Buzz
We've recently shared two collections of captivating factlets (a term that still feels a bit dubious to me), but due to the growing interest in both bizarre lists and curious facts, we've compiled this special collection of factlets from the eerie and odd corners of history and society. Feel free to share your personal favorites in the comments below!
1 Factlets 1 – 5
1. Pareidolia (as shown above) is the psychological phenomenon where individuals perceive patterns or sounds that seem meaningful, even though they aren't—sometimes even non-existent. A popular example is the supposed hearing of phrases when playing records backwards. This phenomenon is often behind so-called miracles, like religious figures appearing in toast, clouds, or stains on everyday objects.
2. Gleeking is the peculiar term used to describe the act of saliva being forcefully ejected from beneath the tongue, whether by accident (such as during a yawn) or intentionally (which requires a great deal of practice). According to Wikipedia, you can induce gleeking by pressing the underside of the tongue against the roof of your mouth, then pushing the tongue forward while simultaneously closing the lower jaw and shifting it slightly forward. Despite my attempts, I still can't seem to master it – if anyone manages it, let us know.
3. The Hawaiian language consists of just twelve letters, plus the apostrophe symbol, which represents the glottal stop in words like Hawai’i – this is called the ‘okina.
4. Believe it or not, accidental plagiarism can happen. Cryptomnesia is a memory bias where a person thinks they’ve come up with a new idea when, in reality, they’re recalling someone else’s idea. This even happens in literature: Friedrich Nietzsche’s book *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* includes a near-verbatim account of an incident that appeared in a book published in 1835, half a century before Nietzsche’s work. This isn’t considered deliberate plagiarism or sheer coincidence. Nietzsche’s sister confirmed that he had indeed read the original account when he was 11 years old.
5. Clinical lycanthropy is an extremely rare psychological disorder where someone believes they’ve transformed into an animal. This can lead to hallucinations and the person mimicking the behaviors of the animal they believe they’ve become.
2 Factlets 6 – 10
6. Did you know Santa has a special companion who travels with him? His name is Krampus, and he punishes people by beating them with sticks – particularly women. He is pictured above. The tale of Krampus has been used for centuries to scare children into behaving before Christmas.
7. A surprisingly large number of people believe in the Ancient Astronaut theory, which suggests that extraterrestrials visited Earth in prehistory and shared knowledge with humanity (or in some cases, interbred with humans to enhance our intelligence). Some supporters of the theory even claim that all the major religions on Earth were founded by these alien visitors.
8. Mary Toft was an English woman from Godalming, Surrey, who became infamous in 1726 after tricking doctors into believing she had given birth to rabbits. According to contemporary accounts, '[Male midwife John Howard] delivered 'three legs of a Cat of a Tabby Colour, and one leg of a Rabbet: the guts were as a Cat’s and in them were three pieces of the Back-Bone of an Eel… The cat’s feet supposed were formed in her imagination from a cat she was fond of that slept on the bed at night.' Later, Toft seemed to fall ill again, delivering more pieces of rabbit. Her deception was eventually exposed, and both she and the medical community were mocked.
9. Hyperthymesia is a rare condition (currently found in only four known individuals) in which a person possesses an extraordinary ability to recall nearly every detail of their life. Someone with hyperthymesia can be asked about any specific date and recount the events that took place that day, the weather, and even seemingly insignificant details that most people would struggle to remember.
10. Intrusive R and Linking R are two types of pronunciations of the letter 'r' in English dialects where the final 'R' is typically not pronounced (such as in New Zealand English). For example, in these dialects, when saying 'don’t go far,' the word 'far' has a silent 'r,' but the 'r' is pronounced in the sentence 'he is far away.' This linking 'r' smooths out the phrase. Intrusive 'r' occurs when an 'r' is inserted where it doesn't exist, like in the phrase 'Africa or England,' which would be pronounced 'Africar-or-England.'
3 Factlets 11 – 15
11. Zebroids are hybrid animals that result from mating a zebra with either a donkey or a horse. While zebroids physically resemble their non-zebra parent, they have the signature stripes of a zebra. The stripes often don't cover the entire body and may be limited to the legs or extend to other parts of the body or neck. Depending on the specific hybrid, they are given different names such as zorse, zonkey, zebrass, zedonk (as shown above), etc.
12. Crikey steveirwini (a land snail that breathes air) is the only species in the Crikey genus. The name steveirwini honors wildlife expert Steve Irwin. The genus name 'Crikey' comes from one of Irwin's famous exclamations, 'crikey!'—a minced oath often used in Australia.
13. The village of Shing? in Japan claims to be the final resting place of Jesus, with his tomb located there. Local legend suggests that Jesus traveled to Japan at the age of 21, where he spent 12 years studying theology. He later returned to Judea at 34, but according to this story, he did not die on the cross at Golgotha. Instead, his brother Isukiri took his place on the cross, while Jesus escaped across Siberia, Alaska, and finally reached Mutsu Province in northern Japan, where he settled as a rice farmer, married, and had a family near present-day Shing?.
14. In the early 1700s, the Swedish Empire (which included Finland at that time) had planned to switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar by skipping leap days for the next 40 years. Although they missed the leap day in February 1700, the outbreak of the Great Northern War later that year distracted the Swedes, causing them to miss the leap days in 1704 and 1708 as well, keeping those years as leap years. To correct the errors, the Julian calendar was reinstated in 1712 with the addition of an extra leap day, which created a 30th of February that year.
15. Our final entry is a sentence, but it's no ordinary sentence. Most people know the famous 'buffalo buffalo buffalo…' sentence, but here's another: 'James while John had had had had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher.' This is a fully legitimate English sentence. I challenge you to add the proper punctuation to make it understandable—and I challenge you not to look it up!
