Facts, Fun, & Inspiration
Here are some strange facts about the symbols you see everywhere.
# - Depending on when you were born you probably know this symbol as a pound sign, a number sign or a hashtag. Actually, when the symbol was made by an engineer at Bell Labs (AT&T) that little hex is called an Octothorpe. The octo logically describes the symbol's 8 points. Thorpe comes from the Old English word for village which references the hex's appearance of 8 little fields surrounding a central square. Some say that researchers were just really big fans of the late Olympian Jim Thorpe and needed a cool-sounding syllable to finish their new word.
@ - A Dutchman calls this sign a monkey's tail, while an Israeli insists it's a strudel! It is also known as the "at mark" or "commercial at" and are most used to seeing it in e-mail addresses. Meanwhile the rest of the world was inventing brilliant descriptors like the "little dog" - Russian, the "small snail" - Italian and the "crazy A" - Bosnian.
! - Exclamation point as it is now commonly called was used as far back as the 15th Century! Secretarial manuals of the 1950's called it a "bang."
&- This symbol has a more complex meaning. Commonly referred to as an ampersand and sometimes used in place of the word and. Writers of the Guild of America use the symbol & to say two writers collaborated directly with each other, while the word and means the writers worked on the artically individually, at separate times.
Bad Jokes to make you smile
A pair of cows were talking in the field. One says, “Have you heard about the mad cow disease that’s going around?”
“Yeah,” the other cow says. “Makes me glad I’m a penguin.”
“Once, my father came home and found me in front of a roaring fire. That made my father very mad, as we didn’t have a fireplace.” —Victor Borge
“Your mother has been with us for 20 years,” said John. “Isn’t it time she got a place of her own?”
“My mother?” replied Helen. “I thought she was your mother.”
Why don’t pirates take a shower before they walk the plank?
They just wash up on shore.
At a party, a young wife admonished her husband, “That’s the fourth time you’ve gone back for ice cream and cake. Doesn’t it embarrass you?”
“Why should it?” answered her spouse. “I keep telling them it’s for you.”
What did the fish say when he swam into a wall?
Dam.
If you’re American when you go in the bathroom…
… and American when you come out, what are you in the bathroom?
European.
What do you call a can opener that doesn’t work?
A can’t opener!
There are three types of people in the world:
Those who can count and those who can’t.
What is Forrest Gump’s email password?
1forrest1.
What’s red and bad for your teeth?
A brick.
What do lazy dogs chase?
Parked cars.
- I have an inferiority complex, but it’s not a very good one.
- I told my doctor that I broke my arm in two places. He told me to stop going to those places.
- What vegetable is cool, but not that cool? Rad-ish.
- I was wondering why the baseball kept getting bigger and bigger, and then it hit me.
- Why did the employee get fired from the calendar factory? She took a day off.
- Worrying works! Case in point: 90% of the things I worry about never happen.
- My teachers told me I’d never amount to much because I procrastinate. I told them, “Just you wait!”
- Why do seagulls fly over the sea? If they flew over the bay, they would be bagels.
- I ordered a chicken and an egg from Amazon. I’ll let you know which comes first.
- What do you call a magician who lost his magic? Ian.
- I broke my finger last week. On the other hand, I am OK.
- I went to the doctor with a suspicious-looking mole. He told me they all look that way, and I should have left it in the garden.
- Two men are on opposite sides of the river. The first man shouts, “How do I get to the other side of the river?” The other man yells, “You are on the other side of the river!”
- Why would a pig dressed in black never get bullied? Because Batman has sworn to protect Goth-ham.
- Every morning, I announce that I’m going running, but then I don’t. It’s a running joke.
- Why is a swordfish’s nose 11 inches long? Because if it were 12 inches, it would be a foot.
- What state is known for its small drinks? Minnesota.
- What do you call a line of men waiting to get haircuts? A barberqueue.
Inspiration
50 Positive Quotes About Aging
- “Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.” —Keith Richards
- “Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength.” —Betty Friedan
- “Old age is an excellent time for outrage. My goal is to say or do at least one outrageous thing every week.” —Maggie Kuhn
- “Those who love deeply never grow old, they may die of old age, but they die young.” —Benjamin Franklin
- “Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.” —Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
- “Age is a case of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” —Satchel Paige
- “That’s another great thing about getting older. Your life is written on your face.” —Frances McDormand
- “Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.” —Franz Kafka
- “I’m just getting older and better.” —Neal Schon
- “Aging is just another word for living.” —Cindy Joseph
- “We are always the same age inside.” —Gertrude Stein
- “It matters not how long we live but how.” —Phillip James Bailey
- “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.” —Henry Ford
- “Old age is always 15 years older than I am.” —Oliver Wendell Holmes
- “You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely.” —Ogden Nash
- “Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.” —Larry Lorenzoni
- “I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.” —Bob Hope
- “I’m very pleased to be here. Let’s face it, at my age I’m very pleased to be anywhere.” —George Burns
- “Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” —Kitty O’Neill Collins
- “Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternative.” —Maurice Chevalier
- “I don’t let my age define me, but the side effects are getting harder to ignore.” —Unknown
- “By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything. You only have to remember it.” —George Burns
- “When it comes to staying young, a mind-lift beats a face-lift any day.” —Marty Buccella
- “Age is something that doesn’t matter unless you are a cheese.” —Luis Bunuel
- “There is still no cure for the common birthday.” —John Glenn
27. “Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.” —Walt Disney - “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old. You grow old when you stop laughing.” —George Bernard Shaw
- “You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old.” —George Burns
- “Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.” —Theodore Roosevelt
- “Age is not how old you are but how many years of fun you’ve had.” —Matt Maldre
- “Getting old is like climbing a mountain; you get a little out of breath, but the view is much better!” —Ingrid Bergman
- “Aging is not about how many years have passed, but how much life you’ve embraced.” —Sophia Loren
- “Aging is not about losing beauty but gaining a deeper appreciation for it.” —Eva Longoria
- “The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.” —Madeleine L’Engle
- “Mostly, what I have learned so far about aging, despite the creakiness of one’s bones and cragginess of one’s once-silken skin, is this: Do it. By all means, do it.” —Maya Angelou
- “My belief is that it’s a privilege to get older—not everybody gets to get older.” —Cameron Diaz
- “Know that you are the perfect age. Each year is special and precious, for you shall only live it once. Be comfortable with growing older.” —Louise Hay
- “Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.” —Mark Twain
- “The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
- “We don’t grow older, we grow riper.” —Pablo Picasso
- “In the end it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” —Abraham Lincoln
- “No one is as old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” —Henry David Thoreau
- “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be.” —Robert Browning
- “Gravity and wrinkles are fine with me. They’re a small price to pay for the new wisdom inside my head and my heart.” —Drew Barrymore
- “There’s no such thing as aging but maturing and knowledge. It’s beautiful, I call that beauty.” —Céline Dion
- “It’s a great thing, getting older. You are who you are; you say what you mean.” —Reese Witherspoon
- “Getting older makes you more alive. More vitality, more interest, more intelligence, more grace, more expansion.” —Jamie Lee Curtis
- “Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you always should have been.” —David Bowie
- “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” —John Lennon