Hello SUNFUN Fans!
Pretty provocative title for this week, isn't it? OK, so
not EVERYTHING you know is wrong, but you'd be surprised at the
number of fictional facts we all carry around. Everyone knows,
for example, that Cleopatra was a beautiful Egyptian, that
Napoleon was a short French guy, that George Washington had
wooden teeth and that Julius Caesar was born by caesarian
section. And we all know that brides in a church wedding walk
down the aisle, that we all have five senses, and that Columbus
proved the world was round. Except that every one of those facts
is just plain wrong!
Here at SUNFUN, we may not be right in everything, but we're
sure to be right in saying Thanks to all these folks who have
contributed to Funnies (Take a really deep breath now!): Sylvia
Libin He, Selene Rubino, Jerry Taff, Laura Hong Li, Ellen
Peterson, Bob Martens, Helen Yee, Timothy McChain, Beth Butler,
John Peterson, Bernie & Donna Becwar, Don Ney, Peter Adler, Mark
Becwar, Kevin Willis, Lydia Cheong Chu-Ling, Howard Lesniak and
Carol Becwar. Wow! There were so many contributions that came
in while I was away from SUNFUN Central. Thanks for all the
Email and other contributions, including all the great Chinese
food, Libin. Sunday Funnies doesn't live by just information
alone, you know!
Have a great week!
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- St. Patrick
He did spend much of his life in Ireland, but St.
Patrick wasn't born there. In fact, he first came to
Ireland as a teenager kidnapped into slavery by the
Irish. After escaping, he returned to the Auld Sod as
a missionary. The exact place of Pat's birth isn't
clear, but it was nowhere in the Emerald Isle. The
most likely possibility - and maybe most disturbing -
is that the patron saint of Ireland was born in
England! I guess he was just the first person in
history to prove that when you wear green, everyone
thinks you're Irish.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- We Have Five Senses
We have many more than the five senses usually given -
sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. We have a
sense of balance that keeps us more-or-less upright if
we're sober, a sense of position that lets us know
where our limbs are in space, senses of hunger and
thirst, pain and temperature, and also a "visceral
sense" that keeps us aware of how the machinery below
decks is running. Lots more than five, anyway...
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- Napoleon
Maybe he did have a "Napoleon complex," but the world's
most famous short guy wasn't all that short. Not that
he was a basketball player or anything, but he stood
about 168 cm (5' 6"). The French Army regulations of
the time allowed guys as short as 5 feet tall to join
up, so Napoleon towered over at least SOME of his men.
He wasn't French, either, having been born to Italian
parents in Corsica.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Eskimos have thirty-six words for snow
It's just not that simple. The Inuit and Yuik tongues
are what linguists call "polysynthetic languages" in
which the usual way of expressing a thought is to
combine a number of roots into a single word that
expresses the meaning you want. (Germans can do this,
too.) So you can freely make a special, single-use
word for "melty snow that squishes through the cracks
in your old boots and causes your left middle toe to get
frostbitten." That means Eskimos have as many words
for snow as imagination allows. Besides, we have more
words for snow than most people believe: blizzards,
flurries, dustings, powder, snowdrifts, avalanches...
the list goes on and on.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Mice like cheese
All those cartoons can't be wrong, can they? Sure they
can! Studies have shown that mice prefer any number of
foods more than cheese, including vegetables, meat,
fresh fruit, even peanut butter. But they'll eat most
anything if they're hungry enough, even cardboard
boxes. Someday we'll have to talk about magnets in
cartoons...
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- "We Three Kings of Orient are..."
Long standing Christmas tradition has it that three
kings from the east presented the Christ child with
presents of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Three
presents, yes, three kings, no. The Bible only
mentions in the second book of Matthew that there were
"wise men from the East" who visited the family. It
never mentions how many and never says that they were
kings.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Nero fiddled while Rome burned
Long the bad guy in every "Christians vs. Lions" movie,
Nero behaved pretty honorably during the great fire of
Rome that destroyed much of the city in 64 A.D. It
might have been the only time in his life when he did
try to do the right thing; most of the time Nero was
more zero than hero. Hearing about the fire at his
sea-side villa 56 km (35 miles) outside the city, Nero
immediately rushed back into town to take personal
charge of fire-fighting. He also provided relief and
food on a large scale to Roman citizens whose homes had
been destroyed. Nero did fancy himself quite a poet
and musician, though, and one senator committed suicide
rather than be forced to listen to any more of the boy
emperor's whining orations. Nero may have been a jerk,
but he didn't fiddle - it would be another 1500 years
before anyone got around to inventing the violin.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- The Panama Canal runs East and West
Because it runs between the Atlantic and Pacific
oceans, most people think that the canal runs east to
west. A quick check of a map shows that a ship taking
the canal from Atlantic to Pacific travels towards
the southeast, ending up in the Pacific a few miles
east of where it left the Atlantic. Who said life was
simple?
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Columbus proved the world was round
No educated person in Columbus' time believed that the
Earth was flat. The ancient Greeks had figured out
that the Earth was round a couple of thousand years
before - they even had a reasonably good estimate of
the size, and that was the problem. Columbus had
convinced himself that the Greek estimate was high,
calculating for himself that the globe was smaller so
it should be possible to sail straight across the ocean
to Asia. The folks in Spain mostly thought Columbus
was nuts, since they knew that ships of the time didn't
have the range to cross that much open ocean. It would
be like trying to drive your Chevy from Chicago to
Mexico City on one tank of gas with two Twinkies and a
Diet Coke for provisions. If Columbus hadn't
accidentally bumped into America, he would never have
been heard from again. Not that the Indians would have
minded that much, as things turned out.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Brides walking down the aisle in a church...
Brides don't walk down the aisle, at least, not in
anything like a normal wedding. In a church, the
passages on the sides closest to the walls are called
the aisles. Brides walk down the center passageway of
the church, which is the "nave."
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Cleopatra
The lady we know as Cleopatra was the seventh ruler
with that name - her pals knew her as Cleopatra VII
Theo Philopater. She was the last ruler of the Greek
dynasty that ruled Egypt for a couple hundred years
before the Romans took over in 31 B.C. The language of
her court in Alexandria was Greek, and she only
bothered to wear Egyptian dress for a few ceremonial
occasions. Her ancestry was a mix of Greek, Iranian,
and Macedonian - right, no Egyptian. The existing
portraits of her show that she was no fashion model,
though she had a reputation for being charming, smart
and politically savvy. Much more of a turn-on for the
likes of Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony than some
brainless bimbo who looked cute in a toga.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Julius Caesar
Exactly how Cleo's boyfriend Julius made his first
appearance wasn't recorded, but it wasn't via caesarian
section. His mother was a well-known character in
ancient Rome while her kid was the ruler of the world.
Given the state of medicine back then, she wouldn't
have been around if Caesar had been born through any
kind of creative knife work. He did end that way,
though, getting himself stabbed right in the rotunda in
44 B.C.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- George Washington's teeth
While George is famous for having some pretty defective
dentistry, at least he wasn't going to get splinters.
The famous fangs were made of ivory, not wood. Old
George wasn't the first American president, either.
There were eight guys who held the office of "President
of Congress Assembled" between 1781, when we became an
independent country, and 1789 when George was sworn in.
George was just the first guy to have the job under the
current Constitution. If life was really fair, John
Hanson would be remembered as the first American
president.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Where do Fortune cookies, Chop Suey, Rickshaws, Ping Pong,
and Chinese checkers come from?
Not from China, or anywhere else in the Far East.
Rickshaws come the closest, having been invented in
Japan by an English missionary to transport his invalid
wife. They became pretty popular there and picked up
the Japanese name from 'jin-riki-shaw' for "man powered
vehicle." But the missionary had based his design on a
wheeled sedan chair long used in France. Ping Pong is
from the British Army in India, Chinese checkers are
from a game company England, and neither Chop Suey nor
fortune cookies are eaten anywhere in China, both
having been invented by Chinese immigrants in America.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Foreign Aid
A recent study asked Americans the percentage of the
Federal budget that should be devoted to foreign aid.
The average response was that it was now "about 15-20%"
and should be reduced to "about 5%." Both of these
numbers are far off - foreign aid currently accounts
for less than one percent of the U. S. budget. And
most of that goes to U.S. companies operating overseas
in accordance with a 1961 law. The Corporate Welfare
Act, maybe?
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- Half of all marriages end in divorce...
This is the kind of statement that gives statistics a
bad name. It is numerically correct but has little to
do with the real situation. The people who fail in one
marriage are quite a bit more likely to fail again, so
one Larry King (8 or 9 marriages) or Elizabeth Taylor
(8, so far) can throw quite a wrench into the numbers.
Of first marriages, only about 25% ultimately end in
divorce, so you can say that 75% of marriages are
successful.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
- "Beam me up, Scotty!"
Nowhere in any of the Star Trek TV shows or movies
does Captain Kirk say that. He gets pretty close in one TV
episode when he says, "Scotty, beam me up," but that's as
close as he got and he only said it once. But then, Bogart
never said, "Play it again, Sam," either.
--:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)-----:-)--
© 1998 by Bill Becwar. All Rights Reserved.
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