1. In Shakespeare's time mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That's where the phrase, "goodnight, sleep tight" came from.

  2. The sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." uses every letter in the alphabet. It was developed by Western Union to test telex/twx communications.

  3. It was the accepted practice in Babylon some 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding the bride's father would supply his new son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we today call the "honeymoon".

  4. In English pubs ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England when customers got unruly the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase, "mind your Ps and Qs."

  5. Many years ago in England pub frequenters had a whistle into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. Then they needed a refill they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle," is the phrase inspired by this practice.

  6. In ancient England a person could not have sex unless he had the consent of the King (unless you were in the Royal Family). When anyone wanted to have a baby they got consent of the King and the King gave them a placard that they hung on their door while having sex. The placard had the first letter of the phrase, "Fornication Under Consent of the King" on it. Hence, ... .

  7. The only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable."

  8. The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built the engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would be housed in the building.

  9. The term, "the whole 9 yards" came from WWII fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground the .50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got the "whole 9 yards."

  10. The phrase, "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

  11. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

  12. Ten percent of the Russian government's income comes from the sale of vodka.

  13. The world's termites outweigh the world's humans by 10 to 1.

  14. The 3 most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola and Budweiser, in that order.

  15. When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle it travels at the rate of 25 miles per year.
That's all folks...

Back to Humor