FACT FIXX

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Latest Articles

Seeing Yellow

The colour yellow, when seen from a distance or when used with a dark background, is easiest to see, but when used alone, it is...

New Phrases: Recombobulation Area

Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport coined a new phrase with their “Recombobulation Area” – a play on the word “discombobulate” meaning “to throw into a...

The First Television Commercial

The first television advertisement was broadcast in the United States on July 1, 1941. The watchmaker Bulova paid $9 for a placement on New...

World’s Heaviest Insect: Giant Weta

Entomologist and photojournalist Mark Moffett has found the world’s biggest bug on New Zealand’s Little Barrier Island. The insect has a wing span of...

Name Origins: Gump

The word Gump meaning a fool, a stupid person was recorded in poet, critic, and editor James Russell Lowell’s “The Biglow Papers” (1866), and accounts for...

The Priestly Blessing: Origin of Vulcan Salute

In his autobiography I Am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy wrote that he based the Vulcan Salute on the Priestly Blessing traditionally performed by Jewish Kohanim (priests) with...

Misquoted: Sherlock Holmes – “Elementary, My Dear Watson”

The well known phrase “Elementary, my dear Watson”, was never actually said by the Sherlock Holmes character in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s written...

Idioms: Just Deserts (not Just Desserts)

The popular expression “Just Deserts”, meaning a deserved punishment or reward can be traced back to the 13th century and is derived from the...
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