19 Almost Interesting Facts I Stole From Mental Floss

(I don’t know from whom they stole them.)

Mental Floss . Com

1)  The word “PEZ” comes from the German word for peppermint—PfeffErminZ.
This must be to keep German children from asking for candy at the grocery store before they’re old enough to earn the money to buy it.

2)  Researchers believe that herring communicate with one another in a way humans would find repulsive: passing gas.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.

3) There was a third Apple founder. Ronald Wayne (pictured at home in 2010) sold his 10% stake for $800 in 1976.
He’s got to be a relative.

4)  Wilford Brimley was Howard Hughes's bodyguard.
He ate all the oatmeal and Hughes starved to death.

5)  Toy companies failed to duplicate the success of Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear with William Taft's "Billy Possum."
Go Figure…

6)  People didn't always say "hello" when they answered the phone. When the first regular phone service was established in 1878, people said "ahoy."
Monty Burns still does.

7)  In response to The Lorax, the forest products industry published Truax to teach kids the importance of logging.
Dr. Seuss wasn't available or they could have killed thousands of trees producing it.

8)  Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Hiroshima for work when the first A-bomb hit, made it home to Nagasaki for the second, and lived to be 93.
This was NOT a guy you wanted hanging around.

9)  Prairie dogs say hello with kisses.
If the mound is rockin’ don’t come knockin’

10) New Mexico State's first graduating class in 1893 had only one student—and he was shot and killed before graduation.
Princeton, fearing competition, was the prime suspect.

11)  The 50-star American flag was designed by an Ohio high school student for a class project. His teacher originally gave him a B–.
You’re a grand old flag, you’re a B minus flag…

12)  Sean Connery turned down the Gandalf role in Lord of the Rings. "I read the book. I read the script. I saw the movie. I still don't understand it."
What?  And he understood Highlander?

13)  E.B. White of Charlotte's Web fame is the "White" of Strunk and White, who wrote The Elements of Style.
And many of us who write have called EoS, Some Pig.

14)  12+1 = 11+2, and "twelve plus one" is an anagram of "eleven plus two."
I don’t know - A smart person told me this is interesting.

15)  Barry Manilow did not write his hit "I Write the Songs."
I knew it!!!!

16)  There's a basketball court above the Supreme Court. It's known as the Highest Court in the Land.
I bet they wear shorts and Converse under those robes.

17)  Redondo Beach, CA adopted the Goodyear Blimp as the city's official bird in 1983.
Spider Man was going to be the City insect till someone said, arachnid and all hell broke loose.

18)  In 2001, Beaver College changed its name to Arcadia in part because anti-porn filters blocked access to the school's website.
Yikes!

19)  William McKinley was on the $500 bill, Grover Cleveland was on the $1,000, and James Madison was on the $5,000.
As a service to counterfeiters everywhere.

To continue my theft - here's a vid a friend posted on FB.