Mental Floss

BIG QUESTIONS

Bison grazing in Grand Teton National Park.

In the U.S., the terms ‘bison’ and ‘buffalo’ are used interchangeably—but they’re actually two different animals. Here’s how to tell them apart.

Corned beef? Or pastrami? Let's hash it out.

The two brined meats are both delicious, but they're prepared in very different ways.

Serena Williams at the 2014 U.S. Open, which she won.

Tennis’s U.S. Open has only been an “open” since 1968. Here’s why.

It's all downhill from here.

It's known as "middle-aged groan," and it afflicts millions who dare try to get off the couch.

It’s complicated.

First, you have to understand the difference between England and Britain (and the UK, while we’re at it).

Dunder Mifflin employees aren't the only people curious about whether that now-iconic DVD logo ever really does hit the corner of the screen.

Keep your mouth away from snakebites.

You may have been taught the old cowboy trick of applying a tourniquet and using a blade to cut the bite wound to suck out the poison. It looks dramatic, but does it really work?

Time to nip some buds.

The idiom goes back centuries. And no, it's not 'nipping it in the butt.'

There are some key differences between the two devices.

You need to set up both a router and a modem if you want Wi-Fi internet in your home, but there are major differences between the two devices.

Happy death day.

“We concluded that birthdays end lethally more frequently than might be expected."

There probably isn't any brandy in there.

The barrels we see around St. Bernards' necks in paintings and cartoons is the invention of an artist named Edwin Henry Landseer.

Chicken fingers or chicken tenders? It's complicated.

All fried chicken tenders qualify as fingers, but not all chicken fingers are tenders.

Phone numbers with letters look like gibberish to most people making a phone call today.

You may have noticed these weird phone numbers while watching reruns of your favorite ’50s-era TV show—and though they look like gibberish to modern phone-users, they were perfectly normal at the time.

Turn left for endurance, right for enthusiasm.

You can’t spell ‘hearty’ without ‘heart,’ or ‘hardy’ without ‘hard.’

Vocal fry predates the Kardashians.

Vocal fry describes a specific sound quality caused by the movement of the vocal folds—and it’s nothing new.

The Mega Millions jackpot stands at approximately $1.55 billion in August 2023.

Here's what financial experts say.

It's no secret that most fast food "secret sauces" are a riff on Thousand Island dressing.

There’s no shortage of theories.

‘For Pete’s sake’ originated around the early 20th century, but the Pete in question may have lived long before that.

It's a wheel. Also a tire. With a rim. And a hubcap.

Get up to speed on your car lingo.

The position he's in could actually increase his chances of surviving a high fall.

How and where you land is one of the major factors in whether you get up from the ground or go 6 feet further into it

Well is there?

The answer is a bit complicated.

There are two main ways for getting a pimento inside an olive.

Until the early 1960s, pimentos were sliced and then stuffed into olives by hand.

Some string theorists predict at least 10 dimensions, most of which humans can’t perceive.

According to string theory, there are at least 10 dimensions of space, most of which are impossible for humans to perceive.

'Of course' is really all of the above.

‘Of course’ is one of the most versatile ‘yes’ synonyms we have. But what does it actually mean?