The city of Des Moines is a jewel in the middle of Iowa. With skyscrapers breaking up the monotony of the prairie horizon and the gold-domed Iowa State Capitol building reflecting the […]
Des Moines: the City That Got Its Name from a Practical Joke
Have the Mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript Finally Been Unlocked?
An unknown author of the late medieval created a mystery that has eluded the world’s best minds for half a millennium. Now, after 500 years of stumping cryptologists, one of the most […]
Japanese, Finnish or Chinese? The 10 Hardest Languages for English Speakers to Learn
Reposted from Unbabel Blog Learning a new language is never an easy thing to do, but there are ways to make it easier. There are also ways to make it more […]
How to Tell a Southern Goat from a British Goat
Photo credit: By me (w:User:pfctdayelise) (Image taken by me using Casio QV-R41) [CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons source
Complex Characters
When it comes to complexity of the written language, few can compete with the Chinese. Take, for example, the above character for the word nàng. It consists of 36 individual strokes, and […]
First Make People Laugh; Then Make Them Think
The “Ig Nobel Prizes” are a parody of the Nobel Prizes and are given each year for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think”. They are presented by […]
Commonplace Fun Facts 