Learn Fun Facts

An Archive of Curious Facts for the Curious

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A Run-Away Husband The following is a quaint advertisement I found in the June 9, 1788 edition of Connecticut Courant…

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A Good News and a Thank You

A Good News and a Thank You

Half an hour ago, while I’m with my grandmother (who suffered a massive stroke two days ago) in the Emergency Room, I saw her eyes open. After a few moments, she began to move her hands slightly. I called the doctors to inform them that my grandmother have regained consciousness.

The doctors immediately performed a series of tests. They then told me that her condition has improved. Now, she could…

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Learn Fun Facts' 3rd Year Blogiversary

Learn Fun Facts’ 3rd Year Blogiversary

To everyone who reads this, I wish you a Happy New Year.

Time flies and just like that, Learn Fun Facts is now three years old. This blog is still a baby compared with other blogs. But I think that it’s something for a blog to reach three years.

2019 is the most uneventful year for Learn Fun Facts which was caused by a number of hiatuses (oh how I dislike that word) due to several reasons. I…

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Gleanings from the Past #92

Gleanings from the Past #92

Etymology of Peebles

Dr. Dalgleish, minister of Peebles, in giving a statistical account of that parish for Sir John Sinclair’s immense compilation, simply stated, that the place must have derived its name from the pebbles which are found there in great quantity. The more elaborate antiquary George Chalmers, by a tolerable pun for a man of his stamp, remarks in his ‘Caledonia,’ that the worthy…

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The Mystery Cargo

A wagoner was asked to identify what his load contained. However, he provided the following vague response:

Three-fourths of a cross, and a circle complete; An upright, where two semi-circles do meet; A right-angled triangle standing on feet; Two semi-circles, and a circle complete.

Can you figure this out?

Solution

The verse describes capital letters. So, the answer is TOBACCO.

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Livin' 'Till the End

Livin’ ‘Till the End

George Burns in his book How to Live to Be 100 – or More(1983) has a section titled “Stay Away from Funerals, Especially Yours.” He remarked that if you look in the obituary column in the morning and your name isn’t there, “go ahead and have breakfast.” He said that if he ever looks in the obituary column and finds that his name is there, he will still have breakfast. “Tm not leaving on an empty…

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Poet Lewis Morris (1833 – 1907) on one occasion bored Oscar Wilde with his ramblings regarding his woes. Morris lamented that the press boycotted his books on purpose. He also thought that he should have become a Poet Laureate after the death of Alfred Tennyson.

After he enumerated several more examples of unfair treatments he received, he said: There’s a conspiracy against me, a conspiracy of silence! But what can one do? What should I do?”

“Join it,” Wilde replied.

Reference

Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde: Life and Confessions, 1930

If You Can’t Beat Them… Poet Lewis Morris (1833 – 1907) on one occasion bored Oscar Wilde with his ramblings regarding his woes.

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Puns of the Weak #2

Puns of the Weak #2

“Love may be blind but marriage is a real eye-opener.” — Bruce Lansky, For Better and for Worse, 1995

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Are you interested in making $$$$ fast? Here’s an incredibly simple way to do it, and there is nothing to buy, no investment to make, no money to lose! Try it now!

Follow this simple procedure:

Hold down the shift key.

Hit the 4 key four times.

…

“When the temperature exceeded his forecast,…

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How to E-Mail Like a Boss

How to E-Mail Like a Boss

The following image that I found details some ways to make your emails more professional and assertive. While I personally don’t care that much about this kind of stuff, this may prove to be useful to some of you:

Image: Tumblr

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A Comedian Enters the Court

A Comedian Enters the Court

“Of all forms of monotony, the monotony of affirmation is the worst.”

— Joseph Joubert

According to Marcelle Boren in Disorder in the American Courts (2016), the following conversation apparently occurred in a US court of law:

Clerk: “Please repeat after me: ‘I swear by Almighty God…’” Witness: “I swear by Almighty God.” Clerk: “That the evidence that I give…” Witness: “That’s right.” Clerk:…

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How Not to Get Hired: A Few Crappy Lines to Add to Your CV

How Not to Get Hired: A Few Crappy Lines to Add to Your CV

Job seekers spend a lot of time crafting a perfect CV.  Well, at least, that’s the idea. Here are some of the oddest culled from real-life examples:

“The company made me a scapegoat, just like my three previous employers.”

“References: None. I’ve left a path of destruction behind me.”

“I have a sold academic record.”

“My goal is to be a meteorologist. But since I possess no training in…

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Gleanings from the Past #91

Gleanings from the Past #91

Monotony

The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and…

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A Missing Hyphen Can Change Everything Image: Imgur Well, I'm not sure whether I would laugh or cringe when I first saw this. The Pratt Tribune changed the headline of the online version to "Students get job-site training during Disability Mentoring Day.

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Writing on the Margins This was shared on r/CrappyDesign subreddit.

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Some Weird Index Cross-References The Monthly Magazine for June 1801 talked about a weird and curious cross-references found in William Hawkins’ 

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Decide In The Devil's Dictionary (1906), Ambrose Bierce defined "Decide" as "to succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set." What followed is this short verse:

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Puns of the Weak #1

Puns of the Weak #1

Starting this week, “Pun of the Weak” will be renamed as “Puns of the Weak”.

When I was down, a friend told me, “Just look on the bright side, at least, you are not stuck in the hole underground full of water.” I know he meant well…

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Disbelief — How you tell someone what the green stuff on a tree is.

— Jay Christie

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Q: What happened to the man who was charged with stealing geese from farms all…

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