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Hoping for more Olympic drama? The 1924 Olympic fencing competition featured two real duels over scoring disputes.
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In Irish Gaelic, the word for ‘hare’ is ‘giorria’, which is derived from a phrase that literally means ‘a short deer’.
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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.)
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Children’s dislike of cauliflower and broccoli is connected to the concentration of enzymes produced by bacteria in their saliva. The more of an enzyme called cysteine lyases their mouths produce, the more sulphurous brassicas will taste.
Image: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos
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1922 was an important year in western literature: the publication of ‘Ulysses' in full by James Joyce and ‘The Wasteland’ by T.S. Eliot, the death of Marcel Proust and it's the year in which F. Scott Fitzgerald set 'The Great Gatsby’.
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Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation. W.H. AUDEN
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London foxes appear to be domesticating themselves.
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Welsh dolphins have Welsh accents.
(Image: Mandy; CC BY.)
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Taking several pictures of something causes you to remember it worse than if you just looked at it.
This is called the “photo-taking-impairment effect”.
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A tautological compound is a word with two parts that have the same meaning, e.g. ‘sledgehammer’ (hammer-hammer), ‘pathway’ (way-way), and, if one etymological theory is correct, ‘slowworm‘ (snake-snake).
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You can get raw herring and onion ice cream in the Netherlands (Image: Redherring NL)
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Word of the day: LOGODIARRHOEA - an uncontrolled flow of words
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Word of the day: AFTERCLAP - an unpleasant turn of events after you thought you'd finished dealing with something
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The real-life technology chief of MI6 is now called ‘Q’.
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Although only 836 people live in the French village of Montolieu, it has one bookshop for every 56 residents as well several workshops and museums dedicated to the craft of making books.
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According to the head keeper at San Diego Zoo, the worst farts in the animal kingdom come from sea lions.
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In the town of Whittier, Alaska, almost everyone lives in one building.
90% of the town's residents live in one 14-storey building - that also houses a post office, shop, police station, health clinic, and a bed & breakfast.
(Image: WordRidden; CC BY.)
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Being infected with a parasite from cat poop makes you more likely to start a company.
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Welsh mathematician, Robert Recorde, invented the ‘equals’ sign. In 1557 he wrote: ‘noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle.’
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Books about achieving success are usually written by people whose main success in life is selling a book about achieving success. VIKTOR PELEVIN
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In 2019, the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society brought the organization to a "full stop".
He declared that their work was futile - “We, and our many supporters worldwide, have done our best but the ignorance and laziness present in modern times have won!”
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As king of Prussia, Frederick the Great encouraged his subject to eat more potatoes.
People now leave potatoes on his grave as a tribute.
(Image: Karen Mardahl; CC BY-SA.)
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Word of the day: SOLIVAGANT - a person who enjoys wandering by themselves.
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Henry Ford always drank warm water because he believed the body wasted vital energy warming it up from cold water.
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People are worse at detecting sarcasm than they think they are.
@qikipedia
A Quite Interesting Twitter feed from the team behind the BBC TV show QI.
linktr.ee/TheQIElves