Interesting Stuff

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American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first class.
The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000.
Upper and lower case letters are named 'upper' and 'lower', because in the time when all original print had to be set in individual letters, the 'upper case' letters were stored in the case on top of the case that stored the smaller, 'lower case' letters.
The proper term for upper case letters is "majuscule" and for lower case it's "minuscule".
The printing industry gives us other popular phrases, such as "mind your 'p's and 'q's." The moveable block type had the letters in reverse so they would read correctly when imprinted on paper. Apprentices had to remove the type from the pages and return the blocks to their upper and lower cases. Each drawer in the case held a different size of letters, and each drawer was divided into compartments (called sorts) for each letter. The letters 'p' and 'q' could easily be mistaken, so the master printer would advise their apprentices to mind their 'p's and 'q's.

When the master printer was building a page and discovered that a particular sort was empty, he would get angry. Thus the term "out of sorts".
The question mark came from a monk habit of writing the Latin word for question, quo, at the end of sentences. Over time, the letters were ---written vertically to save space and morphed into the ? we write today. Similarly, the exclamation point came from the Latin word "Lo", meaning something important that should be heeded. (Lo and behold...)
Reprinted from "Rick Frishman's Wednesday Tips"
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