Words You Never Heard!

 Americans eat out an average of 4.9 times a week. Restauranteurs have discovered that outdoor menu boards are a great way to draw customers in an area that has heavy pedestrian traffic. Also called A-frame signs or sandwich boards, these signs allow establishments to make an impression on customers inviting them to come in and eat. This kind of marketing has prompted some restaurant owners to add a little humor to their menu boards.

A sign outside one restaurant read:  “COME IN AND TRY THE WORST MEATBALL SANDWICH THAT ONE GUY ON YELP EVER HAD IN HIS LIFE!”

Another sidewalk sign said: WE DO NOT HAVE WIFI…TALK TO EACH OTHER AND PRETEND ITS 1995!

Or how about this one? THIS WEEKS SPECIAL: BUY ONE BEER FOR THE PRICE OF TWO AND RECEIVE A SECOND BEER ABSOLUTELY FREE! What’s a word for food that has no nutritional value?  Lubberwort!

If you’re like me, you’ve experienced that moment in the conversation when you can’t remember a word, even a simple word! A woman named Brittani Nichols recently shared her story. She called a restaurant to make a dinner reservation when her mind suddenly drew a blank on the word.  So she asked to make a food appointment.

Speaking of appointments, a man who was trying to schedule for a trim with his barber, couldn’t think of the word “appointment” and asked if there were any available hair cutting opportunities.

Have you ever asked someone to bring you something and then forgot what it was you wanted?  I think we’ve all used words like whoosiewagger, doodad, thingamabob, thingamajig, or you know… That thing in the closet. What’s a word for the inability to remember a word?  Lethologica!

Halloween is almost here and it’s time to get ready for trick or treaters.  I say, any holiday that condones eating candy is alright with me.  One of my favorite Halloween treats is Candy Corn.  According to Mental Floss Magazine, Candy Corn was invented by George Renninger, an employee of the Wunderle Candy Company in 1888.

The Goelitz Candy Company also began producing candy corn marketing it under the name of “Chicken Feed”.  Reeses Peanut Butter Cups top the list of America’s favorite Halloween candies.  What’s a word for the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth?  Arachibutyrophobia!

Fifty percent of kids prefer to receive chocolate candy for Halloween, compared with 24% who prefer non-chocolate candy and 10% who want gum.  But no matter what kind of candy you like for Halloween, “bone appetite!"

Did you know that cows may have regional accents just like humans?  According to the BBC, this phenomenon was first detected by dairy farmers who noticed that their cows had different moos, depending on where they came from.  John Wells, Professor of Phonetics at the University of London, said regional twangs had been seen before in birds! Cows are also capable of recognizing faces, even after long periods of time. Very mooo-ving indeed!

Cows vocalize for a number of reasons, including looking for herd mates and sometimes because they are unhappy.  Most cows are simply content to chewing their cud. Fletcherizing is a word meaning to reduce food to tiny particles by prolonged chewing. Apparently, cattle thieves still exist. Names for cattle thieves include poddy-dodgers, ‘cattle duffers, and gully-rakers! My question is: when a cow laughs, does milk come out her nose?”  I know, that’s “Udderly ridiculous!”

October is Apple Month and here are some fun facts about apples to celebrate this delicious and popular fruit. Did you know Granny Smith apples are named after a real Granny Smith? There are 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the United States and 7,500 varieties of apples are grown throughout the world. The top apple producers around the world are China, United States, Turkey, Poland and Italy.

It’s almost impossible to eat an apple quietly.  Yaffling is another word for eating noisily. Apples range in size from a little larger than a cherry to as large as a grapefruit.  Apples float because they are made up of 25% air. Nothing satisfies like a crunchy tasty apple.  What’s another word for the feeling of satisfaction? Rassasy!

Tim Lomas’ book, Happiness-Found In Translation, features many words from other languages that don’t have English equivalents. For example, Croatians have the word  fjaka, which means “the sweetness of doing nothing.” Or the total state of relaxation experienced by freeing one’s mind and body of activity. Speaking of relaxation, Going for a walk in the woods can sometimes clear your mind just as well as a good meditation session. There’s no one English word that describes the restorative effect of immersing yourself in nature, but the Japanese call it shinrin-yoku.

Have you ever met someone whose expression made you feel like you were in on a joke, without even knowing what the joke was?  You might say they had a twinkle in their eye, but the Dutch would call it  pretoogjes, which means “fun or smiling eyes.”

In a survey conducted by travel website Big 7 Travel, 1.5 million people weighed in on the “friendliest states in America”.  The “Nice” state of Minnesota came in first followed by the state known for its southern hospitality, Tennessee. The Northeast didn’t fare so well on the friendly scale with Delaware, Massachusetts and New Jersey all ranking near the bottom and New York coming in dead last.

Apparently, New Yorkers can’t seem to shake their reputation of being rude.  What’s another word for a rude person?  A stickybeak. Wyoming is another state that ranked high for being friendly.  People in Wyoming tend to exude a sense of community which is welcoming to visitors.  The Germans have a word for feeling safe and at home.  The word is geborgenheit!

Did you know sneezes sound different in other countries? While people in English-speaking countries tend to say “achoo” , French-speaking countries add an “m” to create an atchoum!  A sneeze in Germany sounds like hatschi and in Japan you’re more likely to hear hakshun! Here are some sneezing facts not everyone “Nose”:

Many people believe that your heart skips a beat when you sneeze, but it doesn’t.  Sneezing in your sleep is rare because the nerves that trigger sneezing are also asleep.  It is true that bright sunlight can make some people sneeze.  The medical term for sneezing is sternutation. Some people say gesundheit or God bless you after someone sneezes.  Gesundheit originated in Germany and means “health”, but God bless you originated during the bubonic plague when sneezing was considered an early sign that you might have the disease.

There are all kinds of places in the world with funny or unusual names, but these are a few of my favorites as featured in Mental Floss magazine: There is a town in Ontario, Canada named Punkeydoodle's Corners.  Apparently, someone kept stealing the sign with the town’s name, so the residents replaced it with a monument that weighs almost a ton.

In the town of Batman, Turkey, a former mayor threatened to sue Warner Brothers over the name in the Dark Knight Trilogy. Eggs and Bacon Bay in Tasmania are actually named after a wildflower with yellow and red petals. Two glacial islands off the coast of Antarctica are known as The Office Girls.  There are so many glacial islands or nunataks as they are also called around Antarctica that committees were formed and charged with the task of naming them all.  The Office Girls were named in 1970 as a tribute to the administrative personnel on the US naming committees.

Selfies may seem vain and frivolous, but there’s actually a lot more to this cultural phenomenon than meets the (camera’s) eye.   Your favorite selfie pose can say a lot about your personality. In a study published in Computers in Human Behaviour, researchers connected self-portrait styles to specific character traits. 

People who like to look directly into the camera are more likely to be philodemics,  or agreeable and loving.  Those who have a go-to “duck face” pose are more likely to be emotionally unstable. But they don’t mind feeling kenspeckled, or conspicuous. Thirty-six percent of all people admit to doctoring their selfie or editing it before sharing it. This includes enhancing skin tone or using a filter.using a filter. The goal is to take a selfie so good, you can't believe it's you!  What’s a word for a condition where things appear more beautiful than they really are? Kalopsia!