Strange But True

* It was Austrian philosophical author Robert Musil who made the following sage observation: "It's not the genius who is 100 years ahead of his time but average man who is 100 years behind it."

* Here's a sign of our increasingly cluttered lives: When the National Association of Professional Organizers was formed in 1985, it had five members. Today there are more than 3,500 registered organizers with the group.

* Despite many people's assumptions, the word "bayou" doesn't come from French; it's from the Choctaw word "bayuk."

* Those who study such things say that in tunnels that have lighting on the sides rather than above, the placement of those lights can influence the likelihood of people speeding. Evidently, the farther apart the side lights are placed, the faster drivers go.

* Florida famously harbors many species of orchid -- and one of them smells so bad that it's been known to make bees sick. It's called the Violent Stench.

* In February of this year, a Japanese man named Yuya Yamada broke his own Guinness World Record for the largest hula hoop spun around the body three consecutive times -- the hoop in question measured 17.72 feet in diameter.

* If you harbor overmuch ill will toward your mother-in-law, you could be described as "pentheraphobic."

* It was Britain's Prince Albert who originated the boutonniere. It seems that while they were courting, Queen Victoria offered a small bouquet of flowers to her future husband. Prince Albert used his pocketknife to cut a hole in the lapel of his jacket and put the stems of the bouquet through it.

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Thought for the Day: "If you watch a game, it's fun. If you play at it, it's recreation. If you work at it, it's golf." -- Bob Hope

(c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.