1. In China, returning émigrés from the West are referred to as ‘bananas’ - because they supposedly are yellow on the outside and white inside.
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2. GE’s corporate university at Crotonville near New York is referred to as Harvard-on-the-Hudson.
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3. The phenomenon of having a song or tune stuck in one’s head is known as ‘having an earworm’.
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4. The line “Would you buy a used car from this man?” was originally coined by the Democrats in the US to discredit Richard Nixon when he was running for President.
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5. The term “record album” originated from the fact that early 78 rpm phonograph disc records were kept together in a book resembling a photo album. The name ‘album’ stuck on to the 33 rpm microgroove records (introduced in 1948) that could hold as much music as the earlier ‘record albums.’
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6. Developing countries received $167 billion last year – from immigrants in developed countries sending back money home. According to World Bank estimates, that figure is twice as much as developing countries receive in foreign aid.
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7. In 1972, a San Francisco congregation established the St.John Coltrane African Orthodox Church basing its liturgy on the music and example of the Jazz musician.
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8. Recipes aren’t copyrightable in the US.
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9. The Silk Road begins in Xian in China and extends to Antioch in Turkey over 7000 miles away.
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10. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, was against women taking part in the Olympics - describing the move to include them as “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic and wrong.”
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About:
Iqbal Mohammed is Head of Innovation & Strategy at a digital innovation agency serving the DACH and wider European markets. He is the winner of the WPP Atticus Award for Best Original Published Writing in Marketing & Communication.
He blogs about #innovation, #technology and #marketing at misentropy.com. You can reach him via email or Twitter.