Did you know...

[entitled]

A place to post useless facts. Have at.

Did you know it's been theorized that humans developed full lips to entice humans of the opposite sex, especially in women? Seems that, since it's a little difficult to walk and show off labia at the same time, full lips on a woman's mouth are supposed to simulate the labia.

 

[Guest]

A place to post useless facts. Have at.

Did you know it's been theorized that humans developed full lips to entice humans of the opposite sex, especially in women? Seems that, since it's a little difficult to walk and show off labia at the same time, full lips on a woman's mouth are supposed to simulate the labia.

Kiss me.

 

[entitled]

Kiss me.

 

[AppleBiter]

Turtles can breathe out of their butts.

 

[Guest]

Turtles can breathe out of their butts.

*scoff*

So can I!

 

[entitled]

Worms contain both sexes.

 

[Guest]

OK - can we tell that Sarahh has had too many rum and cokes?

 

[Guest]

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

 

[Guest]

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

 

[entitled]

They disproved the goldfish 3 second memory thing.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I read a science fiction writer's theory that humans owed their survival to smal mouths and bad taste - i.e., we don't taste that good to other animals (not sure if that's true) and we have quite small mouths in proportion to the size of our bodies. That latter certainly is true, and the evolutionary trend (at least according to, of all people, my dentist) is that they continue to get smaller.

The bad taste element of survival is of course obvious; we'd be less heavily hunted by predators if we tasted nasty. But the small mouth part was what I found interesting. The author's theory was that it forced us to become more and more proficient in tool use, as we couldn't use our bite to kill much and we couldn't easily eat meat or coarse food without cutting, breaking, or cooking it first. His suggested that this kept evolutionarily selecting more and more proficient thinkers and tool-users and encouraging humans to exercise their mental faculties. Of course, one could argue the case the other way around - we were able to develop smaller mouths as we got better at tool use, because we no longer needed big strong jaws. Still, it's an interesting thought. Possibly it's one of those pairs of mutually reinforcing behaviors, like intelligent and social organization.

Shanglan

 

[BlackShanglan]

To "testify" was based on men in the Roman court swearing to a statement made by swearing on their testicles.

I hate to be a pedant ... well, I wish I hated to be a pedant ... Oh, just beat me for saying this.

I've traced this through several sources, all of whom agree that the root words are testis ("witness") and facere ("to make"), and that the referent of testis is not the current word "testis" meaning individual testicle but the roots tri- ("third") and sto- ("stand"), someone to stand third - i.e., a witness to the other two.

I admit it's much less interesting than the first derivation, but it does have the benefit of offering an intriguing new idea on the origin of "testes" - which at least one dictionary does cite as coming from the same root. A witness to stand third to the act, eh?

Shanglan

 

[Guest]

I hate to be a pedant ... well, I wish I hated to be a pedant ... Oh, just beat me for saying this.

I've traced this through several sources, all of whom agree that the root words are testis ("witness") and facere ("to make"), and that the referent of testis is not the current word "testis" meaning individual testicle but the roots tri- ("third") and sto- ("stand"), someone to stand third - i.e., a witness to the other two.

I admit it's much less interesting than the first derivation, but it does have the benefit of offering an intriguing new idea on the origin of "testes" - which at least one dictionary does cite as coming from the same root. A witness to stand third to the act, eh?

Shanglan

Nahh, you're not being pedantic, I was drunk.

 

[lil_elvis]

I hate to be a pedant ... well, I wish I hated to be a pedant ... Oh, just beat me for saying this.

I've traced this through several sources, all of whom agree that the root words are testis ("witness") and facere ("to make"), and that the referent of testis is not the current word "testis" meaning individual testicle but the roots tri- ("third") and sto- ("stand"), someone to stand third - i.e., a witness to the other two.

I admit it's much less interesting than the first derivation, but it does have the benefit of offering an intriguing new idea on the origin of "testes" - which at least one dictionary does cite as coming from the same root. A witness to stand third to the act, eh?

Shanglan

Okay, I'll quibble.

According to my HS Latin teacher (and I can cite no other source, although his knowledge of Roman history did seem vast, at least to an impressionable teenager), when Romans testified, rather than the ol' "raise your right hand...etc.", they placed their right hand over there genitals, swearing on loss of their balls that they were telling the truth.

 

[Guest]

Okay, I'll quibble.

According to my HS Latin teacher (and I can cite no other source, although his knowledge of Roman history did seem vast, at least to an impressionable teenager), when Romans testified, rather than the ol' "raise your right hand...etc.", they placed their right hand over there genitals, swearing on loss of their balls that they were telling the truth.

You know, in the sober light of day, I remember hearing something about that.

Or maybe it was some porn flick we saw once.

 

[lil_elvis]

You know, in the sober light of day, I remember hearing something about that.

Or maybe it was some porn flick we saw once.

Didn't Lorena Bobbit play the Bailiff in that?

 

[Guest]

Didn't Lorena Bobbit play the Bailiff in that?

No, you're thinking of "I Dismembered My Asshole Husband"

Fairly forgettable, I'm sorry to say.

The outcome was never in doubt.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

The two most common surgeries are biopsies and cesarean sections.

 

[TxRad]

The Kings Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.....

 

[Guest]

The Kings Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.....

I've heard many things in Texas are big.

 

[cloudy]

The Kings Ranch in Texas is bigger than the state of Rhode Island.....

I used to own a horse from Kings Ranch. Good horse.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

Paul McCartney's mother was a midwife.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States, had a child out of wedlock. The GOP was even then trying a "family values" attack line, chanting at rallies, "Ma, ma, where's my Pa?"

Democratic hecklers retorted, rather ingeniously, "He's gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!". They were right. He was nominated for President 3 times and elected twice (2 non-consecutive terms, 1885-1889 and 1893-1897), becoming one of the strongest and most respected statesmen of his time.

His Vice President, incidentally, was the grandfather of Eisenhower's opponent in 1952. Both were named Adlai E. Stevenson.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Your money ISN'T money. It is a collection of Federal Reserve Notes- IOUs from the US Government. Those green pieces of paper are part of the national debt, and we are FORCED to increase it, because how else can we buy the shit that we need!

 

[entitled]

Did you know that 'paper' money isn't printed on paper?