5 Bits of Trivia

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The word “mare” in “nightmare” has nothing to do with a female horse. The word comes from the Old English “more”, a mythological demon or goblin who torments human beings with frightening dreams and feelings of suffocation. The prefix "night-" was added to stress the dream-aspect. 

The Nightmare by Henry Fussell, 1781

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What is unusual about the following words:

SWIMS

NOON

MOW

Answer: They read the same upside down as right way up.

Such words are known as ambigrams and they can also be created by using manipulated fonts, as in Angels and Demons by Dan Brown.  Here are some

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Honey doesn’t spoil. It is the only known food source that keeps indefinitely in its raw form, so much so that it has been found in archaeological digs thousands of years old and still edible.

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In 2012 a man by the name of Kaboom (he had changed it from Krosner to bring attention to his pest control business) left his walking stick outside the Council chamber in Akron, Ohio. The walking stick was an aluminium converted shower rod with duct tape at the ends. More importantly it had his name written on it. When it was discovered there was an immediate evacuation of the building, notwithstanding that the stick with “KABOOM” written on it also had the words “This is not a weapon.”

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Jack Nicholson was brought up believing that his maternal grandparents were his parents. Nicholson only discovered that his "parents" were actually his grandparents and his "sister" was his mother in 1974, after a journalist for Time magazine informed him of the fact. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died.   Nicholson's mother had gotten pregnant at age 16.

Jack Nicholson, his mother June, father uncertain

Likewise singer Bobby Darin discovered at age 32 that his sister was really his mother, who had given birth to him at age 16.  

Eric Clapton discovered at age 9 that his sister was mother and that she had given birth to him at ... age 16.

Eric Clapton with his mother.

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