1176
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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).
1177
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Word of the day: DOYCHLE (19th century Scots) - to work even though you're half asleep
1178
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Replacing all the UK’s cars and vans with electric batteries would require twice the current worldwide annual production of cobalt.
1179
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The Disney film ‘Bambi’ is based on Felix Salten’s novel written in 1923. In the 1930s, it was banned by the Nazis as a political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe, and many copies of the novel were burned.
1180
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A collective noun for a group of ghostwriters is ‘a fright’.
1181
@qikipedia
Death rate drop during economic downturns.
People drive less and get into fewer accidents, leading to cleaner air. People also have less money to spend on cigarettes and alcohol.
1182
@qikipedia
One of the nicknames given to the yellow-rumped warbler is ‘butterbutt’.
1183
@qikipedia
‘Irn-Bru’ has its own tartan.
1184
@qikipedia
MELIORISM is the belief that the world can be made better through concerted human effort.
1185
@qikipedia
Stressed men prefer big butts.
1186
@qikipedia
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk: That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." ERNEST HEMINGWAY
1187
@qikipedia
From 1559 to 1779, this fountain in Treviso, Italy was filled with free wine during festivals.
One breast provided white wine and the other provided red wine.
(Image: Didier Descouens; CC BY-SA.)
1188
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Three-quarters of the world’s border walls and fences were installed after 2000.
1189
@qikipedia
Word of the Day: RUMPTYDOOLER (New Zealand slang) — someone or something excellent.
1190
@qikipedia
According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, both ‘skite’ in ‘blatherskite’ (chatterer) and ‘skate’ in ‘cheapskate’ (miser) ultimately come from the Old Icelandic verb ‘skíta’, ‘to shit’. So, a blatherskite is a blathering piece of shit and a cheapskate is a cheap piece of shit.
1191
@qikipedia
I love telling people spoilers about The Picture of Dorian Gray. Never gets old. ALEX JOHNSON
1192
@qikipedia
In the thirteenth century, Cistercian monks developed a numeral system that allowed them to write any number between 1 and 9999 with a single glyph.
(Images: Meteoorkip and Chunes33; CC BY-SA.)
1193
@qikipedia
"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors." JORGE LUIS BORGES
1194
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The man who invented the modern roundabout, the stop sign, the taxi stand, the one-way street, and the pedestrian crosswalk never learned how to drive.
(Image: honorary driving licence of William Phelps Eno.)
1195
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In 1931, a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell struck out both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
A few days later, the baseball commissioner voided her contract and declared baseball "too strenuous" for women.
1196
@qikipedia
At one point in the 1990s, 50% of all CDs produced were promotional AOL CDs.
(Image: Jeran Renz.)
1197
@qikipedia
In 1974, a bridge in Vulcan, West Virginia collapsed.
When it had not been replaced by 1977, the mayor requested aid from the Soviet Union to repair it. A Soviet journalist, Iona Andronov, flew out to report.
Within hours of his visit, the state OKed a replacement.
1198
@qikipedia
Word of the day: MICROLIPET - someone who is continually getting worked up about absolutely trivial things
1199
@qikipedia
A CAPITONYM is a word that means something different if it's capitalised - for instance "polish" and "Polish".
1200
@qikipedia
Australia’s Parliament building features a coat of arms with a kangaroo’s scrotum.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves