Page 31 - Language Facts

There is a town in Norway named ‘Hell’.

It gets even better - if you use the country’s abbreviated form, the town is called Hell, NO! The name Hell is deriven not from the fiery furnace, from the Old Norse word hellir, which meant ‘cliff cave’. Strangely enough, nowadays the word ‘hell’ in Norwegian means luck! As you would expect, the town has become a relatively popular tourist destination over the years. Visitors enjoy taking photographs of the local train station, which boasts a sign which reads “Hell: Gods-expedition”. This is actually a clever play on the Norwegian term godsekspedisjon, which means “cargo handling”! Rumor has it that this Hell tends to freeze over annually, believe it or not.

Another Hellishly fun fact: Mona Grudt, the first Norwegian to be named "Miss Universe", is from a small town near Hell. During the competition in 1990, she listed herself as "The Beauty Queen from Hell" as a publicity stunt. The trick must've worked, because she ended up winning the entire competition!
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The daisy used to be called the ‘day’s eye’.

The ancient Greeks called this common white and yellow flower dæges eage (day’s eye) because its petals open at dawn and close at dusk. The name stuck, and over the centuries the phrase was pared down, from the Old English word dægesege to its contemporary equivalent, “daisy”.
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You can't say B or M without both of your lips touching.

The drug heroin got its name from the Greek word for hero.

"Heroin" is derived from the Greek “heros”, the same word that the words “hero” and “heroine” come from. The original Greek word referred to characters in Greek folklore who were demigods (half-god, half-human). It’s unknown why the Bayer company decided to name their drug this, though perhaps it comes from the drug's euphoric effect that can make its users feel superhuman.

When heroin was first produced by the Bayer Company in Germany in 1895 the drug was marketed as a safe, nonaddictive alternative to morphine. Free samples of heroin were offered to recovering morphine addicts. It turns out that heroin is actually even more potent than morphine. The sale of the drug was finally banned in the U.S. in 1923, and its possession and manufacture were banned in 1924.

PBS and HeroinAddiction.com both have interesting timelines cataloging the unusual history of heroin.

The drug heroin got its name from the Greek word for hero.

"Heroin" is derived from the Greek “heros”, the same word that the words “hero” and “heroine” come from. The original Greek word referred to characters in Greek folklore who were demigods (half-god, half-human). It’s unknown why the Bayer company decided to name their drug this, though perhaps it comes from the drug's euphoric effect that can make its users feel superhuman.

When heroin was first produced by the Bayer Company in Germany in 1895 the drug was marketed as a safe, nonaddictive alternative to morphine. Free samples of heroin were offered to recovering morphine addicts. It turns out that heroin is actually even more potent than morphine. The sale of the drug was finally banned in the U.S. in 1923, and its possession and manufacture were banned in 1924.

PBS and HeroinAddiction.com both have interesting timelines cataloging the unusual history of heroin.