An Ode to Useless Information
Buying a collection of debatable facts for $1 at a library book sale.
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”
Oscar Wilde, A Few Maxims for the Instruction of the Over-Educated
In an age when everything from the latest Colleen Hoover novel to uranium ore, human fingers, and a year’s supply of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches can be ordered on Amazon Prime, there’s something sweet and sentimental about physically showing up to a used book sale, like the ones Friends of Literacy hosts in each of the neighborhood branches of the Knox County Library.
I attend as many as possible, hoping for less than $5 to add to the ever-growing number of not-yet, possibly never-to-be-read books stacked in my office. Two Fridays ago, I got lucky. I picked up Kristen Hannah’s The Great Alone for Haley for $1, Knoxville’s Secret History by Jack Neely for $10—steep, I know, but sometimes you’ve gotta splurge for the local stuff—and a book of useless information compiled in the early 2000s by Noel Botham, an English tabloid writer I’d never heard of but who was the chairman of Britain’s Useless Information Society from 1995 until he died in 2012. (That book was also $1.)
In high school, I loved useless information, from obscure Jeopardy facts to alternative histories. My obsession was magnified by my closest friends, who were connoisseurs of questionable wisdom. Jeremy, the future valedictorian, was raised by college-educated parents who’d grown up in Eastern Europe during Soviet times and did not permit him to drink soda, watch TV, or have fun. This made him weird but interesting. Rather than popping on Beavis and Butthead or chain-slamming Coca-Cola’s while playing Twisted Metal 4 like the rest of us dimwits, he’d sit on the toilet for hours flipping through titles from Uncle John’s Bathroom Readers series. He’d then share whatever pointless trivia he’d absorbed the night before during recess, ensuring he would never become popular—because what cool kid1 cares that Orca whales are actually large dolphins or that mosquitoes prefer to bite people who’ve recently eaten a banana?
In the age before Google search and internet addiction, our secondary source for learning about the world was the underside of the Snapple bottle cap. Mickey’s mom stocked cases of the sweet elixir in the family kitchen, which doubled as our after-school watering hole. We’d pop open a bottle of traditional or Diet Peach (RIP), down it in seconds, then recite whatever Real Fact was printed on the bottom and ponder over or debate it. This went on for hours, our bladders full and minds drunk with wisdom. We were right to imagine they would come in handy when competing as a team in Bayonne High School’s two most prestigious non-ping-pong-oriented competitions: the House 2 House Trivia Championship, which took place each spring, and the Quiz Bowl team2.
Botham’s book contains the same obscure, hilarious, and often untrue claims or data which, like Snapple Facts or Seinfeld, are more valuable, at least to me, than any scientific method of boring you to tears with surveys and jargon.
So what if you can’t verify whether the average 4-year-old child asks 400 questions a day? I counted this weekend, and my 4-year-old was pretty darn close, 779!
Or what if it’s impossible to calculate whether your odds of being attacked by a shark are actually lower than your odds of being kicked by a cow? Doesn’t that knowledge carry value beyond its verifiability?
I’ve used the debatable facts I’ve learned a hundred times to break the ice with a stranger, and even more times than that to play the sleuth or behave like a good journalist and dig up further useless treasure. This week, skimming through Botham’s book, I found many that are outdated, have been debunked, or require personal experimentation to verify. (DYK that a can of Diet Coke floats while a can of Coke sinks? Or that you can get rid of froth in a badly poured beer by licking your oily finger and swirling it around in the foam?)
Below, I’ve parsed out some of my favorite facts, which I share alongside additional information I’ve found. Share your favorites in the comments, or let me know some you’ve memorized that may come in handy when I get back on the weeknight trivia circuit again.
Assorted Facts of Debatable Utility to Impress Other Weirdos
George Washington was deathly afraid of being buried alive. After he died, he wanted to be laid out for three days just to be sure he was dead. (This fear is called taphophobia, and I suffer from a bad case of it, which is why I expect the Apocalyptic Cowboy of my eldest son to blast me with a shotgun to make sure I’m really out.)
There is a village in Norway named Hell, which in modern Norwegian translates as “luck,” not “place of eternal torment.” There is also a Ding Dong, Texas, and a sign on a rural road in North Florida for Turkey Town, a place that doesn’t exist (I learned this last bit after subscribing to a Substack called Letters from Turkey Town)
Vincent van Gogh didn’t become an artist until he was 27. (Before that, he was an art dealer, schoolmaster, Christian missionary, and bookseller. Good encouragement for you weirdos out there nervous it’s too late to do what you love!)
Mountain goats aren’t goats at all; they’re small antelopes. (These aren’t the mountain goats you’re thinking of: the ones that cling to steep walls on their toes. Those are Ibex, a term used for wild goats.)
In 1938, Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel sold the rights to their comic-strip character Superman to their publishers for $130. (The check they paid with was sold at auction in 2012 for $160,000.)
During his lifetime, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick only sold 500 copies. (This is not true; its first printing, as The Whale in the UK, was for 500 copies. At least 3,000 other copies were printed in the US. It is true, however, that Melville only made about $500 in his lifetime from the book, which was considered a flop.)
Icelanders read more books per capita than any other people in the world. (Hard to verify, though Icelandic media claims that the average Icelander reads or listens to almost three books a month. Iceland does hold the Guinness World Record for most published authors per capita.)
Dr. Seuss coined the word “nerd” in his 1950 book If I Ran the Zoo. (This is debated though not debunked. More on the origins of my favorite complimentary insult from Merriam-Webster.)
Lachanophobia is the irrational fear of vegetables. (I know, because, like the taphophobia, I suffer dreadfully from this unfortunate affliction.)
The most difficult tongue twister is “The sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick.” (At least, that’s what was recorded in the Guinness World Records in 1974!)
When the first regular phone service was established in 1878, people didn’t say “Hello” when answering. They said, “Ahoy!” (Hello’s first appearance in the Oxford dictionary was in 1827 when it was used to attract attention, not as a greeting. The telephone’s inventor, Alexander Graham Bell, used ahoy until he died in 1922; his archrival, Thomas Edison, who expanded the phone service, preferred hello. I use the Seinfeldian “Greetings and salutations.”)
The term honeymoon is derived from the Babylonians, who declared mead, a honey-flavored wine, the official wedding drink, stipulating that the bride’s parents be required to keep the groom supplied with the drink for a month following the wedding. (While this is not wholly accurate, a version of the tale does seem legit. I, for one, am glad my in-laws chose to pass on the honeywine and paid for dinner instead.)
The Sanskrit word for war means “desire for more cows.” (This UPOT made its way into the Denis Villeneuve film Arrival, one of my favorites, which Alba referenced in a letter she wrote me from the future.)
In the 1880s in England, “pants” was considered a dirty word. (It was still a bad word in 1909, when a writer described it, a shortened version of the term pantaloon and slang substitute for trousers, as “vulgar exceedingly.” One of my recent favorite SNL skits—facts mate!—name-checked this UPOT.)
The most common name in the world is Mohammed (you know this if you’ve seen the McLovin scene in Super Bad). In Italy, it is Mario Rossi (their version of John Doe). For goldfish, it is Jaws.
The smallest church in the world is in Crestview Hills, Kentucky. It has room inside for just three people. (The church is 6x9 feet and on the campus of Thomas More College. Monks built it in 1878. They later abandoned the church, which was badly vandalized before being restored and moved to the college 1971. Though not in Botham’s book, I estimate that Kentucky may also be home to the snakiest churches in the world.)
In Ivrea, Italy, citizens celebrate the beginning of Lent by throwing oranges at each other. (These scenes are from the most epic cafeteria fight in history, in 2015, during which 1.1 million pounds of fruit were used in battle.)
Ketchup originated in China. (Though, it was made of fish entrails, soybeans, and meat byproducts. Speakers of the Southern Min dialect called it “ge-thcup” or “koe-cheup” and stored it for long ocean voyages. Tomato-based ketchup wasn’t invented until 1812.)
The actor Bill Murray doesn’t have an agent or a publicist. (He doesn’t have a personal home or cell number either—he uses a 1-800 number—and steals French fries from customers at Wendy’s.)
If you bring a raccoon’s head to the Henniker, New Hampshire town hall, you are entitled to $.10. (This is untrue; some guy on the internet called the town hall and they’d never heard of it. But I include it as a commentary on our modern world. It’s a sad state of affairs when you can’t make a hard-earned dime off a rodent carcass!)
Read previous The Weekly Big Head columns::
April 29 – Naked Old Dudes at the YMCA
April 22 – What Color is the Grass in Alaska?
April 15 – Restlessness on Weekends
April 8 – Adventures with the Apocalyptic Cowboy
April 1 – Free Barabbas
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Of course, it’s my belief that cool kids are the real losers, and that nerds, particularly the quirky ones who pretend to poop so they can read, should be kings of the court.
There are two very long stories here that I just can’t get into this morning. But if there's no natural way to work those brilliant, heartbreaking memories into this column or another story, I may make my time in House 2 House and Quiz Bowl the subject of a future Attic Club entry for my paying subscribers.