In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase "mind your P's and Q's."

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.

In Shakespeare's time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes-when you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. that's where the phrase, "good night, sleep tight" came from.

The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. (It was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications)

The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.

When opossums are playing 'possum', they are not "playing." They actually pass out from sheer terror.

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

The term "the whole 9 yards" came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got "the whole 9 yards."

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the "General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.

No NFL team which plays its home games in a domed stadium has ever won a Super Bowl.

The first toilet ever seen on television was on "Leave It To Beaver."

Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.

In Cleveland, Ohio, it's illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.

It takes 3,000 cows to supply the NFL with enough leather for a year's supply of footballs.

Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

There are an average of 178 sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun.

The world's termites outweigh the world's humans 10 to 1.

The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.

When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.

Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.

In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

There are more than 1,000 chemicals in a cup of coffee. Of these, only 26 have been tested, and half caused cancer in rats.

The average iceberg weighs 20,000,000 tons.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent,"ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."

The list of ingredients that make up lipstick include...fish scales.

Ants do not sleep.

In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.

Texas was once a country.

In Michigan, USA, a man legally owns his wife's hair.

The USA bought Alaska from Russia for 2 cents an acre.

The first letters of the months July through November, in order, spell the name JASON.

No other animal gives us more by-products than the hog. These by-products include pig suede, buttons, glass, paint brushes, crayons, chalk, and insulation to name a few.

Cockroaches' favorite food is the glue on envelopes and on the back of postage stamps

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

Flush toilets date back to 2000 B.C.

The flatulation from domesticated cows produce about 30% of the methane on this planet.

Only 2 more blue moons (the saying "only once in a blue moon" refers to the occurence of two full moons during one calender month) are to occur between now and 2001. Those times are January 1999 and March 1999.

Hitler and Napolean both had only one testical.

Chimpanzees used in AIDS vaccine studies get a pension of more than $100,000 to pay for their care and containment for the duration of their natural lives. While it is possible to infect chimpanzees with HIV, they do not appear to get AIDS.

Even if you cut off a cockroach's head, it can live for several weeks (actually nine days).

Some toothpastes contain antifreeze.

A whale's penis is called a dork.

Armadillos are the only animal besides humans that can get leprosy.

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

The Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland was a symbolic character for the hat makers in towns of the late 1800's. The large felt hats of the day had supports made out of lead. The lead caused a organic form of psychosis (brain damage) to develop in the hat makers causing them to be declared crazy.

Some biblical scholars believe that Aramaic, the language of the ancient Bible, did not contain an easy way to say "many things" and used a term which has come down to us as 40. This means that when the bible-in many places-refers to "40 days," they meant many days.

The original story from Tales of 1001 Arabian Nights begins, "Aladdin was a little Chinese boy."

The average adult has about 300 million skin cells, which are spread over 2 square metres of skin and weigh an average of 3.2kg.

Worms can eat up to their total body weight each day and can double their population every few months.

Under ideal conditions, 2 mature worms can multiply to 1,500 worms in a year. They can also live up to 2 or 3 years.

Over 1,000 birds a year die from flying into windows.

85% of women buy the wrong size bra.

The human heart beats 368 billion times in ten years.

There are 170 billionaires living in the US today, compared to 13 in 1982.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than it's brain.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.

61,000 people are airborne over the U.S. any given hour.

A blind chameleon still changes colours to match his environment!

A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.

"White-Out" was invented by the mother of Mike Nesmith (Formerly of the Monkees).

Studies show that if a cat falls off the seventh floor of a building it has about thirty percent less chance of surviving than a cat that falls off the twentieth floor. It supposedly takes about eight floors for the cat to realise what is occurring, relax, and correct itself.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word that is typed with only the left hand.

A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court!

To escape the grip of a crocodile's jaws, push your thumbs into its eyeballs- it will let you go instantly.

No word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, and purple.

The word "samba" means "to rub navels together."

The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin during World War I killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.

More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes.

More people are struck by lightning than attacked by sharks.

A group of.....
frogs is called an army.
geese is called a gaggle.
kangaroos is called a mob.
larks is called an exaltation.
officers is called a mess.
owls is called a parliament.
ravens is called a murder.
rhinos is called a crash.
toads (not frogs) is called a knot.
unicorns is called a blessing.
whales is called a pod.

Cars are the biggest killers of people.

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

The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.

Hershey's Kisses are called that because the machine that makes them looks like it's kissing the conveyor belt.

Every time you lick a stamp, you're consuming 1/10 of a calorie.

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.