Fascinating Facts

[Anon.]

[s]Bitterandtwisted had as his/her signature on 14:30, 8th Mar 2005:
Help! Monarchists!!

Why does Calvin shout this? Are American monarchists particularly renowned for advocacy of oppression?

[Anon.]

[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 15:58, 8th Mar 2005:
"hmmmm... I bet he used the longest English word".

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is longer.

[LonelyPilgrim]

[s]Anon. wrote on 16:45, 8th Mar 2005:
[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 15:58, 8th Mar 2005:[i]
"hmmmm... I bet he used the longest English word".

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis is longer.
[/i]

Yes, but it's not in English. It's a medical term (and a bogus one at that, as the disease it describes doesn't really exist, although it was once thought to).

I should have specified, though, that antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest English word that is not a technical term.

[hr]
I sing of arms, and the man...

[bramble]

Thats my new thing learnt for the day

[hr]
To live and not to breathe is to die in tragedy

[Koala Boy]

[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 16:59, 8th Mar 2005:
I should have specified, though, that antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest English word that is not a technical term.


I was about to say that a practitioner of antidisestablishmentarianism would be an antidisestablishmentarianist, and therefore the plural antidisestablishmentarianists would be longer, but I just realised that a practitioner would probably be just an antidisestablishmentarian.

[hr]
Stick it up your jumper
IMAGE:images.google.co.uk/images?q=tbn:kD6MwnrIVS0J:www.lovecorner.it/peluches/koala.jpg

[Pender Native]

[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 16:12, 8th Mar 2005:
Hmmmm... maybe foreign words. Or maybe I should just give up and accept the evidence... as I am lazy, that is what I will do.



But for all you know he may have sat there staring at it for half an hour before posting, so that it wasn't immediate recognition at all.

[hr]
'I like to listen to a man who likes to talk. Whoops! Sawdust and Treacle, put that in your herring and smoke it!' - quote from the Bursar in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Hope that clears up any confusion as to my personal tastes!

[LonelyPilgrim]

This is true, but at the end of the day, it is not as though I truly care. I only have so much care to give, and spontaneous word recognition fraud is not even close to the top of my list...

[hr]I sing of arms, and the man...

[Pender Native]

[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 17:25, 8th Mar 2005:
This is true, but at the end of the day, it is not as though I truly care. I only have so much care to give, and spontaneous word recognition fraud is not even close to the top of my list...



hehe most pople only care about anything on the Sinner as long as they have something else they should be doing.


[hr]
'I like to listen to a man who likes to talk. Whoops! Sawdust and Treacle, put that in your herring and smoke it!' - quote from the Bursar in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Hope that clears up any confusion as to my personal tastes!

[exnihilo]

[s]LonelyPilgrim wrote on 16:59, 8th Mar 2005:
I should have specified, though, that antidisestablishmentarianism is the longest English word that is not a technical term.


In which case supercalifragilisticexpialidocious which has now been added to the OED takes the crown; and, if you won't allow that one, you have to allow floccinaucinihilipilification which also appears in the OED, albeit described as humorous, and with citations of its use in literature.

Both are non-technical, both are in relatively common usage - even if only in conversations about the longest English word.

[LonelyPilgrim]

What can I say, I have been proved incorrect. Although, I'm fairly certain that at one point, my word would have won. As I suspect that those two words of yours are quite new, whereas mine has had a long and distinguished run of it.

[hr]I sing of arms, and the man...

[exnihilo]

Your word is often touted as the longest, and probably really is as one of mine was written for a song (and probably appears nowhere else in any other context) and the other specifically coined to be the longest. But, at the end of the day, the only good way to determine the longest word is to see which one the OED lists.

[paw paw]

The average human life adds up to only 650,000 hours!

There are more protons in the dot of an 'i' than seconds in half a million years!

(If you want an endless list of interestings facts read Bill Brysons A Short History Of Nearly Everything and then you can start discussing how the universe was created!(

[exnihilo]

I've read it, twice. And it's absolutely riddled with errors and false statements. A good read, but he needed to check his facts a lot more carefully.

[Happy-Go-Lucky]

[s]Slash wannabe wrote on 21:03, 2nd Mar 2005:
Sweet popcorn tastes better if you eat it upside down apparently. Eating upside down also increases you chance of death by 11.6% - so watch yourself.


FOr a moment there, I thought you meant turn the popcorn upside down, and was having trouble figuring out what the right way up is for popcorn.

As for the 11.6% increase in chance of death, is that just literally happening to die, or is this considering the likely dipiliating affect of being upside down which renders one less able to defend one's self against an attacker?

[exnihilo]

I'm going to hope you meant debilitating rather than depilating. Though, possibly not...

[bubba]

[s]DrAlex wrote on 20:44, 2nd Mar 2005:
[s]bramble wrote on 18:11, 2nd Mar 2005:[i]

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for
pleasure.
(What about that pig??)


[hr]And so it is
Just like you said it would be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
I can't take my eyes off of you
I just can't take my eyes off of you



Actually, there's an African regional chimp that does too.

How sad am I?
[/i]


I believe it is the Bonobo monkey as this snippit from the popbitch newsletter explains (apologies for the language):

>> Save The Bonobo! <<
Randy fuck-monkeys face doom

St Augustine claimed that humans were the only animals who had sex for pleasure. But he didn't know about the randy pygmy chimpanzees known as Bonobos. Much like members of Blue, Bonobos have sex to alleviate tension, solve arguments,or simply celebrate a good meal. (The average copulation lasts 13 seconds). It's not all straight sex, either. There are gay and lesbian bonobos (practicing "penis-fencing" and "genito-genital frotting", respectively). Also,much like Michael Jackson, the Bonobos enjoy sex with their young.

Sadly, only 10,000 of the little fuckers are left in the Congo, and they are now in danger of extinction. Bonobos are, genetically, humankind's
closest relative: they share 98.5 percent of our DNA. So in the spirit of kinship, we should help our fuck-monkey cousins. Email hello@popbitch.comif you are willing to adopt a bonobo. (btw you will have to have sex with it. They like to do this every 90 minutes. On the plus side, it only lasts for 13 seconds).

http://www.bonobo.org

[exnihilo]

In the interests of raising threads from the dead, here's 100 more fascinating facts from the BBC - which I'm sure many of you have already seen...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm

[Gubbins]

Quoting bubba from 19:23, 8th Mar 2005
...Bonobos have sex to alleviate tension, solve arguments, or simply celebrate a good meal....

They also do it as a way of greeting other monkeys. I bet that plays hell when going to visit their grannies.

[hr]

...but then again, that is only my opinion.

[novium]

shame on you, what's next, zombies?

(I'll prepare my flamethrower if there are going to be zombies lurching about. I wonder why no one in movies ever tries to set zombies/mummies/etc on fire. They always look really flammable)

Quoting exnihilo from 15:38, 30th Dec 2005
In the interests of raising threads from the dead, here's 100 more fascinating facts from the BBC - which I'm sure many of you have already seen...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4566526.stm

[hr]

quo vobis mentes, rectae quae stare solebant antehac, dementis sese flexere viai?

[kitty]

Bonobos!! They're the best.

Quoting DrAlex from 20:44, 2nd Mar 2005
[s]bramble wrote on 18:11, 2nd Mar 2005:

Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for
pleasure.
(What about that pig??)


[hr]And so it is
Just like you said it would be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
I can't take my eyes off of you
I just can't take my eyes off of you



Actually, there's an African regional chimp that does too.

How sad am I?