There are plenty of words with double L, double T, double O... but are there any with double K? Or double H?
Yes.
Yes there are.
For double K you could have "bookkeeper." For double H you could have "hitchhiker."
But are there any words with triple letters?
Yes.
Yes there are.
But you must find them. Do I have to do everything around here?
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Arranged in a quincunx
A quincunx is the arrangement of five objects in the pattern as found on dice (4 marking corners of a square, one placed centrally).
The only English word beginning with 'tm'
Tmesis. It means the insertion of a word inside another word, such as "In-flippin-credible".
A lot of you probably knew that, but I've been dreaming recently of telling Frank Butcher from Eastenders about this fact, and him reacting with great enthusiasm. So there. It's out of my head now and I can stop educating Frank Butcher.
A lot of you probably knew that, but I've been dreaming recently of telling Frank Butcher from Eastenders about this fact, and him reacting with great enthusiasm. So there. It's out of my head now and I can stop educating Frank Butcher.
Sunday 28 October 2007
These are the news!
It's late, and this is a bit of trivia that everyone I know seems to think is obvious, but it only just hit me recently. So meeehhhhh to them.
The word "news" started out life in the 14th centurty as a pluarlised form of "new" - literally meaning "the new things". Strange how we now treat it as singluar.
The word "news" started out life in the 14th centurty as a pluarlised form of "new" - literally meaning "the new things". Strange how we now treat it as singluar.
Saturday 27 October 2007
What would happen if the moon exploded?
There would be a loud BANG and we would have no more moon. There, simple.
Actually, a lot more would happen than a loud noise and the song "Moon River" becoming obsolete.
The moon effects the tides as we know them, without the tides the oceans would become giant stagnant pools, incapable of sustaining the life they currently do.
Most importantly, the moon keeps the earth titles on its axis. Think of it like someone spinning around holding a heavy bag of shopping. The bag would fly out at an angle and the spinning person would lean back at an angle. Without the bag, someone spinning around would do so perfectly vertically. Without the moon, the earth would spin in the same manner. We would lose the seasons and the earth would become divided into three sections, two incredibly cold, inhospitible frozen wastelands roughly covering the top and bottom thirds, and a scorching desert covering the middle strip.
This is because the tilt of the earth makes a location in its surface follow an arc as it rotates, making sure it gets the right amount of heat and shade to sustain life.
There would be thin sections of land that were positioned just right so that the temperature neither froze or fried you, but the wind patterns would be so altered that harsh storms would constantly rage.
It's just occurred to me that "What would happen if the moon exploded?" sounds like someone Jeremy Clarkson would say just before cutting away to one of Top Gear's more bizarre experiments. So, please, don't forward this to him.
Actually, a lot more would happen than a loud noise and the song "Moon River" becoming obsolete.
The moon effects the tides as we know them, without the tides the oceans would become giant stagnant pools, incapable of sustaining the life they currently do.
Most importantly, the moon keeps the earth titles on its axis. Think of it like someone spinning around holding a heavy bag of shopping. The bag would fly out at an angle and the spinning person would lean back at an angle. Without the bag, someone spinning around would do so perfectly vertically. Without the moon, the earth would spin in the same manner. We would lose the seasons and the earth would become divided into three sections, two incredibly cold, inhospitible frozen wastelands roughly covering the top and bottom thirds, and a scorching desert covering the middle strip.
This is because the tilt of the earth makes a location in its surface follow an arc as it rotates, making sure it gets the right amount of heat and shade to sustain life.
There would be thin sections of land that were positioned just right so that the temperature neither froze or fried you, but the wind patterns would be so altered that harsh storms would constantly rage.
It's just occurred to me that "What would happen if the moon exploded?" sounds like someone Jeremy Clarkson would say just before cutting away to one of Top Gear's more bizarre experiments. So, please, don't forward this to him.
Friday 26 October 2007
Proud-to-be-British Summer Time
It's almost that time of year again, the last Sunday in October, when the clocks go back and we get an extra hour in bed. The good ol' British version of Daylight Savings Time is coming to an end for this year.
This got me thinking about time, and why it is how it is. What's so mean about Greenwich Mean Time? Why did it become the standard? And how long is a day?
The mean in Greenwich Mean Time means the same as a mean in mathematics. The astronomers in Greenwich would measure the time at which the sun was at it's zenith, and over the course of the year, the measurement was averaged out to give us a Mean Time for noon, as noon as measured by the sun does not occur at the same time each day.
The UK gradually adopted it as the standard from 1847, and by January 1848 the legal time for Great Britain was GMT. But why? Everyone around the country was capable of working out the time, albeit with some variance between them depending on where you were. The answer is that the rail network was growing, and it was impossible to coordinate time without a single standard time that everyone was using. No good saying that a train left Mansford-Thirtysixbrough at 10:16 and arrived in Wabsnazm at 10:21 if those times were believed to be the same moment in those localities!
GMT is no longer used as the standard time. UCT (Universal Coordinated Time) is now the standard and set by atomic clocks. This keeps the time correct within 0.9 seconds. Constant correction is required as the day is not always the same length. It's always slightly under or slightly over 24 hours.
Interestingly, before 1925, the astronomical convention was to call noon 00:00 and midnight 12:00.
So there you have it, GMT only became the force it was because of the railways.
This got me thinking about time, and why it is how it is. What's so mean about Greenwich Mean Time? Why did it become the standard? And how long is a day?
The mean in Greenwich Mean Time means the same as a mean in mathematics. The astronomers in Greenwich would measure the time at which the sun was at it's zenith, and over the course of the year, the measurement was averaged out to give us a Mean Time for noon, as noon as measured by the sun does not occur at the same time each day.
The UK gradually adopted it as the standard from 1847, and by January 1848 the legal time for Great Britain was GMT. But why? Everyone around the country was capable of working out the time, albeit with some variance between them depending on where you were. The answer is that the rail network was growing, and it was impossible to coordinate time without a single standard time that everyone was using. No good saying that a train left Mansford-Thirtysixbrough at 10:16 and arrived in Wabsnazm at 10:21 if those times were believed to be the same moment in those localities!
GMT is no longer used as the standard time. UCT (Universal Coordinated Time) is now the standard and set by atomic clocks. This keeps the time correct within 0.9 seconds. Constant correction is required as the day is not always the same length. It's always slightly under or slightly over 24 hours.
Interestingly, before 1925, the astronomical convention was to call noon 00:00 and midnight 12:00.
So there you have it, GMT only became the force it was because of the railways.
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