An Archive of Curious Facts for the Curious
Etymology of Peebles Dr. Dalgleish, minister of Peebles, in giving a statistical account of that parish for Sir John Sinclair’s immense compilation, simply stated, that the place must have derived its name from the pebbles which are found there in great quantity. The more elaborate antiquary George Chalmers, by a tolerable pun for a man […]
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A wagoner was asked to identify what his load contained. However, he provided the following vague response: Three-fourths of a cross, and a circle complete; An upright, where two semi-circles do meet; A right-angled triangle standing on feet; Two semi-circles, and a circle complete. Can you figure this out? Solution The verse describes capital letters. […]
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George Burns in his book How to Live to Be 100 – or More (1983) has a section titled “Stay Away from Funerals, Especially Yours.” He remarked that if you look in the obituary column in the morning and your name isn’t there, “go ahead and have breakfast.” He said that if he ever looks in the obituary column […]
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Poet Lewis Morris (1833 – 1907) on one occasion bored Oscar Wilde with his ramblings regarding his woes. Morris lamented that the press boycotted his books on purpose. He also thought that he should have become a Poet Laureate after the death of Alfred Tennyson. After he enumerated several more examples of unfair treatments he […]
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“Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.” — Bruce Lansky, For Better and for Worse, 1995 … Are you interested in making $$$$ fast? Here’s an incredibly simple way to do it, and there is nothing to buy, no investment to make, no money to lose! Try it now! Follow this simple procedure: Hold […]
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The following image that I found details some ways to make your emails more professional and assertive. While I personally don’t care that much about this kind of stuff, this may prove to be useful to some of you: Image: Tumblr
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“Of all forms of monotony, the monotony of affirmation is the worst.” — Joseph Joubert According to Marcelle Boren in Disorder in the American Courts (2016), the following conversation apparently occurred in a US court of law: Clerk: “Please repeat after me: ‘I swear by Almighty God…’” Witness: “I swear by Almighty God.” Clerk: “That the evidence […]
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Job seekers spend a lot of time crafting a perfect CV. Well, at least, that’s the idea. Here are some of the oddest CV goofs culled from real-life examples: “The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers.” “References: None. I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.” “I have a sold […]
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Monotony The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the […]
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Image: Imgur Well, I’m not sure whether I would laugh or cringe when I first saw this. The Pratt Tribune changed the headline of the online version to “Students get job-site training during Disability Mentoring Day.
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