Sigel said:
Did you know-
President Andrew Jackson's pet parrot had to be removed from his funeral in 1845 because it was swearing.
This one checks out. And is awesome.http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/274405/andrew_jackson_our_irascible_7th_president_pg3.html?cat=37
Spider monkeys like banana daiquiris.
Can't find anything either way, seems plausible.
"On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia" were W.C.Fields last words.
Multi-layered doubly wrong. The urban legend is that this is his gravestone, which is false.
"According to the documentary W.C. Fields Straight Up,[7] his death occurred in this way: he winked and smiled at a nurse, put a finger to his lips, and died. Fields was 66, and had been a patient for 14 months.
Fields was cremated and his ashes interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. There have been stories that he wanted his grave marker to read "On the whole, I would rather be in Philadelphia", his home town, which is similar to a line he used in My Little Chickadee: "I'd like to see Paris before I die... Philadelphia would do!" (In the same film, he made a point of referencing "Philadelphia cream cheese". Given his fondness for words, maybe he just liked the sound of his home town's name.) This rumor has also morphed into "I would rather be here than in Philadelphia". The anecdote that Fields often remarked, "Philadelphia, wonderful town, spent a week there one night" is unsubstantiated. It is also said that Fields wanted "I'd rather be in Philadelphia" on his gravestone because of the old vaudeville joke among comedians that "I would rather be dead than play Philadelphia". Whatever his wishes might have been, his interment marker merely has his name and birth and death years."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._C._Fields#Final_years
whaleswiththumbs said:
The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law which stated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.
No such law ever existed. Any beating laws were concerned with the damage caused, not the implement. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thumb#Origin_of_the_phrase
Although the misconception dates back to 1782 so I'd say this "fact" actually becomes MORE interesting on being debunked.
When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop even your heart.
I think that last one is weirdest, because I've sneezed for 5 secs once.
ALL your body functions? Even digestion? Even muscle contraction? So you can't walk and sneeze? Do your sphincters immediately relax and make you piss yourself? Be very careful using the word "all". Oh, and the heart is fine: http://menshealth.about.com/od/conditions/a/Sneezing_men.htm
You get a lot of muscle movement and pressure change in sneezing, so I guess it's possible for the contractions to wobble slightly.
Also, I'm intrigued by this five second sneeze. Sneezes (the actually expulsion) are pretty quick, under a second I'd wager. The five second sneeze I guess is just the inhaling build up.