Words You Never Heard!

New technology has made it possible to create diamonds in a lab that are almost indistinguishable from those that occur naturally.  In fact, diamond experts now need to use sophisticated and specialized machinery to tell the difference.

Joel Youngblood would go down in history as the only baseball player who played for two different teams in one day.  Not only that, but Joel also managed to get hits in both games!

Of course, people aren’t the only living creatures that yawn.  Many animals including some birds, alligators, and fish have also been observed to yawn.  What’s another word for yawning? 

Oscitating!

He watched the students purchasing cookies and other food from the campus store.  Now Negro comes for a cookie every day and always pays with a leaf.  How pawsome is that?

 

Recently a tanker truck hauling melted milk chocolate toppled over on a highway in Poland, coating six lanes of traffic in delicious sugary goo.  The chocolate was so thick that first responders left footprints in the muck, and heavy machinery had to be brought in to scrape it off the roads.  Some drivers continued on their merry way, spreading streaks of chocolate for miles.  Crews raced to clean up the chocolate before it hardened on the road.  The driver of the truck suffered a broken arm, but fortunately, no one else was injured.

The scientific name for the tree that chocolate comes from is theobroma cacao, which means "food of the gods." The word "chocolate" comes from the Aztec word "xocoatl," which referred to the bitter, spicy drink the Aztecs made from cacao beans. The Aztec emperor Montezuma II drank more than 50 cups of chocolate every day. It takes an almost a full year for a cocoa tree to produce enough pods to make 10 standard-sized Hershey bars!

 

 

 

While most Australians speak English, people from the land down under have invented some unusual words and phrases all their own. Aussies are down to earth people and speak with colorful expressions such as “His teeth are so crooked he could eat an apple through a tennis racquet .” That may sound a little mean, but it’s considered fair dinkum in Australia!

In Australia, an outdoor grill is known as a barbie and clothes are called clobbers.  If something is terrific, it’s a ripper and candy is referred to as lollie!

French Fries are "chips" and potato chips are crisps.  Men are blokes and women are sheilas, and someone who is a little crazy is known to have a few Kangaroos loose in the top paddock!

 

 

A randomtocracyis a society that lives by a system of laws and rules that seem to have been thought up by wackadoos! Did you know that in New Zealand, it’s illegal to fly in a hot air balloon with a rooster? In Finland, traffic violation fines are calculated as a percentage of the offender’s income. In 2002, the director of Nokia got a $12.5 million dollar speeding ticket. While that sounds like foogazey or nonsense, I heard lawmakers are considering this idea in America as well.

In Denmark, parents have to pick their baby’s name from a pre-approved list of about 36,000 names. Of course, you can apply to get an unauthorized first name approved.  In Germany, office buildings cannot be built unless all the rooms have a window.  And in Quitman, Georgia, chickens are really not allowed to cross the road.  The law came about to make farm owners take better care of their animals. What are some other words for crazy? Rajbongo, yelzabob, and kerbatzoes! 

 

Every culture has a unique way of greeting people. Romantic cultures such as Latin America and the French share the custom of greeting people with a kiss whether they know them or not.  What’s another word for kissing? Osculating! In Tibet, sticking out your tongue is a perfectly acceptable greeting. This custom is rooted in the story of an evil king who’s tongue was black.  By showing someone else your tongue you are proving you are not the reincarnated evil king.

Eskimo kissing or rubbing noses is a way to show affection in Arctic climates without exposing one’s mouth to the freezing cold temperatures.  The Inuits call this a kunik.  In the Philippines, elders are greeted by taking one of their hands gently and pressing it on your forehead. They call this gesture mano,  which is “hand” in Spanish,  and it’s used to show respect.

 

 

I’m having a little trouble getting my brain in gear today, so I thought you might like to know some interesting facts about the human brain. The average human brain is the size of 2 clenched fists and weighs about 3 pounds! According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the world’s heaviest adult human brain weighed 5 pounds one oz. and the world’s lightest brain weighed 1 pound, 8 oz!

 The average number of neural synapses in your brain is 60 billion, and most people start out with over 100 billion neurons which are the cells that transmit information.  Neurons are capable of transmitting at over 200 miles per hour! What’s a (Hawaiian) word meaning ‘really fast’?  Wiki Wiki! It’s a good thing we start out with so many because we lose over 85,000 neurons a day from lack of brexercize , that's exercise for your brain! Alcohol consumption also contributes to brain cell loss.  What’s a word for indulging in fun and foolishness?  Dogberryism!  

 

 

    Because I have a hard time remembering street names, I tend to use landmarks when giving directions.   But here are some REAL street names that would be pretty hard to forget:   How would you like to live on Psychopath Road or Dumb Woman’s Lane?  What about Divorce Court, Slack Bottom Road or Toe Jam Hill?  What’s a word for having a tendency to forget names?  Lethonomia!   Tickle Tongue Road, Booger Branch Road, and Woman Hollering Creek Road are all roads I don’t want to go down. In New Jersey, the folks in charge of naming roads must not have been able to decide on a name for what is now known as No Name Street.  What’s a word for the inability to come to a decision? Hypobulia!