In the U.S., they're called orchestra seats; in England, they're referred to as "stalls."

In the United States, it is called stone-skipping. In England, it is known as ducks and drakes; in Denmark, it's called smutting.

In the vast majority of the world's languages, the word for "mother" begins with the letter M.

India ink (sometimes called "Chinese ink") was not known until recently in either China or India.

Las Vegas means "the meadows" in Spanish. Ironically, the city in the desert was once abundant in water and vegetation.

Lenses were named during the thirteenth century for their vague resemblance in shape to lentils — from the Italian word lenticchie for "lentils," which was later changed to the Italian lente for "lens." For more than 300 years, lenses were called "glass lentils."

A poet writes poems; the writer of inferior poems is a "poetaster."

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

A "pibroch" is a piece of music for the bagpipe, consisting of a theme with variations, usually martial but sometimes dirgelike.

A "quidnunc" is a person who is eager to know the latest news and gossip — otherwise, a busybody.

A "springal" is an archaic term for an active young man

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Pinhead,Pin-Up at 56,Pindead,PinM&M, PinMoney, Pinocchio Pincushion, Pinwheel, Pinochle

[This message has been edited by Pinhead (edited 05-17-2000).]

The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept" (John 11:35).

The city morgue in the Bronx, New York, has been so busy at times that next of kin take numbers – as in a corner bakery shop – and wait in line for their body-identification call.

More than 260,000 people are buried at Arlington Cemetery. Arlington National Cemetery conducts approximately 5,400 burials each year. Funerals, including interments and inurnments, average 20 a day. Arlington National Cemetery has the second-largest number of people buried of any national cemetery in the United States. The largest of the 130 national cemeteries is the Calverton National Cemetery, on Long Island, near Farmingdale, New York. That cemetery conducts more than 7,000 burials each year.

The sound heard by a listener when holding a seashell to his ear does NOT come from the shell itself. It is the echo of the blood pulsing in the listeners own ear.

The color black absorbs heat. White reflects it.

More than 5,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered how to make silk from silkworm cocoons. For about 3,000 years, the Chinese kept this discovery a secret. Because poor people could not afford real silk, they tried to make other cloth look silky. Women would beat on cotton with sticks to soften the fibers. Then they rubbed it against a big stone to make it shiny. The shiny cotton was called "chintz." Because chintz was a cheaper copy of silk, calling something "chintzy" means it is cheap and not of good quality.

The color combination with the strongest visual impact is black on yellow. Next to follow black on white, yellow on black, white on black, dark blue on white, and white on dark blue.

More than 50 percent of the people who are bitten by venomous snakes in the United States and who go untreated still survive.

Average Americans know about 10,000 words. Writers know the most words, averaging 20,000. Farm workers seem to know the fewest words, at around 1,600.
The word "set" has over 100 meanings or uses.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, there are as many as 2,241 synonyms for the state of being "drunk."

A fellow in Montana gave his daughter a 622-letter long name. His purpose: To tangle up and crash beaurocratic computers!

In 1984 Alan Foreman of England sent his wife Janet a rather long letter containing over one million words.

When modern kids say "bad!" their actual meaning is "good!" Some of us wince at this slang reversal. This is not the first such reversal in the English language, however. "Awful" used to mean awe-inspiring, and "artificial" used to mean full of art.

In Spanish and German, they capitalize the word "you." In English, we capitalize "I."

Here's an interesting example in the evolution of the English language. Butterflies used to be called "flutterbys."

[This message has been edited by Pinhead (edited 05-17-2000).]