A Book of Unrelated Facts: Things I Happen to Know

By Joel E. Holloway, Pharm. D., M.D., PhD.

Ever wonder about things? Well, this is the book for you or for the curious person in your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Three Yellow Feathers
• Release date: Sep 4, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386920373

Joel E. Holloway, Pharm. D., M.D., PhD.

Joel Ellis Holloway is a Doctor of Pharmacy, a Doctor of Medicine, a Board Certified Dermatologist, and an 8th Degree Black Belt in Judo with a Doctor of Martial Arts degree.

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A Book of Unrelated Facts:

Things I Happen to Know

By Joel E. Holloway, Pharm. D., M.D., PhD.

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What do you call a horse?

For a male, it is called a colt for the first three years and a horse at age four and older.  These terms are used even if the animal is a gelding.  The commonly used term stud colt is inappropriate because a stud is a breeding male.  If a male is used in breeding it is referred as a stallion or a stud.  Hence a stud farm is a place that has breeding males, the females usually being brought in.

For a female, it is called a filly until age four and an aged mare at age four or older, in horse racing terms.  A maiden mare is one who has not given birth.  An open mare is one who has been bred before but is not currently pregnant.  Once a female horse has given birth it is referred to as a mare, regardless of her age.

At birth either sex can be referred to as a foal, giving birth is called foaling.  A foal still nursing is called a suckling and once weaned, a weanling.  When speaking of pedigree, a foal is by a stallion and out of a mare.

During the second year both a male and female are called yearlings.

In racing the term maiden is used for both females and males for a horse that has not won a race.

The natural gaits of a horse are walk, trot, canter and gallop.  Other gaits are trained.

The owners of American Pharoah, winner of the 2015 Triple Crown for thoroughbreds misspelled his name.  The correct spelling would be American Pharaoh.

A paint or pinto horse is one with patches of white and another color.  Piebald is black and white, skewbald (skybald) is white and another color other than black.  If the white color crosses the midline it is called a tobiano,  if the white does not cross the midline it is called an overo.  A sabino has white spots high on the legs, belly and face spots, a splashed white has white spots on the belly, head and legs and the distinct markings appear to have been splashed on. 

The quarter horse is so named because of its speed in the quarter mile.

The height of a horse is measured in hands, one hand equals 4 inches.

A pony is a horse that is 14 ½ hands high or less, measured at the withers.

One horsepower is the energy needed to lift 550 pounds one foot in one second.

A parsec is not a measurement of time, it is a measurement of distance.  One parsec equals 3.08572 x10 to the thirteenth power kilometers or 3.258 light-years.

The gauge of a shotgun is measured by the number of lead balls the diameter of the inside of the barrel it takes to weigh a pound or put another way the weight of a lead sphere that will fit the bore of the gun and is expressed as the multiplicative inverse of the weight of a sphere of that size as a fraction of a pound.  Therefore a lead ball that will fit the bore of a shotgun that weights 1/12th of a pound will indicate the gun is a 12 gauge, it takes 12 of them to weigh a pound. The exception to this is the 410 shotgun, which is a caliber and not a gauge.  Although confusing the .410 caliber shotgun will chamber and fire a .45 caliber bullet.

Caliber is measured in decimal inches, a 45 caliber is .45 inches, a 22 caliber is .22 inches, and so on. Caliber can also be measured in the metric system as millimeters.  What Americans call a 25 caliber the Germans call a 6.25 mm. In black powder loads the second number is the weight of powder in the load.  The 45-70 for example is a 45 caliber bullet with a load of seventy grains of black powder.  A grain is 64.80 milligrams, therefore seventy grains equals 4.53 grams which equals 0.16 ounces.  The original 30-30 meant a thirty caliber bullet and thirty grains of powder.  However, the 30-06, is a thirty caliber that is from a 1906 design.  Although it makes no sense, a 38 special can be fired from a 357 magnum pistol.  A third number is sometimes used:  45-70-405, where the last number is the weight of the bullet in grains.  A BB is 17.7 caliber.

An orb weaver spider will weave an erratic and random web if given LSD.

The scientific name of the bed bug is Cimex lectularius, it means bed bug in Latin.

Many people use the term I could care less when they actually mean I could not care less.

Dwight D. Eisenhower rose to the rank of five-star general and was appointed supreme commander of the allied forces in World War II without ever being in combat.

The length the hair on your head will grow is determined by how long the hair root is in anagen phase.  This phase ranges from three to seven years depending on genetics.  The rate of scalp hair growth is 0.035 mm a day, therefore if your anagen phase was the maximum of seven years (it can vary)you could grow hair 36.5 inches.  Eyebrows, eyelashes and the hair on the body have shorter anagen phases than the hair on the head, therefore they do not grow as long.

The first English only dictionary was published in1604 by Robert Cawdrey. Its purpose : With the interpretation thereof  by plaine English words, gathered for the benefit & helpe of Ladies, Gentlewomen or any other vnskilled persons.  He called his book A table alphabeticall of hard English words, he believed that everyone already knew the easy ones.

Johnson’s Dictionary, called THE dictionary, has been reported to be the last dictionary compiled by one person. In truth Johnson hired several assistants.  Although he was usually addressed as Doctor Johnson his earned degree from Oxford was a Masters of Arts.  He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin in 1765 and another honorary doctorate from Oxford in 1775 (following the first edition of his dictionary). Noah Webster published The American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828, developed by him alone. 

Frog walk and crow hop are two forms of a horse bucking.  A frog hop is a mild form of bucking where the horse makes short easy hops, most common on a cold morning after just being mounted.  A crow hop is when the horse arches its back and hops around on stiffened legs.

All turtles are eatable.

You have more bacteria on and in your body than there are cells in your body.

Phrynoderma is a bumpy dry skin caused by a deficiency of vitamin A, it means toad skin.

A plug nickel is one that has a hole shot through it.

The complete name for your appendix is the vermiform appendix and translates to "worm-shaped attachment.

Bamboo is the world’s largest grass. 

Cocker Spaniels got their name because they were bred to hunt woodcocks and originated in Spain.

A furlong is 220 yards.

A pig becomes a hog when it reaches 120 pounds.

Most people under twenty years old do not know why a dial tone is so named.

The sky is blue because of the Tyndall effect.  John Tyndall (1820-1893), an Irish-born physicist, demonstrated this effect in colloidal suspensions.  Light passing through a suspension of very small (nanometers size) particles will selectively reflect and scatter blue light, letting most other wavelengths pass through.  The atmosphere acts as a very small particle colloidal suspension and therefore appears blue.  The Blue Ridge Mountains got their name from the Tyndall effect, with the sun as the light source and the terpene vapors from the pines as the colloidal suspension. 

Construction nails in the United States are measured in penny size.  This originated in England and represented the cost of a hundred nails. A 10 penny nail cost 10 pennies per hundred, therefore the larger the number the larger the nail and