STRANGE BUT TRUE

• It is still not known who made the following sage observation: “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

• If you are an aficionado of the word game Scrabble, you probably know that there are only five words that can be played using a q but no u. In case you’re not in the know, those words are “faqir,” “qaid, “ “qoph, “ “qindar” and “qintar. “

• In 1774, surveyors in Maryland marked off a parcel of land by mistake. The error was immortalized when the town that grew up on that land adopted the name Accident.

• The English word “mistletoe” comes from an Anglo-Saxon phrase that means “dung on a twig.” It seems that the branches where mistletoe is often found have white splotches on them, which some say resemble bird droppings.

• The martial art that is known today as karate actually originated in India and spread to China before becoming popular in 17th-century Japan, where it was dubbed karate, which means “empty hand” in Japanese.

• These days you’ll rarely see an elected official with a beard, but facial hair wasn’t always considered to be a liability in politics. In fact, it’s been reported that Abraham Lincoln was inspired to grow a beard while he was running for president in 1860 because of a letter from an 11-year-old girl. Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln that a beard would make him “look a great deal better, for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers.”

• When the United States bought Alaska from Russia in 1867, the going price was 2 cents an acre.

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Thought for the Day: “Nothing gives an author so much pleasure as to find his works quoted by other learned authors.” — Benjamin Franklin

(c) 2012 King Features Synd., Inc.