If it wasn't for paper, we would all die.

The word "viper" was originally derived from the words "biscuit" and "spongy".

Morrissey's favourite party trick is to burp the whole of "Girlfriend In A Coma", pausing for breath only three times.

The overwhelming majority of heart attacks are caused by a fatal combination of smiling while jogging. The extra strain on the facial muscles is enough to push most people's cardiovascular systems just that little bit too hard. This is why most joggers prefer to dribble and wobble their cheeks.

Horse radish has only relatively recently been used as a condiment. It was originally intended as a haemmorhoid cure.

Most word processors will not print the word "toop" for religious reasons.

Japan was officially at war with the small Suffolk town of Brome for 174 years. During the entire war, only seventeen shots were fired: in 1877, the Japanese ambassador to Britain fired twice at a London fruit-market trader whom he suspected (wrongly) of coming from Brome, missed, and was promptly deported; and in 1944, an American pilot, whose mother had emigrated from Brome to Los Angeles forty years previously, took particular relish in firing his first - and only - nine rounds at a Japanese aircraft carrier before he himself received six bullets to the head from a fanatically anti-Brome Japanese spy who had been hiding in the rear of the cockpit. Peace broke out in 1983, when it was finally realised that there were no surviving records of the incident that had supposedly started the war, and that the whole thing was bloody stupid anyway.

The letter "w" was originally intended as a joke. Dr Samuel Johnson placed it liberally throughout his Dictionary in order to provide some light relief, and to amuse his friends. Unfortunately the joke backfired horribly, as everyone, including his friends, took it absolutely seriously. To this day, the letter still does not have a sensible name. It is said that Doctor Johnson died an angry man, and finally passed away screaming the words "Weasles! Wensleydale! Wishy-washy! Work! Wimbledon, tupperware, twenty-two, twins!" to anyone that could hear him. In his will, he requested that none of his descendents should ever be called William, Wallace, Wilbur, Wilma, or (mysteriously) Edgar.