The Extraordinary Book of Useless Information (15 page)

In 2012, an Oregon farmer, Terry Vance Garner, was eaten by his pigs, some of which weighed seven hundred pounds. All that remained was the man's dentures and a few body parts.

BIG MAC ATTACK

In 2012, a North Carolina woman who didn't feel like waiting in line at the local McDonald's drive-thru, bypassed the order speaker, cut in line to the pickup window, and tried to place her order there. When employees denied her service, she refused to leave and the police were summoned after twenty minutes. She was Tasered after resisting arrest, and her two-year-old daughter was taken into protective custody.

FISHY FINGERS

In July 2012, a man lost four of his fingers while wakeboarding on a lake in Idaho. Two months later, a fisherman on the same lake caught a trout that had one of the man's fingers in its belly.

SHOCK AND AWE

An iPhone 4 survived a fall of 13,500 feet when it came out of the pocket of its skydiving owner. The screen shattered, but the phone still worked.

HIS DAYS WERE NUMBERED

Dominic Calgi's New York license plate number—5V 17 32—matched the date of his death—May 17, 1932.

CASHIN' IN

A rare copy of the first Superman comic book sold for $1 million in 2010.

In 2011, a tintype photograph of Billy the Kid, the only known image of him, sold for $2.3 million.

In recent years, several paintings by American artist Martin Johnson Heade were accidentally discovered by lucky people. Two works were purchased for $60 at an estate auction in Arizona in 1996 and sold for over $1 million. Another was bought for $29 at a Wisconsin rummage sale in 1999 and sold at auction for $882,500. In 2003, a Heade was found in an attic outside Boston and auctioned off for more than $1 million. A Florida woman's son had her get an appraisal on a little painting hanging in her living room, purchased for a few dollars years earlier, after seeing a Heade work on TV. It sold at auction for $218,500 in 2004.

The world's oldest still-running automobile is an 1884 steam-powered De Dion Bouton et Trépardoux Dos-a-Dos Steam Runabout that sold for $4.62 million in 2011.

A Peugeot once owned by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sold for $2.4 million.

VIRGIN AIRWAYS

In 2012, twenty-year-old Brazilian Catarina Migliorini auctioned off her virginity for the documentary
Virgin Wanted
. The anonymous winning bidder came up with $780,000 and will deflower the young lady aboard a flight from Australia to the United States to avoid prostitution charges.

FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

As of 2012, a New Jersey scofflaw has racked up over $120,000 in fines for blowing through various tolls over the years to buy drugs in New York. Worse yet, Peter Davis used his mother Jean's car and now she is on the hook for the money and is reported on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey website as owing the most of any scofflaw.

THE WORLD'S BREAST ICE CREAM

In 2011, a London ice cream shop—Icecreamists—sold “Baby Gaga,” an ice cream made from human breast milk blended with vanilla bean pods and lemon zest. It sold for $22.50 a serving, until local health authorities put an end to it.

BURN NOTICE

In 2012, the maker of Banana Boat sunscreen recalled five hundred thousand bottles of its spray-on lotion because several people caught on fire after applying the product and getting too close to an open flame.

ODDS ARE

In 2009, the same six winning numbers (4, 15, 23, 24, 35, and 42) came up in two consecutive drawings of the lottery in Bulgaria. Eighteen Bulgarians profited by playing the six numbers on the second drawing, after no one won the time before.

Also in 2009, the numbers 4-1-9 came up in consecutive Pick 3 drawings in Michigan and the numbers 3-7-5 came up in two consecutive New York drawings.

In 2000, a Washington State newspaper accidentally printed the Pick 4 winning numbers for the Oregon lottery the day
before
the drawing. They did this by mistakenly publishing the prior day's winning Virginia numbers (6-8-5-5) for the previous day's winning Oregon numbers, which happened to be the next day's winning Oregon numbers.

BATHROOM BLAST

In 2012, more than 2 million Flushmate III pressure-assisted flushing systems, a water conservation device installed in toilet tanks, were recalled because they might explode. Some 304 reports of exploding toilets, many resulting in severe lacerations and impact injuries, prompted the action.

KIDS DO THE DARNEDEST THINGS

A boy in the Ukraine found his parents' savings hidden in the couch and spent nearly four thousand dollars on candy over the course of several days in 2012.

In 2011, a thirteen-year-old Albuquerque, New Mexico, student was arrested, handcuffed, and hauled away by police for burping in gym class.

In 2012, a Pennsylvania boy destroyed thirty-six thousand dollars' worth of computers in his elementary school by urinating on them.

The National Transportation Safety Board found that a fatal 2010 helicopter plane crash in Phoenix, Arizona, was caused when the billionaire owner of the craft let his five-year-old daughter sit on his lap while he was in the copilot's seat and she kicked the flight controls, sending five people to their deaths.

KILLER KITTY

In a fifteen-month stretch of time from 2011 through 2012, a large man-eating leopard devoured fifteen different people in Nepal.

BAZOOKA GUM

In 2009, Ukrainian chemistry student Vladimir Likhonos accidentally put a piece of gum he was chewing in an explosive mixture he was working on. When he resumed chewing, he blew off his jaw and lower face.

EVERY VOTE COUNTS

After the 2012 presidential election, an Arizona woman ran over her husband with her car because he didn't vote.

TILL DEATH DO US PART

In 2012, a Kansas couple who had been married for sixty-two years died within hours of each other. Just after Melvin Cornelson succumbed to cancer, his wife Doris, who had remained at his side, went off to bed and never woke up.

PREMATURE IGNITION

In 1960, more than one hundred Soviet scientists and officials were burned to a crisp when the rocket booster engine they were preparing for launch suddenly ignited after a switch was accidentally turned on.

W
ordsmith

Originally, the word
pea
came into the English language as “pease,” for the singular form (as in pease pudding) and “peasen” for the plural.

The word
autumn
for the season between summer and winter began to gradually replace the word “harvest” in English in the fourteenth century. By the seventeenth century, “harvest” was gone and the word “fall” came into usage. Since the nineteenth century, the word “autumn” has been predominate, while “autumn” and “fall” are used interchangeably in the United States.

Pit stop
refers to the practice of servicing autos in the days before lifts, which involved working from a pit beneath the car.

The
dumb blonde
stereotype probably arose from a famed blond sixteenth-century French courtesan named Rosalie Duthe, who was known for hesitating a long time while speaking, making her appear dim-witted and mute (dumb). She was satirized in a 1775 play.

Can't hold a candle to
comes from the days when an apprentice would hold a candle so the more experienced craftsman could see what he was doing. The candleholder was thus the inferior.

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
has to do with the buying of a horse, where it was common practice to inspect its teeth to see how old it was. This practice also is the origin of the phrase
long in the tooth
.

A
blockbuster
was a very powerful bomb used during World War II. The word has since come to mean anything that makes a big impact, such as a hit movie.

As with the term “blockbuster,”
bombshell
for a beautiful woman comes from World War II and the many pinup girls of the time.

The term
cameo role
, which is a small part in a production, comes from the small but beautiful jewelry of the same name.

The word
fanny
used to describe the human backside comes from the 1749 book
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure
by John Cleland, also known as
Fanny Hill
. It is considered the first work of erotic prose in the English language.

A
ham
is someone who overdoes it while acting or showing off for the camera. The term comes from the days when minstrel performers wore black makeup on their faces and used ham fat to remove it.

Pulling strings
in order to get something done behind the scenes derives from the puppeteers of days gone by who controlled marionettes while out of sight.

A
blurb
is a short endorsement cited in promotional usage. The word comes from the fictional Miss Belinda Blurb. In 1907, humorist Gelett Burgess displayed a fake book jacket at a publishing convention featuring a beautiful woman with a brief “endorsement” from the fictitious Miss Blurb.

In the 1500s, noblemen wore stockings and were quite concerned with the appearance of their legs and feet. At balls and other social functions they would stand with what they believed to be their more attractive foot forward, giving rise to the expression
best
foot forward
.

Hanky-panky
came into usage for a secret activity during the nineteenth-century when magicians would wave about a handkerchief with one hand to distract the audience from what they were doing with the other.

Someone
on a high horse
feels superior to others. In days of yore, peasants rode mules, tradesmen rode horses, and the powerful rode great stallions.

To
read the riot act
is to rebuke and warn someone about his or her actions. The expression comes from English King George I, who issued a decree in 1716 that any time twelve or more people gathered to protest, officials would read them the act and disperse them.

The word
tycoon
comes from the Chinese meaning “great prince.”

Feather in one's cap
comes from the time when warriors were given feathers to put in their hats for worthy deeds.

Wet behind the ears
can be traced to newly born animals that emerge wet from the womb. The area behind the ears is often the last to dry.

Break the ice
comes from the icebreakers that needed to open a path for ships in northern European ports before they could get started during winter months.

Kingpin
comes from the early German bowling game ninepins, where one pin was taller than the rest—the king pin.

Getting
one's ducks in a row
harks back to early America when settlers played ten pins, a kind of bowling game. The pins were thought to resemble ducks and were called duckpins. They had to be arranged in rows before each frame was bowled.

Jackpot
comes from draw poker, where a pair of jacks or better is required to open. Hands are dealt and antes are put into the pot until someone can open, often resulting in very large pots.

On a roll
comes from the game of craps. Someone rolling a streak of winning dice throws was on a roll.

Start the ball rolling
evolved from the game of croquet and the fact that the first person to go had the best chance of winning.

Cash on the barrelhead
comes from early frontier saloons, where drinks might have been served on the top of a barrel in lieu of a bar proper. Patrons had to pay in advance by putting their cash on the barrelhead.

Gung ho
is an expression used by the Chinese to synchronize the movements of workers on large projects. Early European visitors to China picked up on the expression and the enthusiasm it appeared to inspire in the workers.

Pipe dream
came to mean a delusional idea during the late 1800s when England was flooded with opium from the Orient. Its smokers often had grand and confused thoughts.

Clip joint
dates back to the time when coins were made of precious metals that could be shaved or clipped around the edges by unscrupulous merchants. The addition of milled edges put an end to this practice.

Go haywire
comes from a new hay-baling machine patented in 1828 by Moses Bliss. The contraption bound bales of hay in wire. Ofttimes the machine malfunctioned, tangling up workers and horses.

At loose ends
comes from the practice on sailing ships for the crew to be given the busywork of securing/taping the loose ends of the numerous ropes on board when things were slow.

Make ends meet
also comes from the sailing ships of old. Some sails had fixed ropes attached that had to be joined at the ends when they snapped. As the two halves got a little shorter in the process, this was accomplished with some difficulty.

A pretty penny
is an expression rooted in the minting of a beautiful English gold piece in 1257 by Henry III. Its twenty-shilling value made it inconvenient for trade at the time, and it did not gain acceptance. As not many were minted, they became valuable, and people believed them to be good luck pieces.

Selling like hotcakes
comes from the benefits put on by ladies' aid societies on the American frontier. They pan-fried corn hotcakes that were extremely popular and sold out quickly.

Blackball
came into the language when clubs and societies held secret ballots to pick new members. Voting consisted of white balls for yes and black balls for no, which were placed in a hat. Often, just one black ball was enough to scuttle a candidate.

Boner
, meaning mistake, comes from the idea that stupid people have heads full of bones, not brains.

Lay an egg
comes from the inscrutable game of cricket where they say “you scored a duck's egg” if no points are scored.

Pull a fast one
comes from baseball in the 1920s, when to get himself out of a jam a pitcher would suddenly throw a pitch of much greater velocity than he had been throwing.

Roger
came to mean “yes” and “I understand” from the British pilots of the Royal Air Force. In radio communications, instead of saying “received,” they used the first letter of the word, “r,” which was “roger” in the radio alphabet of the time.

Ballpark estimate
comes from the early days of baseball, when team owners didn't announce the size of the crowd and sportswriters just had to make an estimate.

Skid row
originated from the early logging industry in the United States. Logs were dragged out of the forest to the nearest road on paths lined with wooden skids. In adjoining towns, a street with run-down buildings was known as a skid row by the loggers.

Whole hog
dates back to the time of the Crusaders, who noticed that the Muslims they encountered would not eat pork, but would use a pig's bristles for brushes and its skin for water containers. The Europeans wondered why they didn't go “whole hog” and enjoy its meat as well.

Go to pot
arose from the practice of throwing leftover bones and meat bits into a pot for stew after the good meat was eaten.

Stool pigeons
were tame birds or decoys that were tied to stools in hopes of luring other birds close enough to shoot. In a way, these stool pigeons betrayed their brethren.

Dead as a doornail
is thought to have originated from the heavy metal knockers used to pound on metal plates nailed on doors.

Wisdom teeth
come in when one reaches adulthood and presumably is wiser than in youth.

When the Transcontinental Railroad was being built, it went through vast stretches of uninhabited land. To service the workers on the line, railcars filled with prostitutes followed and came to be called
hell on wheels
.

Over a barrel
is where people about to be whipped were tied in early America.

Orders at sea were given by sounding the boatswain's pipe. When sailors were to go belowdecks and retire for the evening, they were
piped down
.

Cloth made and dyed blue in Coventry, England, stayed colorfast, or true. Hence the expression
true blue
for steadfast.

In medieval times, cannon tubes were held together with metal staves, such as those used on a barrel. This is the origin of the term gun “barrel.”

Occasion, accommodate, maintenance, fiery, embarrassed, restaurant, vacuum, separate, recommend, and yes, misspell, are some of the most commonly misspelled words.