships was known as ‘erection’, and people who received them were officially known as the ‘Lords of Erection’.
808
@qikipedia
The craze evidently is dying out fast and in a few months it will have been forgotten. THE NEW YORK TIMES in 1925 on crosswords
809
@qikipedia
"The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it's as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues." TERRY PRATCHETT
810
@qikipedia
A bear named Hank the Tank had been accused of breaking into 28 homes in California since July.
He has recently been partially exonerated by DNA evidence. There are, in fact, no fewer than three different bears breaking into homes.
(Image: Tim Lumley; CC BY-NC-ND.)
811
@qikipedia
Tchaikovsky was able to quit his day job with the support of a wealthy patron.
Her only condition for her support was that they never meet in person.
812
@qikipedia
Though eels have been studied since ancient Greece, scientists still aren't sure how they have sex.
813
@qikipedia
There are at least 18 known books that are bound in human skin.
(Image: Wellcome Images.)
814
@qikipedia
Scientists hoping to track Australian magpies were foiled because the birds pecked each other’s tracking devices off.
815
@qikipedia
Scientists have created a potato plant that glows when it is stressed.
816
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: PÉNISPLIQUER (Canadian French, neologism) — mansplaining; ‘expliquer’ is French for ‘explain’.
817
@qikipedia
In 1993, a man in Brazil tried to rob a glue factory, but accidentally knocked over two large cans and spilled the contents. The police found him glued to the floor, not being able to move.
818
@qikipedia
The figurative meanings of the word ‘backlog’ — ‘reserves’ and ‘unfulfilled orders’ — were preceded by a literal one: originally, the word referred to a heavy log put at the back of a fireplace as a protection of the brickwork.
819
@qikipedia
Google can bring you back, you know, a hundred thousand answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one. NEIL GAIMAN
820
@qikipedia
2899 Americans went to the A&E in 2020 for pizza-related injuries.
821
@qikipedia
Fans of films about the zombie apocalypse found dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic easier.
822
@qikipedia
Ponyhenge is a collection of rocking horses in an open field in Lincoln, Massachusetts.
No one knows where the ponies come from, or who is donating them - but the herd continues to grow.
(Image: Jenn Forman Orth; CC BY-NC-SD.)
823
@qikipedia
In early drafts of Lord of the Rings, Frodo was named "Bingo".
824
@qikipedia
"The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON
825
@qikipedia
Scientists at the University of Copenhagen believe that they could resurrect an extinct species of rat.
They aren't planning to do so because "probably the world doesn’t need any more rats".
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves