Strange Facts

[King 277]

I thought this might be a fun thread, so post any strange facts you know.I just saw this one.

 

Eight of the ten largest stadiums in the United States are home to college football teams.

[Guest Yodahew]

New malden in surrey england is home to the largest population of koreans outside of seoul.

[Omega 354]

Elephants are the only animal to have 4 knees.

[Guest Yodahew]

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time. 1/100th of a second.

[etz 78]

Reputedly, the "Golden Mile" in Leicester is the largest concentration of Indian ethnic shops outside of India. The Diwali celebrations in the same area are also the largest outside India. But the interesting fact is how it got it's nickname from a string of yellow-amber traffic lights strewn down the road in the late 60's.

[The Fury 65]

Got taught this one at work

 

Drinking grapefruit juice after having paracetamol can kill you

[Guest Edgehead]

Apparently the most popular name in the world is Mohammed.

[King 277]

125,000 golf balls a year are hit into the water at the famous 17th hole of the Stadium Course at Sawgrass.

[Evil Gringo 279]

Elephants, despite having four knees cannot jump.

 

Also the Mortal Kombat character Ermac started out as an urban legend in the original Mortal Kombat game were players believed that he was an unlockable character they could play as due to macro appearing on a screen that was spelt ERMACS on the audits screen for Reptile's appearance.

 

As a result, due to this and a campaign of trolling by Electronic Gaming Monthly people believed he was a real character and spent months of their lives searching for him until the creator of Mortal Kombat added him into Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3.

[Guest John Hancock]

Everyone pronounces "Dr. Jekyll" wrong. It's "Gee-kall", rhymes with "treacle", not "Jek-al" rhymes with "speckle". It's a real name, and the pronunciation we all use comes from the fact that one of the original films of the book got it wrong, and the wrong pronunciation stuck.

[DC 536]

On a similar note (i.e movies defining how we regard something), "pirate speak" is a fictional thing that was created for the 1950 adaptation of Treasure Island. Robert Newton, the actor portraying Long John Silver, played on his West Country roots and exaggerated that accent into the "Aaarh, mateys" accent / figures of speech we associate with all pirates of that era.

[Omega 354]

hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is the fear of long words.

[Guest John Hancock]

Following that trend, ithyphallophobia is the morbid fear of getting an erection.

[DC 536]

There are some fascinating officially recognised phobias.

 

Automatonophobia is the fear of things that represent sentient beings, but are not in themselves actually sentient. There's also a fear of gravity (which must make like hard), a fear of music and a fear of the Pope (in general, not a specific one).

 

People are strange folk.

[Guest John Hancock]

The technical term for the fear that the Pope is going to make horrific things happen to you is "Judaism".

[etz 78]

Automatonophobia is the fear of things that represent sentient beings, but are not in themselves actually sentient.

 

Like creepy ventriloquists dolls, or stuffed animals, or that horrid Japanese robot girl.

 

Strange fact, people with symmetrical faces are routinely judged to be more attractive than people with non-symmetrical faces, but only to a point. If they're too symmetrical, the observers brain will lump them into the same group as Chucky and those ventriloquists dolls.

[Guest John Hancock]

Strange fact, people with symmetrical faces are routinely judged to be more attractive than people with non-symmetrical faces, but only to a point. If they're too symmetrical, the observers brain will lump them into the same group as Chucky and those ventriloquists dolls.

 

Someone did a cool thing with that, photoshopping people's faces so they were perfectly symmetrical, and they instantly looked less human, but in a really subtle way where, if you didn't know what had happened, you wouldn't be able to describe it.

[King 277]

If you were to watch all of the SAW movies, it would take you 666 minutes.

[DC 536]

If you were to watch all of the SAW movies, it would take you 666 minutes.

That's a myth, unfortunately.

 

All seven movies run for a total of 669 minutes, with up to an additional 23mins if you go for the various special editions.

[King 277]

Ah is it?, Yeah it sounded to good to be true.