Words You Never Heard!

Have you or has someone you know ever driven off from a gas station with the gas nozzle still lodged in the fuel filler neck of the car?  Well, it happens more than you might think. In fact, in a survey of gas stations across the country, it seems some gilly gaupus person drives off with the pump still in their tank about once a month!

In most of these cases, the driver was either not paying attention because they were talking on their cell phone, or if the fuel filler on their car is on the passenger side and they forgot they were still attached to the pump after going into the gas station.  In Australia, this kind of embarrassing mistake is known as a bingle.  Do you know why gas stations always keep their restroom door locked?  They are afraid someone might come in and clean it!

Recently a seagull stunned scientists at the Alderney Bird Observatory in England by flying over 500 miles from Britain to Spain in just seven days. The great black-backed gull, one of the largest seagull species had been tagged in order to track its movements.  People at the observatory said it was pretty unusual for a seagull to travel that far in such a short period of time.

There are approximately 50 species of seagulls and they can be found all over the planet including the margins of Antarctica, and in the high Arctic regions as well.

Seagulls are known thieves, often stealing food from other birds or even each other.  This is known as kleptoparasitism. 

The Birds, an American thriller film, released in 1963 by Alfred Hitchcock, is a story about a northern California coastal town that is inexplicably attacked and rendered helpless by massive flocks of aggressive birds.  What’s a word for the fear of birds?   Ornithophobia! 

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 stops when you sneeze, but it doesn’t.  However, it may skip a beat or two. 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.

 Are you ready for Shark Week?  That’s right, The Discovery Channel’s infamous Shark Week is coming back for its 31st year!  The week of “fin”tastic television starts on Sunday, July 28 and runs until August 4th. Among the shark stories featured this year is a stunning display of tens of thousands of blacktip and spinner sharks swimming towards beachgoers on the east coast of Florida.

Here are some bite-sized facts about Sharks: Sharks never run out of teeth! If they lose a tooth, another spins forward from rows and rows of back teeth!  A shark may lose as much as 20,000 teeth in a lifetime!  Did you know the idea for the original steak knife was derived from shark’s teeth? Baby sharks are also called pups, and new research shows that sharks may be colorblind. Sharks can smell a single drop of blood in 1 million drops of water! What’s a word for the fear of sharks?  Selachophobia!

A new study just published in Scientific Reports claims domestic cats do recognize their own names — they just couldn't care less!  Apparently, cats are just as good as dogs at learning, they’re just not as keen to show their owners.

Did you know cats are the most common pets in America? There are around 66 million cat owners in America compared to 58 million dogs, with Parakeets “flying” a distant third at 14 million.

The average cat will cost its owner around $6000 dollars during its life to cover its expenses. Now that’s a lot of spondulicks! An ailurophile is what you call a real cat aficionado.  You’ve heard of a flock of sheep or a herd of goats, but what’s the correct term for a group of felines? A clowder of cats!

Everyone thinks that June is the most popular month for weddings, but on average more weddings occur during the month of October, followed by September.  The longest-married couple on record was Herbert and Zelmyra Fisher. They were married for 86 years, 9 months, and 16 days.  The word Bride is derived from a Proto-Germanic word meaning to cook or brew, as this was the traditional role of the wife in earlier times.

The most expensive wedding dress on record cost a whopping $12.2 million dollars and featured 150 carats worth of diamonds.  What’s a name for a showy person?  A flapadosha!  Today’s average engagement ring costs a little more than $3500 with the most expensive on the record being $8.8 Million, given to Elizabeth Taylor of course. But, money doesn’t always guarantee a happy marriage.  What’s another word for an unhappy marriage?  Cagamosis!

Eudemonia is a word for deriving pleasure from doing mundane things such as the laundry.  Finally, modern technology has produced a machine that can help, with the laundry that is. The Foldimate, which just debuted at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, folds your clothes for you.  Well, this is sure to make laundry issues less pressing:)  All you have to do is feed your clothes into a slot on the machine, and the Foldimate does the rest, automatically folding your clothes and delivering them neatly stacked and ready to put away. 

What’s a word for a person who wears wrinkled clothes? A Scobberlotcher! The manufacturer says the FoldiMate machine should be available to consumers within the United States by late 2019.  In laundry speak, what’s the opposite of wrinkly?  Why that would be Irony:)

PetSmart has a policy that allows you to bring your pets into their stores.  However, employees and customers at a PetSmart in Muskegon, Michigan were gobsmacked when someone brought in their 1400  pound camel.  The camel, named Jeffrey was on a bit of a field trip from the Lewis Farms and Petting Zoo with his owner Mr. Lewis.  Mr. Lewis explained he was just trying to get Jeffery used to riding in his trailer.

Camels are very social animals and Jeffery was no exception and soon the customers and workers at PetSmart were all gathered around to greet him.  A camel with one hump is called a dromedary and a two-humped camel is called a Bactrian!    The word camel in Arabic literally means beauty.  Really?  Have you ever seen a camel up close?  A dragoman is a name for an Arabic interpreter who will tell you there are over 160 words in Arabic for a camel.

A Texas man has just won the Guinness World Record for the Largest Video Game Collection.  Antonio Monteiro from Richmond, Texas owns over 20,000 video games, and it took eight days to count the entire collection to verify the record.  He also has more than the 100 consoles required to play them all.

What do you call someone who loves the myths and symbols found in video games?  A Philomythist!

His collection includes rarities, such as a Nintendo game released only to the U.S. military, as well as complete collections of games for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Sega Dreamcast, PSP, PS Vita, Xbox, Xbox 360, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Cube, Wii and Atari Jaguar.

Gamers often like to root for the underdog.  What’s a word for someone who loves to champion the underdog?  An  Infracaninophile!

Something’s Fishy on the Golf Course

Recently, during the PGA Tour's Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Florida, an osprey swooped down and grabbed a fish out of a water hazard and began to fly away.  But as they say in golf, the bird foozled and dropped the fish on the grass in the middle of the course. TV cameras captured the moment when a fan ran out onto the green, grabbed the fish and returned it to the water.

The osprey is the only hawk species in North America with an almost exclusive diet of live fish.  The osprey has  nostrils that can be closed, which allows it to dive 3 feet down into the water to capture its prey. It also has an outer toe that can be angled backwards to better grasp fish. Whats a word for having toes that point both forward and backward?  Zygodactyl.

Coincidentally some of the first golf balls were made of leather pouches packed tightly with feathers.