"I Never Knew"

I read somewhere a long time ago, that one of the things that keeps you "young" is continuing to learn new things to keep your mind active (or something like that.)   If I pay attention, I keep encountering things "I Never Knew."  So I thought I'd share a few of my most recent factual finds, after all, maybe you never knew either!  :)



1.  I find it amazing that Author and Playwright of the Pulitzer prize winning drama, "Our Town", Thornton Wilder (born 1897) was actually three years YOUNGER than Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev (born 1894)!  Somehow they don't really seem like they could even be part of the same era!  A fact that I had to ponder for a while to accept that it could be true!  But it was!



2.  Have you ever heard of an  in·ter·ro·bang??  Me neither.  Although I am a reasonably well-educated and well-read person, I had never stumbled across this word.  But Webster tells me it is a real word!  Who knew there was such a thing?

Oh, you want to know what it means?  Well, of course you do!


An interrobang is a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), " indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question."  Hmmmm, seems like it would be very useful and should have appeared in printed materials a lot, don't you think‽    So, how come I've never seen it before‽‽  (That's definitely a rhetorical question.)



3.  This one is not so much of a surprise, considering how little I watch TV or go to the movies, still.....anybody still remember the original television production of Rogers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" from 1961 with Leslie Ann Warren as Cinderella?  I remember seeing it on our small (no more than 17 inches, tops) screen TV when I was about 14 years old.   I thought Lesley Anne was a beautiful Cinderella and I think I fell for the prince, just like she did!  :)  I love the music too....."In My Own Little Corner".... "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?"...."Ten Minutes Ago."    Perfect songs for Cinderella and not nearly so cutesy as the Disney version's "Bibbetdy Boppitdy Boo"  or "Cinderelly."  But until this week, I never knew there was another very well done production of Roger's and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" made in 1997 with Whitney Houston, Bernadette Peters, Whoopi Goldberg, Jason Alexander, and Brandi, in the title role. The Prince was played by Paulo Montalban, a particular appealing young man!  It was made with color-blind casting which I find disconcerting visually.  Nevertheless once you get past that (in just a few minutes),  I think it was actually better than the original!  Film for television has come a long way since 1961!  If you've never seen it either, the film is on YouTube and only about 90 minutes long.  And there isn't a singing mouse in either version!!






4.  Now this is not a great revelation of some factual tidbit, but this one rocked me anyway....I found out that my husband, the Big Guy, with both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree, the fellow who enjoys reading as much as the rest of us in the family, the man who knows a lot about a lot of diverse and interesting things, the guy I have been married to for 46 years...... has never read "To Kill a Mockingbird!"   Never‽‽  Not only that (and this is really hard for me to believe), but neither has he seen the movie!!!  How is this possible ‽‽   One of the most influential and well-written books of the 20th Century, and he never read it!  Wow!  Talk about "rock my world!!"    


[Did you see the interrobangs?  I really am surprised they never caught on!]






So, have you learned anything new lately?  Want to share??  Go ahead!  You know you want to!!!  lol!


Class dismissed.....