Well, How About That?

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Lewis Carroll – “Through the looking glass”.

While sitting looking at this blank screen today, without any idea on what to write I suddenly remembered a file on my computer which houses all sorts of interesting and daft things.  So I turned to it today..

• Do you know where the title of GOLF came from?   Many years ago in Scotland, a new game was invented.  It was ruled ‘Gentlemen Only… Ladies Forbidden’… and thus, the word GOLF entered into the English language.
• Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from
  history:
  Spades – King David; Hearts – Charlemagne; Diamonds – Julius
  Caesar and Clubs -Alexander, the Great.
• In the 1400’s a law was set forth in England that a man was allowed to beat his wife with a stick no thicker than his thumb.  Hence the Rule of Thumb.
• Do you know that if you were to spell out the numbers, you would have to go to One Thousand before you found the letter “A”.
• In English pubs, beer is still ordered by pints and quarts..In England in olden times when customers got unruly, the bartender would
  yell at them :Mind your pints and quarts, and settle down.” It’s where the expression Mind your Ps and Qs comes from.
•  Did you know that the first novel ever wrtten on a typewriter was
  Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain.

Do you want more useless facts and information?

• In Babylon 4,000 years ago it was the accepted practice that for a
  month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead (a honey beer) he could drink.  This period was called the honey month, which we know today as The Honeymoon.
• In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames
  by ropes.  When one pulled on the ropes, the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on.  Hence the phrase – ‘Goodnight, sleep tight’.
• Every day more money is printed for the game of Monopoly than for the U.S. Treasury.

And of course I love this next one:

• Q. What do bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers and
  laser printers have in common?
  A. All were invented by women.

“So be sure when you step,
Step with care and great tact.
And remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed) “

Dr Seuss from “Oh the places you’ll go”.

Related articles

• Mind your Ps, Qs and Gaps. (30 photos) (thechive.com)
• I Know My ABCs, but I’m Not So Clear on My Ps & Qs (kiwsparks.wordpress.com)
• Things I Have Wondered About – Now I Know (jlue.wordpress.com)