In the 1950s, author/illustrator Maurice Sendak started working on a children's book about horses, but quickly discovered that he couldn't draw a horse to save his life. So he decided to draw monsters instead. The book, published in 1963 as Where the Wild Things Are, has since sold 20 million copies (probably more than if he'd stuck to horses).
Martin Van Buren was the first (and only) American president who was not a native English speaker. Also the first president born a U.S. citizen (his predecessors were all born before the American Revolution), Van Buren was born in the Dutch-speaking community of Kinderhook, New York. His parents could speak English when they needed to, but spoke only Dutch at home. Young Martin didn't get much exposure to English until he went to school.
John Adams was the first sitting president to not attend his successor's inauguration. Twenty-eight years later, his son, President John Quincy Adams, continued the family tradition and skipped out on Andrew Jackson's inauguration after Jackson defeated him in the election of 1828.
pickGreat read about aliens hand syndrome and other weird but true stories!
TALK TURKEY
Meaning: Dispense with the small talk and get down to business
Origin: The phrase first appeared in the American colonial days when the Pilgrim Fathers always seemed to want turkeys when they traded with the Indians. So familiar did their requests become that the Indians would greet them with the words, “You come to talk turkey?“
TO HANDLE WITH KID GLOVES:
Origin: Leather from the hide of young goats-- called kids -- was considered the finest in the glove industry. Kid-leather gloves were only worn when there was no danger of undertaking a manual task. Therefore, anyone or anything that is given the “kid-glove“ treatment is handled with extreme tact and gentleness.“
In Victorian England, the word “leg“ was considered too sexy and, thus, too vulgar. At the time, the preferred term, if one absolutely had to refer to a lower extremity, was “limb.“
Ayapaneco-- an indigenous language from Ayapa, Mexico-- might soon go extinct because the last two people on Earth who can speak it are not speaking to each other. It's not known what caused the feud between the two elderly men, but those who know them say they've “never really enjoyed each other's company.“
A San Francisco salon called Tata Massage offers a unique beauty treatment: face slapping. The owner, a Thai woman who goes by the name Tata, claims that slapping people in the face is a great way to remove wrinkles and open pores. She charges $350 for a ten-minute slap session. Also available: “massage boxing.“
