Strange But True: August 15, 2019

STRANGE BUT TRUE

by Samantha Weaver

* It was English novelist and essayist Virginia Woolf, one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the 20th century, who made the following sage observation: "For most of history, Anonymous was a woman."

* Would you rather give up TV or your phone? In a Pew Research poll conducted last year in the United States, only 31 percent of those surveyed said it would be "very hard" to give up TV, while 52 percent said the same thing about their cellphone.

* In the language known as Ewe, spoken by some natives of West Africa, the concepts of "yesterday" and "tomorrow" are expressed by the same word. If you were to translate that word literally into English, you'd come up with "not now."

* Most people are aware of the fact that scorpions have eight legs -- they are, after all, arachnids -- but you probably didn't realize that they also have eight eyes.

* According to the Crayola Company, you can eat 3,500 of their crayons a day and still not reach the level of toxicity found in an ordinary glass of drinking water. They don't mention how -- or why -- anyone would consume that many crayons in a lifetime, let alone a single day.

* Those who study such things say that Niagara Falls will only last another 2,400 years.

* Historians say that Mary, Queen of Scots was informed of the murder of her husband, Lord Darnley, in 1567 while she was playing golf. She must have been quite a dedicated sportswoman (or an indifferent wife) because they also say that she completed the round.

***

Thought for the Day: "I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them." -- H.L. Mencken

(c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.