OT: Share useless Trivia!

[Zander]

The Jewish religion is hereditary, passed down along the mothers side. Making me half jewish, would my children then be 1/4th jewish?

So are Christianity and Islam. It's just more widely recognised/practised by Jews. A friend of mine is Catholic on his mother's side and CoE on his father's. As a result, he's Catholic (in theory anyway; he's actually an atheist).

If your mother was Jewish when you were born, then so are you. If you're a woman, your children are/will be Jewish. If you're a man, your children will be whatever their mother is. Theologically, you can't be 1/2 or a 1/4 Jewish. The Judeo-Christian-Islamic faiths are mutually exclusive (with a few, minor exceptions). Ethnically, you can be partly Jewish though. The Nazis defined a Jew as anyone who had at least one Jewish grandparent. For this reason, anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent can become an Israeli citizen.

 

[Gez]

They certainly wouldn't have called themselves amazons, but there are many rumors of a powerful matriarchal culture in ancient Europe.

I believe amazon myths come from the Scyth (not the tool, the ancient folk), who had warrior women among their ranks. Of course, scyth warriors were not all women, rather a bit below 50%. But that was enough for the greek to fantasies on these strange folk. Like the first sight of horseriders by people who had not yet domesticated the horses gave birth to tales of centaur, the existence of the scyth "warriorress" gave birth to the legend of amazons (just because talking about the male fighter beside her was not interesting).

Among the scyths' strangeness, their religious caste were all cross-dressing, men disguised as women.

 

[Claude Raines]

Re: A crapload of trivia.

"I am." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

No.
See here.

"Rhythms" is the longest English word without vowels.

"y" is considered a vowel in this word. It is the only letter that can be either a vowel or consonant, but which is is depends on the placement and function in the word. Thus is rhythms it is a vowel, but in yak it is a consonant.

You can try this dictionary, but most people would say these are not real words.

The continents names all end with the same letter with which they start.

While America both starts and ends in "a," to be precise, "America" isn't a continent. North America is, and South America is, and neither start and end with the same letter.

 

[apsuman]

Re: Re: A crapload of trivia.

"y" is considered a vowel in this word. It is the only letter that can be either a vowel or consonant.

No.

W can be a vowel also.

so there.


g!

 

[Claude Raines]

Re: Re: Re: A crapload of trivia.

No.

W can be a vowel also.

so there.


g!

Really? Under what conditions? I can't think of a single word where W is a vowel. It would be cool to see some examples.

 

[Felix]

Franklin County, Virginia is the moonshine capital of the world.

Virginia's biggest cash crop is Marajuana. Along with several other states.

If the Washington Redskins lose their last home game before a presidential election, the incumbent party will lose. We take our football seriously around D.C.

The chinese character for "good" combines the characters of "woman" and "child".

The chinese character for "entertainment" combines the characters of "woman", "heaven" and "mouth". Make of that what you will.

The derrogatory term "Wop" for Italians came from the prediliction Italians had for entering Ellis Island sans identification. The other immagrants made fun of the Italians standing in the "With-Out-Papers" line.

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Colonel Sanders (of KFC fame) was awarded an honorary rank for his achievements in the field of fast food. (Why?) He changed his lifestyle and became a 'southern gentleman'; that's the stereotype we all know and love today.

The Kentucky Colonels are an honorary society. Membership is limited to people sponsored by other Colonels and can only be approved by the governor of Kentucky.

Col. Sanders was named a Colonel in 1937, well before there was such a thing as "fast food." Muhammad Ali, John Glenn, and Dave Thomas (the founder of Wendy's) are all Kentucky Colonels as well. Colonel Sanders is the only one who made it into his lifestyle.

An interesting side note, in 1976 Colonel Sanders was the world's 2nd best known celebrity, just short of Mickey Mouse.

 

[Agback]

In Oceania, we're all taught that New Zealand was the first country to grant women universal suffrage, followed a year later by Australia. 1903 is the year that I remember.

I'm in Oceania, but I was taught that New Zealand gave women the vote in 1893, and that Australia (which did not exist as a political entity until 1901) gave women the vote in 1902. And that's what is says in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, too.

But although it was the first country to give women the vote, New Zealand was not the first place to do so. That was South Australia, which gave women the vote in the 1870s. I think there was a state of the US that gave women the vote before 1893, also. But I might be misinformed on the last.

Regards,


Agback

 

[trimeulose]

And 10cm by 10cm by 10cm of water would make exactly 1 litre, which is also approx 1kg (also something like 0.99 or 0.98).

That means that 1000 litres of water would be exactly 1 cubic metre, and would weigh about a metric ton!

It isn't as much fun with a system that is actually meant to make sense instead of just some random numbers now is it?

Rav

Not to burst your bubble or anything, but any scientist worth his salt knows this. Water being the most abundant/usefull compound on the planet, it was used to calculate density and mass. I do believe that the dimensions are derived from atomic mass then used in formulation with moles (to make a useable weight ratio) and cubics (to change a single dimension into three) to make what we refer to as m (meters), and L (liters). Calories are also based on this, but we wont go into that.

 

[trimeulose]

worth your salt comes from ancient rome. Roman soldiers were comonly paid with salt because it was so expensive. The best way for a man to provide for his family was to join the military and send the salt home thus becoming worth his salt.