Strange But True: November 14, 2019

* It was novelist, poet and playwright Gertrude Stein who made the following sage observation: "Everybody knows if you are too careful, you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something."

* If you're like the average American, you will eat about 150 bananas this year -- 26 pounds' worth.

* A researcher in Britain calculated that local farmland contains more than 2 million spiders per acre. Must be small ones, I'd say.

* Up until the 1500s, the accepted way of dealing with a patient who was hemorrhaging was to cauterize the wound, often with boiling oil or red-hot irons. It was in the latter part of the 16th century that a French surgeon named Ambroise Pare began tying off the broken blood vessels with cord. That's pretty much what surgeons do today.

* Some people enjoy novelty when dining out, but restaurateurs take a big risk when adding new items to a menu; it seems that less than a third of diners will actually try a new menu item.

* The White House was not designed by an American. It was Irish architect James Hoban who won the competition to create the architectural plans for the home of the political leader of the United States.

* The name of the state of Vermont comes from the French "mont vert," which means "green mountain." (If the explorers who named the state saw green mountains, they obviously were not there in the winter.)

* Two-thirds of all Tony award-winning composers and lyricists have been Jewish.

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Thought for the Day: "I don't trust a man who uses the word evil 18 times in 10 minutes. If you're half evil, nothing soothes you more than to think the person you are opposed to is totally evil." -- Norman Mailer

(c) 2019 King Features Synd., Inc.