Fact-based Word Journeys
Kangaroo Is a Real Word, Not a Polite Shrug
A popular story says kangaroo means I don't understand, but the word was a real name for a big grey kangaroo, written down beside a river in 1770.
History
History on Oddly is less about kings and battles and more about perspective: how far apart events really were, what has survived from the ancient world, and where everyday things got their names.
Some of it reaches back long before people, to the age of the dinosaurs, when even a day was a different length.
Articles
Fact-based How It Started
Your Pencil Has Never Had Any Lead in It
The grey core of a pencil is graphite, a soft form of carbon, and the lead in its name comes from a mix-up on an English hillside more than 450 years ago.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Pyjamas Began as Persian Leg Clothes Worn in Broad Daylight
Pyjamas, pijama and pizhama all come from a Persian phrase for leg clothing, and the loose trousers it named were worn in the daytime long before anyone went to bed in them.
Fact-based How It Started
The Frisbee Took Its Name From a Bakery's Pie Tins
Long before plastic flying discs, people in Connecticut were said to be sailing empty pie tins from a Bridgeport bakery across the grass, and the bakery's name stuck.
Fact-based Word Journeys
The Word Sugar Began as an Ancient Word for Gravel
Sugar in English, sakhar in Russian and azúcar in Spanish all grew from one Sanskrit word for grit and gravel, which travelled west with the sweet crystals themselves.
Fact-based How It Started
The Post-it Note Began as a Glue That Would Not Stick Properly
A chemist trying to make a super-strong glue made a very weak one instead, and it took a choir singer with runaway bookmarks to work out what it was for.
Fact-based Word Journeys
A Magazine and a Russian Shop Are the Same Arabic Word
Magazine, the Spanish almacén and the Russian magazin all grew out of one Arabic word for a back room full of sacks, and only one of them ended up made of paper.
Fact-based Odd Places
Turkey Has a Whole Hillside of White Stone Bathtubs
Hot springs at Pamukkale have spent thousands of years laying a thin white skin of stone down a 200-metre cliff, building a staircase of shallow pools the colour of the sky.
Fact-based How It Started
The Shopping Trolley Began as Two Folding Chairs
The first one was a pair of wooden folding chairs on wheels with a basket on top, and shoppers refused to push it so firmly that the shop had to hire people to demonstrate.
Fact-based Word Journeys
The Word Coffee Took the Long Way Round
Before it reached your cup, the word coffee travelled from Arabic into Turkish and then all over Europe, picking up a new spelling in almost every language.
Fact-based How It Started
Play-Doh Began Life as a Wallpaper Cleaner
Before it was squashed into dinosaurs and pretend pizzas, the world's favourite modelling dough was sold for rubbing soot off wallpaper.
Fact-based Word Journeys
The Word Tomato Was Born in the Language of the Aztecs
Tomato, tomate and the Russian tomat all grew from one Aztec word, tomatl, while Russian also kept a second name that means golden apples.
Fact-based How It Started
The Tiny Pocket on Your Jeans Was Made for a Watch
That little pocket tucked inside the front pocket of your jeans is older than phones, earbuds and even wristwatches: it was made to carry a pocket watch.
Fact-based Word Journeys
The Word Robot Was Born in a Czech Play, Thanks to a Painter Brother
Robot, the Russian robot and the Spanish robot all come from a single stage play written in Prague in 1920, where a writer's brother suggested an old Czech word for hard, dull work.
Fact-based Weird Facts
You Cannot See the Great Wall of China From the Moon
It is one of the most repeated facts in the world, and it is wrong: from the Moon the wall is invisible, and even from orbit it is so hard to spot that astronauts argue about it.
Fact-based How It Started
The First Jigsaw Puzzle Was a Map for Teaching Geography
Long before there were puzzles of kittens and lighthouses, a London mapmaker glued a map of Europe onto a thin wooden board and cut it up so that children could learn where every country went.
Fact-based Word Journeys
Tea, Té and Chai Are One Chinese Word That Took Two Roads
English and Spanish say tea and té, Russian says chai, and all three are the same Chinese word, split in two by whether it travelled west on a ship or on the back of a camel.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Oxford University Is Older Than the Aztec Empire
Students were being taught in Oxford more than two hundred years before the city of Tenochtitlan was founded, and over three centuries before the Aztec Empire took shape.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Scotland's National Animal Is the Unicorn
Other countries picked eagles, bears and lions, and Scotland chose a creature nobody has ever seen, then kept it in golden chains just to be on the safe side.
Fact-based How It Started
Bubble Wrap Began as a Wallpaper Nobody Wanted
Two inventors sealed a pair of plastic shower curtains together in 1957 hoping to make stylish textured wallpaper, and it took them years and a computer to find out what they had really made.
Fact-based Weird Facts
A Day Was Half an Hour Shorter When Dinosaurs Were Alive
A 70-million-year-old fossil shell shows that a day then lasted about 23 and a half hours, and a year held 372 of them.
Fact-based Weird Facts
The Dot on an i Is Called a Tittle
The dot over a lowercase i or j has its own name, it began as a handwriting helper in medieval manuscripts, and it may be hiding inside the phrase to a T.
Fact-based Cosmic Questions
Why Do We Whisper Around Very Old Things?
Nobody puts up a sign asking you to lower your voice in front of a thousand-year-old tree, and yet almost everybody does.
Fact-based Weird Facts
T-Rex Never Met a Stegosaurus — They Missed Each Other by 80 Million Years
Stegosaurus lived around 150 million years ago, T. rex about 68 to 66 million years ago. We are closer in time to T. rex than it was to Stegosaurus.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Why Honey Keeps Almost Forever
Honey is too dry, too acidic and too sugary for most microbes to survive in, which is why a jar at the back of the cupboard is almost always still good.
Fact-based Weird Facts
Cleopatra Lived Closer to the Moon Landing Than to the Pyramids
The Great Pyramid was already about 2,500 years old in her time. The first Moon landing came about 2,000 years after her.