Curling and Quidditch use a lot of words that sound the same.

In honor of the Winter Olympics, Mental Floss has a quiz to see if you can decipher whether a term is from a real sport on ice (curling) or a fake one in the air (quidditch).

'Wicky wack woo' is one such term.

Yeah, both curling and quidditch terms sound like you had a stroke or are half-lit. I blame Scotland's influence on both.

Why do old books smell?

Why does an old book smell like grandpa's closet?

Mental Floss answers readers' questions, and apparently enough people don't understand how things die. (Psst: Heads-up...you're going to die someday, too.) So the explanation?

Books are made of organic material, and that organic material reacts to its environment (light, temperature, moisture, etc.). When that organic material decays--and all of it will in time--it releases volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which release a scent. As macabre as it sounds, this is why animals (and you) smell when they die, too.

According to Mental Floss, scientists have found a selection of compounds (in the form of VOCs) that keep showing up in dying books, from acetic acid and butanol to octanol and benzaldehyde.

In case you're wondering, benzaldehyde is also known as artificial almond oil, and is often used today as a food additive to make the food smell extra deliciously nutty.

Mmm, delicious dying books!

"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

Legend has it that those six words make up an entire story by Ernest Hemingway. According to the story, Hemingway was lunching with some fellow writers and bet he could write a story--complete: beginning, middle, end--in six words. His friends disagreed and bet $10 each. Hemingway immediately wrote those six words on a napkin, passed it around, and everyone handed over $10.

That's just one of ten odd/weird/curious/charming stories surrounding literature that Mark Juddery of Mental Floss (via CNN) recounts.

This includes...:

1.) ...Ernest Vincent Wright writing the 50,000 word novel Gadsby without using the letter E. Ever. At all. Not once. Because writing novels is easy enough when you have all 26 letters available.

Hell, I just used the letter E twenty-two times on the tiny section right there explaining about Gadsby.

2.) David Shulman wrote a sonnet. Not that impressive, I grant you. But what if I said the sonnet was titled Washington Crossing the Delaware? And that all fourteen lines of the sonnet were an anagram of the title? And that it was all done in rhyming couplets?

Yeah, I'm already feeling like a deadbeat by comparison, too. Don't worry.

3.) The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby was written by a series of eye blinks (done only with with left eyelid) which were translated into Bauby's memoir. This was all done because Bauby had a massive stroke which paralyzed his body.

But the real issue is whether he could have done all that while not using the letter E.





4.) Sri Chinmoy was a spiritual leader. But apparently his spirit had a lot of free time, because he enjoyed writing. A lot. As in 1,000 books, 20,000 songs, and 115,000 poems. I know what you're thinking: what an underachiever! What? No plays?

On November 1, 1975, Chinmoy wrote 843 poems. He didn't start the 843 poems on November 1. Oh, no, no. He started and completed all 843 poems within a 24hr period.

I don't know if Chinmoy believed in caffeinated products, but an endorsement deal with Maxwell House Coffee would have been a good idea.

Dr. Seuss was crafty.

It can be said the last thing Dr. Seuss ever did was write children's books. Take Yertle the Turtle. That's about Hitler. (Although it's Hitler minus the Holocaust. There's no real subtle way to reinterpret that into a children's book.)

And The Butter Battle Book? That's about the Cold War. (Although not about how cold the butter is in your Frigidaire.)

Mental Floss Magazine has a rundown of ten stories behind Dr. Seuss's books. The Lorax? About environmentalism. Horton Hears a Who!? Often used in abortion arguments. If I Ran the Zoo? It's responsible for first publishing the word "nerd."

Nerd? Really, Dr. Seuss? Really?? Well, at least you knew your target audience.

B(eautifully) L(oquacious) [and] O(dd) G(uides) [to] S(ociety)

Blogs are popular. Admittedly, most are boring. Horrifically so. (That's why you're reading this stylish, yet humble blog of high-minded observation. It shows you've got taste--as well as there's nothing good on tv to distract you.) The blogs can't help it though. They're inanimate personality profiles of the people or businesses that create them.

Blog genres are limited only by the lack of imagination of those who run them. Some grandmas have (or had) them to share their opinion (good), some Fortune 500 companies offer mild brainwashing techniques (not so good), and some are just quirky (quirky good).

So, we'll look at blogs and see what's out there. Even if that means coming across the inanimate personality profiles of real people.

Real people?

Well, real enough, yes.

Sesame Street: where stereotyping lives.

Sesame Street isn't just sweetness and sunshine--and I'm not referring to Oscar the Grouch's potential scabies by living in a trash can.

I'm talking about the forgotten muppet: Roosevelt Franklin.

He was before my time. That's where Mental Floss comes in to remind us of shunned muppets of yesteryear, including Roosevelt.

As this photo suggests, the Sesame Street folks didn't waste a dime in his creation. Using grandma's old violet slipper socks and gluing some eyes on him, Roosevelt was created in 1970 to give black children in America something to look up to. What they got to look up was the word stereotype in the dictionary.

Apparently, Roosevelt taught class at a fictional school on the show--a class that just happened to look like detention, where the children never behaved--nor did Roosevelt. He also spoke in scat or read bee-bop poems. He was apparently popular enough that the birthday card about "Rhyme Time" (pictured above) was created.

"Here's an extra smooth birthday poem"? Extra smooth? Really now? The only time the phrase "extra smooth" is ever used is in advertising for menthol cigarettes.

As an added bonus, Mental Floss tells us Roosevelt tended to teach children about what he knew--which included the geography of Africa and how not to drink poison.

Why, yes. Leave it to the black muppet to have had his stomach pumped because he swigged back a bottle of Lysol at some point. Couldn't Big Bird have tried that one instead? Big Bird doesn't seem terribly bright. He looks like the type that would have eaten some alluring paint chips at some point.

So, as a surprise to no one, parents wrote to Sesame Street complaining Roosevelt was a walking stereotype--and he gradually disappeared by 1975. (Or maybe not "walking"--muppets don't have legs, despite what that birthday card shows. Maybe Roosevelt was a gliding stereotype.)

Nowadays we get Elmo, who sounds like he's taking hits off a helium tank. Dogs cock their head sideways whenever they hear him. Ear drums ring after listening to him.

Thanks, Sesame Street. Thanks.