Words You Never Heard

  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!    

  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.  

  The world's first vending machine was invented in Ancient Egypt in 215 BCE.  Of course, vending machines are everywhere now and have recently been expanding their offerings to satisfy the masses. I guess sometimes people have an intense craving for a certain type of food. These people are also known as opsomaniacs. Ohio State University has its own bacon vending machine. And there's a pecan pie vending machine in Cedar Creek, Texas.  Other rassasy vending machines around the world dispense hot pizza, burritos, live crabs, baguettes, and caviar!  Rassasy is something to satisfy your hunger. Did you forget to pack your pants?  The Standard hotels in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami actually have clothing in their vending machines!  

How important is the order in which you were born?  According to a new book by Dr. Kevin Lehman, birth order determines the role siblings play in their families and affects how we feel about ourselves and relate to others.   Dr. Lehman’s research suggests that firstborns are typically more assertive and dominant, often going on to fill a position of high authority or achievement.   Middle children tend to have excellent negotiating and people skills.  You will find that many nurses, firefighters, and law enforcement professionals are middle children.  What’s a word for the second born?  Secundogeniture.   Last born children seem to enjoy attention and being in the limelight.  These babies are attracted to more artistic endeavors.  They are also successful in journalism, advertising and sales.  What’s another word for a person who is the life of the party?  Tummler!