2502: Kappa(maki): Sushi from a Sea-Monster Oct 18, 2021

Kappa rolls—sushi rolls filled with cucumber—are named for a sea monster of Japanese folklore. The connection between a humanoid, web-toed, turtle-shelled sea monster might not seem immediately obvious. This is because in that mythology, the creature was thought to like to eat cucumbers, and people would even make offerings involving the vegetable, hence 河童巻 (kappamaki).

2396: Countries without Long-Form Names Jul 11, 2021

Most countries have an official long-form name such as 'Venezuela' and 'The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela', 'Micronesia' to the 'Federated States of Micronesia', and 'Luxembourg' to 'Grand Duchy of Luxembourg'. Indeed, countries like Japan, Hungary, Tuvalu, and Ireland are some of the few countries with no distinctions between common names and official names, sort of. In the case of Japan, the official name is Nippon, even in English, but this is very rarely used and since it is simply the endonym rather than an expanded name this is not considered to be long-form. Conversely, Ireland is often referred to as the Republic of Ireland, especially to disambiguate this with Northern Ireland or the island as a whole, despite the fact that this is not officially used by the country itself. Some others like Hungary used to have official long-forms but removed them, as in that case in 2012.