3-11-02

Thoughts, tools and friendly diversions for busy people

Weird Things You Would Never Know!!

 

Butterflies taste with their feet.

A duck's quack doesn't echo, and no one knows why.

In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all the world's nuclear weapons combined.

On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.
 

On average people fear spiders more than they do death.

 
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.

Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.

 
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.

 
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
 

It's possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.

 

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

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

A snail can sleep for three years.

No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH".

 
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing.
 

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

 
All polar bears are left handed.

 
In ancient Egypt, priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
 

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.


"Go." is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.

 
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall.

A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.

 


The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.

Argument 101*by David Barry

I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.

You too can win arguments. Simply follow these rules:

1. Drink Liquor. (JD)

Suppose you're at a party and some hot-shot intellectual is expounding on the economy of Peru, a subject you know nothing about.

If you're drinking some health-fanatic drink like grapefruit juice, you'll hang back, afraid to display your ignorance, while the hotshot enthralls your date. But if you drink several large shots of Jack Daniels, you'll discover you have STRONG VIEWS about the Peruvian economy.

You'll be a WEALTH of information. You'll argue forcefully, offering searing insights and possibly upsetting furniture. People will be impressed. Some may leave the room.

2. Make things up.

Suppose, in the Peruvian economy argument, you are trying to prove Peruvians are underpaid, a position you base solely on the fact that YOU are underpaid, and you're not going to let a bunch of Peruvians be better off.

DON'T say: "I think Peruvians are underpaid." Say: "The average Peruvian's salary in 1981 dollars adjusted for the revised tax base is $1,452.81 per annum, which is $836.07 before the mean gross poverty level."

NOTE: Always make up exact figures.

If an opponent asks you where you got your information, make THAT up, too. Say: "This information comes from Dr. Hovel T. Moon's study for the Buford Commission published May 9, 1982. Didn't you read it?" Say this in the same tone of voice you would use to say "You left your soiled underwear in my bath house."

3. Use meaningless but weighty- sounding words and phrases.

Memorize this list:

Let me put it this way...
In terms of ...
Vis-a-vis
Per se
As it were
Qua
So to speak
well, anyhow...

 
You should also memorize some Latin abbreviations such as "Q.E.D.," "e.g.," and "i.e." These are all short for "I speak Latin, and you do not."

Here's how to use these words and phrases.

Suppose you want to say:

"Peruvians would like to order appetizers more often, but they don't have enough money."

You never win arguments talking like that

But you WILL win if you say: "Let me put it this way. In terms of appetizers vis-a-vis Peruvians qua Peruvians, they would like to order them more often, so to speak, but they do not have enough money per se, as it were. Q.E.D."

Only a fool would challenge that statement.

4. Use snappy and irrelevant comebacks.

You need an arsenal of all-purpose irrelevent phrases to fire back at your opponents when they make valid points.

The best are:

You're begging the question.
You're being defensive.
Don't compare apples and oranges.
What are your parameters?

This last one is especially valuable. Nobody, other than mathematicians, has the vaguest idea what "parameters" means.

Here's how to use your comebacks:

You say: 
As Abraham Lincoln said in 1873...

Your opponent says: Lincoln died in 1865.

You say: You're begging the question.

                            

OR

       

You say: Liberians, like most Asians...

Your opponent says: Liberia is in Africa.

You say: You're being defensive.

5. Compare your opponent to Adolf Hitler.

This is your heavy artillery, for when your opponent is obviously right and you are spectacularly wrong.

Bring Hitler up subtly. Say:

"That sounds suspiciously like something Adolf Hitler might say" or "You certainly do remind me of Adolf Hitler."

You now know how to out-argue anybody. Do not try to pull any of this on people who generally carry weapons.

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