Words

WTF Fun Fact 12817 – The Nurdle

The word nurdle is used in a few different ways. But today we’re going to look at its use to describe the squirt of toothpaste that you squeeze out onto your toothbrush.

How did “nurdle” come to be?

According to “verbal branding pro” Nancy Friedman’s blog Fritinancy (cited below): “The word, of unknown origin but possibly related to nodule, was reportedly coined by the American Dental Association in the 1990s to educate the public about proper brushing technique. The word is spelled “nerdle” in an August 19, 1996, St. Louis Post-Dispatch article quoted in Double-Tongued Dictionary, but the spelling has since been standardized as ‘nurdle.'”

But the word really came to the fore in 2011 when GlaxoSmithKline (which makes Aquafresh “Triple Protection” toothpaste) and Procter & Gamble (which makes Colgate) reached a settlement over its use in their marketing campaigns, with specific reference to the tri-colored nurdle that’s depicted on their boxes.

Both companies have invested money in the depiction and use of the word. Aquafresh used to have a site for children called Nurdle World, and Aquafresh ran a site called The Nurdle Shmurdle – though both have been taken down.

Other uses of the word

Friedman’s blog also describes another use of the word: “Nurdle is also used in the plastics industry to describe pea-size plastic resin pellets. When released from inland factories, the pellets often make their way into coastal waterways and even the deeper oceans, where they pose an ongoing threat to marine animals that mistake the pellets for food. According to a 2001 study of Orange County (California) beaches, nurdles made up 98 percent of ocean debris. See, for example, this 2007 article about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”

We’ll be honest. We’ve never heard of a nurdle, and the blob on our toothbrush doesn’t look nearly as nice and nurdle-y as the one depicted on any toothpaste box. Still, we’ll never be able to brush our teeth without thinking of a nurdle again. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Word of the Week: Nurdle” — Fritinancy

WTF Fun Fact 12802 – Nomophobia

We’re addicted to our smartphones. And maybe you knew that, but did you know there’s a name for the fear of being without your phone? It’s called “nomophobia,” and 66% of U.S. adults suffer from it.

What is nomophobia?

According to Psychology Today (cited below), “The term is an abbreviation for ‘no-mobile-phone phobia,’ which was coined during a 2010 study by the UK Post Office.”

One of the first studies of nomophobia was commissioned by the UK Post Office and conducted by YouGov. At the time, 53% of UK mobile phone users confessed to being anxious when they “lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit, or have no network coverage.”

The study also found that nomophobia is actually more common in men – “58 percent of men and 47 percent of women suffer from the phobia, and an additional 9 percent feel stressed when their mobile phones are off.”

A worsening epidemic

Things are even worse in the U.S. Psychology Today reports that “Sixty-five percent, or about two in three people, sleep with or next to their smartphones. (Among college students, it’s even higher.) Thirty-four percent admitted to answering their cell phone during intimacy with their partner…One in five people would rather go without shoes for a week than take a break from their phones…More than half never switch off their phone. (I’d call that an addiction.) A full 66 percent of all adults suffer from ‘nomophobia.'”

Which stat are you most surprised by? For us, it’s the willingness to go without shoes just to spend more time on the phone – have you seen what people throw on the ground?!

Ways of coping

If you experience anxiety without your smartphone, there are a few things you can try, including:

  • Balancing screen time and in-person time with friends and family each week, if possible.
  • Doing a phone detox, during which you turn off your phone entirely for one day each month.
  • Sleeping as far away from your phone as possible.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Nomophobia: A Rising Trend in Students” — Psychology Today

WTF Fun Fact 12768 – English as a Second Language (ESL)

Technically, English is the most commonly spoken language in the world. However, that’s only because of the number of non-native speakers who learn it as a SECOND language.

In fact, English is more popular as a second than it is as a first language.

If you count only native speakers then Mandarin Chinese is the spoken language in the world.

How many people speak ESL?

There are roughly 378 million people who speak English as their native language. That sounds like a lot, but compare that to the roughly 995 million people who speak some form of Mandarin Chinese as a native language (that’s about 71% of China’s population).

However, due to the number of people who learn ESL, including many Mandarin speakers, English has become the most widely spoken language in the world.

There are around 743 million non-native speakers who learn ESL in the world. So if you add those to the native speakers, that tops the number of Mandarin speakers.

In 2022, surveys found that 1.5 billion people worldwide spoke English either natively or as a second language. Mandarin dialects still come in a very close second.

Second-language speakers

Native English speakers, particularly in the U.S., tend to be less likely to become fluent in a second language (despite learning a bit in school).

In Europe, people are more likely to truly learn to speak a second language. An EU survey found that 56% of Europeans speak a second language. The number of Americans who are bilingual hovers around only 20%.

Interestingly, even though many people the world over speak some English, the country with the highest level of proficiency when it comes to ESL is The Netherlands. Their citizens are more likely to be fluent. They’re followed by Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

In nearly every country surveyed, women had better ESL skills than men.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Which countries are best at English as a second language?” – WE Forum

WTF Fun Fact 12766 – Hashtag Octothorpe

Hashtag, pound sign, number sign – call it what you will. This -> # <- is an octothorpe (or octothorp).

It’s not a word we had ever heard before, but it’s no surprise that signs we use quite frequently for many different purposes actually have proper original names.

The 14th-century octothorpe

According to Mental Floss, the sign originates in 14th-century Latin manuscripts when monks used it to abbreviate libra pondo (or the Latin term for weight in pounds). That would have been lb (like we use today), however “At the time, it was common to add a horizontal bar to abbreviations, known as a tittle, to show that the two letters were connected, and that the letter “l” was not the numeral 1.”

But as scribes began to write faster, the lb with a dash through the l began to look more like a # (in other words, a pound sign).

The octothorpe goes mainstream

No doubt a lot happened in between those Latin manuscripts and the # appearing on typewriter keyboards, but we haven’t found any proper explanation of how that happened.

However, when AT&T made its first phone keypads, it wanted them to be a perfect square. That would mean adding two more buttons. They chose * and # because they were already common on typewriters.

But why an octotherp, octothorpe/octothorp?

But when did the pound sign turn into an octothorpe? When an employee at Bell Labs decided to make up a name for the sign.

The thought process went like this, according to Google engineer Chris Messina’s history of the word:

  • There are eight points on the symbol so “OCTO” should be part of the name.
  • We need a few more letters or another syllable to make a noun, so what should that be? (Don MacPherson at this point in his life was active in a group that was trying to get JIM THORPE’s (ibid) Olympic medals returned from Sweden) The phrase THORPE would be unique, and people would not suspect he was making the word up if he called it an “OCTOTHORPE”.

The birth of the hashtag

Ok, so why and when did we start calling # a hashtag?

According to CBS News, it started with a Tweet.

“It all started back on Aug. 23, 2007 with a tweet by San Francisco techie and former Google developer Chris Messina. He wrote on Twitter, “How do you feel about using # (pound) for groups. As in #barcamp [msg]?”

People didn’t like the idea, but that clearly didn’t stop it from catching on.

Then, a few days later, another user named Stowe Boyd suggested the # symbol be called a hashtag.

And the rest, as they say, is #history.

– WTF fun facts

Source: “Where Does the Hashtag (a.k.a. Octothorpe) Come From?” — Mental Floss
“The Real Source of The Word “Octothorpe” — Chris Messina, Medium