More English speakers in India than the US

[Ivan Seeking]

There are more English-speaking people in India, than in the US.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Marshmellows are the modern form of a medicinal confection made from Althaea officinalis, the marshmallow plant.

 

[BobG]

Humans will never invent a device that can lift 6.02 x 10^23 items of anything large enough for a human to see - even with a microscope.

And, for those that don't recognize it, 6.02 x 10^23 is Avogadro's number - the number of molecules in a mole.

A glass of water has a little less than 14 moles of water, or about 8 x 10^24 molecules of water. That's more molecules in a glass of water than there are glasses of water in the ocean (about 5 x 10^21 cups of water in the ocean).

I was kind of shocked by the 5 x 10^21 cups of water in the ocean. Who filled up all those cups and whose going to clean them out?

 

[Borek]

We already have one similar thread, it is called random thoughts.

 

[turbo]

There are more English-speaking people in India, than in the US.

Competence and fluency are a bit more problematic. I spend 2 hours on the phone today trying to get air-time added to my wife's TracFone after the automated process failed. Not fun. The help-desk guy couldn't reliably repeat the SN, PIN, etc needed to get those minutes into the phone, and he was impossible to understand. I had to ask him to repeat everything.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

We already have one similar thread, it is called random thoughts.

Uh, no. That thread is loaded with nonsense and minor daily thoughts. This is supposed to be fact based.

 

[Borek]

Let's try... spinach is not iron rich.

 

[Evo]

Potatoes have twice as much potassium as bananas.

 

[arildno]

The normally rare "woolly Earth'star", trichaster melanocephalum, can be found in abundance at the old airport Fornebu outside Oslo:
[PLAIN]http://admin.soppognyttevekster.no/media/manedensBilde/2010/Trichaster.JPG

 

[lisab]

Bell peppers have twice as much vitamin C than oranges, by weight.

 

[radou]

Tarantula bites are not deadly to humans.

 

[Evo]

Deep fried tarantulas taste like soft shelled crabs...with fur.

 

[stevenb]

Americans can hear a difference in pronunciation of the words "either" and "ether", but rarely recognize that they could just as well pronounce them the same, and nobody would notice.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Americans can hear a difference in pronunciation of the words "either" and "ether", but rarely recognize that they could just as well pronounce them the same, and nobody would notice.

I would notice. I don't just hear a difference, there really is a difference.

 

[Evo]

Americans can hear a difference in pronunciation of the words "either" and "ether", but rarely recognize that they could just as well pronounce them the same, and nobody would notice.

You mean if the person I spoke to didn't know what ether was?

 

[turbo]

You mean if the person I spoke to didn't know what ether was?

What if you didn't know, ether?

 

[Borek]

When speaking about ether you better know what you are talking about, either you get banned.

 

[Monique]

The skins of canned tangerine parts are removed by soaking them in HCl.

 

[stevenb]

I would notice. I don't just hear a difference, there really is a difference.

Are there any other Americans who wish to prove my "surprising fact"?

 

[jobyts]

George Bush is the only U.S. President to have earned an MBA.

 

[turbo]

George Bush is the only U.S. President to have [STRIKE]earned an[/STRIKE] been granted an MBA.

All fixed for you.

 

[waht]

There are more English-speaking people in India, than in the US.

There are more English-speaking people in US, than in the UK.

 

[diazona]

There are more English-speaking people in US, than in the UK.

There are more English-speaking people in the UK than in England.

 

[mugaliens]

Honey is the only human food that never spoils. Honey dating back several thousand years is still edible.

 

[mugaliens]

There are only one species of birds which can see in the color range we call blue: Owls.

 

[berkeman]

Honey is the only human food that never spoils. Honey dating back several thousand years is still edible.

That's amazing. Why doesn't it spoil?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Bell peppers have twice as much vitamin C than oranges, by weight.

Sure, but who wants to drink bell-pepper juice for breakfast!

It is more likely that you will be killed by a pig than a shark.

Wow. You are more likely to die by your own hand than by someone else's [as a victim of violence].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate

 

[Gokul43201]

For most parts of the world, you're much more likely to die of the flu than be killed by a terrorist. In the US, more people are killed by bath-tubs than by terrorists.

 

[Chi Meson]

Are there any other Americans who wish to prove my "surprising fact"?

Your fact is neither proved, nor is it true. In the "Middle American" accent at least, the two sounds indicated by "th" are very distinct, and as different as "t" is to "d." You cannot randomly flip-flop phonemes and expect people to understand what you're saying. Putting the "thorn" sound into "either" would sound like a speech impediment. It is much like pronouncing the "wh" in Cool Whip. If any grade school student said "ether" in place of "either," that would be fodder for some endless teasing.

 

[Borek]

Humans will never invent a device that can lift 6.02 x 10^23 items of anything large enough for a human to see - even with a microscope.

Check my math, but it looks to me like this statement is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taisun is capable of lifting 20000 metric tons. That means 2x10⁷kg, or 6.02x10²³ objects weighting about 3.3x10^-17kg. Assuming water density of 1000kg/m³, this means sphere with diameter around 400nm, while practical resolution limit for an optical microscope is around 200nm.