Twitter, telegram and e-mail: Famous first lines
America has enormous debts but it still spends as much money on defence as all the rest of the world put together.
And if that makes you uncomfortable, it is worth remembering that wherever you are, there is a good chance that if your country is ever invaded, your leader’s first phone call will be to the White House in Washington.
"Some 2% of the world’s total energy is consumed by building and running computer equipment."
Light bends around massive galaxy clusters, allowing distant objects to be seen (via BBC News - Fate of Universe revealed by galactic lens)
Women who were ovulating and who had seen photos of attractive local women were most likely to buy “sexier” clothes compared with those shown photographs of unattractive local women or women who lived more than 1,000 miles (1,600km) away.
Dr Kristina Durante, who led the research, said: “The desire for women at peak fertility to unconsciously choose products that enhance appearance is driven by a desire to outdo attractive rival women.
“If you look more desirable than your competition, you are more likely to stand out.”
Look down from the screen on which you are reading this, and wonder. Q-W-E-R-T-Y. How on earth did this pattern of letters get so locked into our language?
When London last staged the Olympics in 1948, money was so tight, athletes slept in military huts and leftover food went to local hospitals.
Organised in less than two years and with a budget of £730,000, it was a pared-down and practical affair. By contrast, the 2012 Games is expected to cost £7.267bn.
The Dutch sent over 100 tons of fruit and vegetables for all the teams. Denmark gave 160,000 eggs. Czechoslovakia gave 20,000 mineral water bottles
To save money on food and accommodation - on which organisers spent a total of £164,644 - local athletes stayed at home.
British athletes had to make or buy their own uniforms, although one sponsor provided the men with free Y-fronts, with 600 pairs given out in all.
This item of underwear was a novel sight for many overseas competitors - the Y-front had only been patented in 1935 - and sales boomed, says Janie Hampton, author of The Austerity Olympics: When the Games Came to London in 1948.
The BBC paid 1,000 guineas (£1,050) for the broadcasting rights.
Not only were TV sets an expensive luxury, only those within a 25-mile radius of the only transmission station - Alexandra Palace in north London - could receive pictures from the Games. Birmingham didn’t start transmitting until the following year.
As for the pigeons, held in trackside cages for several days, half had expired in the heat.
As the athletes picnicked outside, national differences were thrown into stark relief. The British team had extra rations and food parcels from Australia, but the Americans had fresh fruit, meat and bread flown in daily.
And the event turned a profit of £29,420, on which the organisers then had to pay £9,000 in tax.
The 1921 photo (left) and the photo taken from the same position in 2010 Experts say comparing the 1921 photo (left) with the photo of 2010 proves that the ice mass is disappearing (via BBC News - Comparative photos of Mount Everest ‘confirm ice loss’)
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Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?
Reading David McCullough’s 1776, I found myself wondering: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? If so, when did American accents diverge from British accents?
The answer surprised me.
I’d always assumed that Americans used to have British accents, and that American accents diverged after the Revolutionary War, while British accents remained more or less the same.
Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. That’s not too surprising.
What’s surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than to today’s British accents. While both have changed over time, it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.
First, let’s be clear: the terms “British accent” and “American accent” are oversimplifications; there were, and still are, many constantly-evolving regional British and American accents. What many Americans think of as “the British accent” is the standardized Received Pronunciation, also known as “BBC English.”
While most American accents are rhotic, the standard British accent is non-rhotic. (Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard”; non-rhotic speakers do not.)
So, what happened?
In 1776, both American accents and British accents were largely rhotic.
It was around this time that non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper class; this “prestige” non-rhotic speech was standardized, and has been spreading in Britain ever since.
Most American accents, however, remained rhotic.
There are a few fascinating exceptions: New York and New England accents became non-rhotic, perhaps because of the region’s British connections. Irish and Scottish accents are still rhotic.
If you’d like to learn more, this passage in The Cambridge History of the English Language is a good place to start.
"It is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read."
