Mental Floss

BIG QUESTIONS

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According the Oxford English Dictionary, if you “turn the tables” on someone, it is generally understood that you have reversed the fortunes in your favor to some capacity, so as to “reverse one’s position relative to someone else, especially by turning a

Will McGough








Oregonencyclopedia.org

If you’ve ever been enrolled in the Fruit-of-the-Month Club or gotten a Tower of Treats as a gift, you’re probably familiar with the names Harry and David, but don’t know much about them. Are they real people? Do they have last names?

Matt Soniak
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Wouldn’t it do just the opposite? Doesn’t it prove that the rule does not hold for all cases and is therefore not a rule at all?

Arika Okrent


iStock / baona

When this refracted light reaches you, your brain and eye don’t account for all the bending it did along the way. What you see is an inferior mirage where the mirage is under the real object.

Matt Soniak


iStock / SIphotography

When you speak, vibrations from your vocal cords resonate in your throat and mouth, and some get transmitted and conducted by the bones in your neck and head. The inner ear responds to these just like any other vibrations, turning them into electrical sig

Matt Soniak




Christopher Columbus did a lot of naming in his day. As it turns out, he had a hand in naming four of the five island-nations with two names. Is that an obscure enough fact for you? Still, this is definitely the kind of fact that shows up on pub trivia ni

Haley Sweetland Edwards






New Orleans bounce artist 5th Ward Weebie raps as women from the audience twerk onstage at Tipitina's in 2014.

Though twerking may have gone viral—and been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013—thanks to Miley Cyrus, the dance's origins date back nearly two centuries.

Maureen Monahan


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When you're waking up from a nightmare, your first question might be, “Was that a bagel chasing me through my house with a sledgehammer?” And after the shock of dreaming about a homicidal, anthropomorphic breakfast dish wears off, your next question is pr

Erik van Rheenen
Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Sometimes it’s literally a glob of grease, other times it’s a synthetic sticker. We’ve all seen baseball and football players with the black rectangles under their eyes on sunny days, which is thought to help reduce the sun’s glare and allow athletes to b

Will McGough
ThinkStock

In 1963, Singapore declared its independence from Great Britain. Without much land area or natural resources of its own, the new nation secured some protection and economic help by joining Malaya, Sabah and Sarawak to form the Federation of Malaysia. But

Matt Soniak