› added 12 years ago

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TIL a baker’s dozen is 13 instead of 12 because bakers were afraid of accidentally shorting the customer and violating strict laws (wish punishments including losing a hand)

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via reddit.com

WRwN TIL That the word “Idaho” is completely meaningless. The lobbyist who suggested the name lied about it being a Shoshone word for “gem of the mountains” and congress didn’t bother verifying the claim.
Vx8B TIL that the Devo album “Oh no! It’s Devo” was born out of critical reviews in which the band were alternately described as both “fascists” and “clowns”, leading the band to ask, “what would an album by fascist clowns sound like?”
loJlV TIL the Filet-O-Fish was invented due to falling hamburger sales on Fridays resulting from Roman Catholic practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays.
gr51X TIL Swedish car company Volvo turned down a deal that would see them sell 40% of their company for a share of Norwegian oil, that share is now worth 140-200 billion dollars, Volvo was sold in 2010 for less than 2 billion dollars
5veR TIL Jeff Bridges said of working on Iron Man, “They had no script, man. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn’t know what we were going to say. We would go into our trailer and call up writers on the phone, ‘You got any ideas?’”