2147: A Parisian Menu with Actual Zoo-Animals Oct 31, 2020

It didn't have to be Halloween to enjoy "Cat à la Rat", or "Wolf's Leg, with venison sauce". The French are known worldwide for their fancy gourmet foods—snails and frogs notwithstanding—but there is a Parisian menu from 1870 that shows zoo animals on it. This, as a historical record, shows the way in which people reacted to the Franco-Prussian war, the siege on Paris, and the starvation it caused. Some more items include Elephant Soup, Kangaroo Stew, Stuffed Donkey Head, Antelope Terrine, and English-Style Camel...

1793: 4th Estate vs. 4th Power Nov 11, 2019

People often use the term '4th estate' to refer to the press, but none of the other 3 estates exist really. It comes from the pre-republican European estates of realm, which is another way of saying the clergy, the nobility, and the commoners together, with those making up the 3 estates. Later, '4th estate' merged conceptually with '4th power'—also denoting the press—but with the other 3 powers this time referring to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, which may be why people still use '4th estate'.
For more bonus content on the latest video, click here.

1605: adam's apple May 7, 2019

Adam's apples are more prominent on men than women, so it was deemed fitting to name it after the first man, Adam (אדם). It doesn't look much like an apple, but that's because the biblical imagery doesn't end there. The thyroid cartilage of the larynx is usually referred to as Adam's apple after the idea that a piece of the forbidden fruit, popularly conceived of as an apple was lodged in Adam's throat. For more on why the forbidden fruit is referred to as an apple, see here.
Over the last few days, there have been posts about the larynx, so read all about the larynx here.

1259: Discovering a Language from a Parrot May 21, 2018

All languages are from humans, but one was retrieved from a parrot.

Alexander von Humboldt, known for many things including his work with electricity also spent a great deal of time in South America, as well as documenting native groups from the Amazon. There was one tribe which was said to have been eaten by Caribs (cannibals) but there was a parrot that survived. Humboldt went with someone who spoke, Maipures, a similar language to the extinct Atures and learned around 40 words from the parrot. Along with the Maipures speaker, he was able to reconstruct a small amount of the language.

To see some hypothetical Word Facts, visit Patreon.com/wordfacts. Check out the latest Youtube video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYX2heE0T0

1254: Prawo Jazdy: be careful with translation May 16, 2018

In Ireland, the Garda reported a criminal with a long list of speeding-tickets and parking-fines from all over the country, but each time it was under a different address. There was nothing else on his rap sheet, so this raised a lot of red flags about the need for false-identities. Prawo Jazdy was in the system for more than 50 offences, until someone pointed out that 'prawo jazdy' means driving license in Polish. This was a big embarrassment for the Irish police, but the Polish residents reportedly found this very amusing.

1253: The King James Bible Didn't Speak Its Greek May 15, 2018

Those translating The King James Bible (KJV) weren't familiar with Koine Greek: the language it was written in; at the time people didn't know it existed. This may sound impossible: how do people translate from a language which is unknown?

Well, it is not as if the translators for the KJV were only familiar in English (or even ecclesiastical Latin) and translated from no background, but at the time, people believed that Koine (common) Greek, as what they were all familiar with: Classical Greek. In fact, up until more scrolls and other documentation was found, it was thought that the Greek used in the New Testament was unique, and moreover a divinely-inspired dialect. This was proved false in the 17th and 18th century by the existence of thousands of items in Koine Greek, mostly on papyrus. So while the translation is one of the most-trusted, it was beyond the grasp of the translators, and should—more than most translations of other things—be taken with more consideration.

To see some hypothetical Word Facts, visit Patreon.com/wordfacts. Check out the latest Youtube video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqYX2heE0T0

899: Greek Numerals May 25, 2017

In many countries people write numbers using Arabic numerals, though these are poorly named as they come from India, and in the Middle East today very few of their numerals look the same; e.g. 2, 3, and 4 appear as ٢,٣, and ٤ respectively. There are many more systems of writing numbers out there, but in the West there tend to only be two used commonly, including the Arabic numerals of course, and Roman numerals. The latter use letters—I, V, X, L, C, D, and M—to express numbers, similar to many other systems. The Greek numerals, though less common than their Roman counterpart today, also use alphabetical letters to represent numbers. Some on the Roman system was somewhat arbitrary, such as V and L for fifty when the Latin word for both starts with a Q, but Greek numerals represented 1-10 with the first ten letters of their alphabet, and 20-90 (going up by tens) is represented by the 11th through 18th letter, and hundreds are represented by the 19th through 27th letter (including the archaic sampi).

156: Lorem Ipsum May 13, 2015

Any of you who do publishing or graphic design, or even made a powerpoint have seen, 'lorem ipsum'. Interestingly, there is no Latin word 'lorem', but neither was Cicero just making up words. This is originally from a passage which seeming to start with, "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet", but there was a piece missing of this fragment: it starts with "neque porro quisquam est qui do-". 'Lorem ipsum' requires 'do-' (i.e.’ dolorum’) and because it requires text, it now is used to show that (or where) the input of text is necessary.