› added 5 years ago

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TIL the dictionary isn't as much an instruction guide to the English language, as it is a record of how people are using it. Words aren't added because they're OK to use, but because a lot of people have been using them.

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8epGb TIL the Big Gulp was invented in 1976, when Coca-Cola suggested that 7-11 use 32 oz. cups, much larger than 20 oz. cups being used by McDonalds at the time. The first regional order of 500 Big Gulp cups sold out in a week, eventually forcing automakers to make cupholders bigger as popularity grew.
VOV0 TIL US sailors in WWII mixed a drink called “Torpedo Juice,” an alcoholic beverage containing pineapple juice and 180-proof alcohol used as fuel in torpedo motors
WkLAA TIL Coyotes use their howls and yipping to create a kind of census of coyote populations. If their howls are not answered by other packs, it triggers an autogenic response that produces large litters.
D1oBD TIL M. Night Shyamalan was offered to direct Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, he dropped out to direct The Village instead. It was his second offer to direct Harry Potter films, the first one was The Philosopher's Stone, and the third one was The Goblet of Fire.
J17Jj TIL that after aborting their attempt to reach the North Pole. Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen would spend over a year stranded on Franz Josef Land before being rescued by Frederick George Jackson. A man Nansen had rejected from joining his North Pole expedition due to not being Norwegian.