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Words and Numbers Trivia

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A Scottish term for someone who is sullen or bad-tempered is “dorty.”

A short period of time used to be referred to as a "whipstitch."

A slang expression used mostly during World War I, a poilou (pronounced pwä' loo) was a soldier in the French army; poilou means "hairy" or "virile" in French.

A three-letter, one-syllable word that becomes a three-syllable word by adding one letter to the end of it: The word "are" has three letters and one syllable – "area" has three syllables.

A tip or gratuity given by a gambler to a dealer or other employee at a casino is called a “toke.”

Hoi polloi is a Greek phrase meaning “the many.” Hoi polloi are the masses.

The American Heritage Dictionary was once banned from the Eldon, Missouri library because it contained 39 "objectionable" words.

A "clue" originally meant a ball of thread. This is why one is said to "unravel" the clues of a mystery.

A "criticaster" is an incompetent, inferior critic.

A "dandiprat" was an English coin of the value of three halfpence, coined by Henry VII.

A "duffer" is Australian slang for a cattle thief.

A "googol" is a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The name is said to have come from the nine-year-old nephew of the American mathematician, Edward Kasner. A googolplex is the number 1 followed by a googol of zeros.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time. It is 1/100 of a second.

A "necromancer" is someone who claims they can tell the future by alleged communication with the dead.

A "nucha" is the nape of the neck.

According to the dictionary, one definition of a “housewife” is a small container for sewing equipment.

According to the Gregorian calendar, which is the civil calendar in use today, years evenly divisible by 4 are leap years, with the exception of centurial years that are not evenly divisible by 400. Therefore, the years 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2100 are not leap years, but 1600, 2000, and 2400 are leap years.

According to William Safire's Safire's Political Dictionary, a "thumbsucker" is a political reporter's term for an analytical story or a think piece.

acetwothreefourfivesixseveneightninetenjackqueenkingExcluding the joker, if the letters in all the names of the cards in the deck (Ace, two, three, four,..., king) are added together, the total number of letters is 52, the same as the number of cards in the deck.

All the world's main alphabets have developed from an alphabet invented 3,600 years ago in the Middle East, and is known as the North Semitic Alphabet.

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