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Don't miss an episode-subscribe today! Images and footage provided by Shutterstock. Here's a transcript courtesy of Nerdfighteria Wiki.

1. Hi, I'm John Green, welcome to my salon, this is Mental Floss on YouTube, and did you know that artificial snow dates back to 1950? That's when three engineers from Milford, Connecticut attached a garden hose to a compressor and used a spray nozzle to cover a hill in 20 inches of snow. Before that, ski slope owners used ice. In 1949, for instance, the owner of Mohawk Mountain in Connecticut spent $3500 on 500 tons of ice, which he broke up with a pick, then spread the chips over a slope.

And that's just one of many origins of holiday traditions that I'm gonna share with you in this video today brought to you by Intel.

2. The Christmas tree in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center is 65 feet tall, 555 pounds, contains 30,000 LED lights, and costs the city of New York over $1.5 million. To find the perfect tree every year, the city sends out helicopter crews on surveying flights all over New England.

3. In 1851, Mark Carr because the first logger ever to set up a Christmas tree stand on a New York City sidewalk. He paid $1 to rent the space for that season. He was so successful that the next year, his rent was up to $100.

4. Christmas trees in 18th century Germany were often lit with candles fixed to the branches with wax, making them fire hazards. In 1882, Edward Johnson, vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company made the first electric Christmas lights for his family tree. The 80 walnut-sized electrical individual bulbs were red, white, and blue. Oh, so they looked kinda like our Nutcracker, red, white, and blue ... and Picard.

5. Holiday lights went commercial in 1901, but you had to plug each light in-meaning you probably couldn't have more than a couple on your tree. Ever-Ready solved that problem two years later, selling strings of lights with up to eight little bulbs in a row.

6. While mistletoe has been linked to fertility in lots of ancient cultures, the practice of kissing under it really took off in Victorian England, where some jerks circulated the myth that girls who refused to kiss under the mistletoe wouldn't receive any marriage proposals in the following year.

7. Speaking of mistletoe, it isn't native to the United States, but unwilling to let the tradition die, American entrepreneurs sourced the plants from France and began shipping the clippings over by steamship in the 19th century.

8. The most popular place to eat on December 25 in Japan is KFC. It's so common that you have to make reservations months in advance, despite the fact that only 1 percent of the population even celebrates Christmas. The tradition goes back to 1974, when the fast-food chain launched a commercial offering foreign visitors their next best thing to a traditional turkey, but instead, it unexpectedly caught on with locals.

9. Festivus from Seinfeld actually existed long before the TV show. The holiday, which features traditions like using a stark aluminum pole instead of a Christmas tree, and the Feats of Strength, where someone had to wrestle the head of the household, is credited to staff writer Dan O'Keefe. But O'Keefe's father actually invented it when he began researching obscure European holidays and bundled them together as an excuse to gripe about his magazine job he worked for, Reader's Digest. According to Dan, the family was forced to attend the celebration for years and it was much stranger than anything he could write about for the sitcom.

10. The first Christmas cards were designed by the Englishman John Callcott Horsley in 1843. He printed up a thousand cards with three little drawings side by side, none of which were, like, Santa or reindeer-instead, his cards featured a family sitting together at a table in the middle with two images of them helping the poor on either side.

That's lovely, but I don't understand what it has to do with holidays. Where was the Xbox?

11. Dr. Seuss's How The Grinch Stole Christmas is loosely based on Seuss himself. The day after Christmas in 1956, Seuss (a.k.a. Theodore Geisel) realized he never enjoyed the holidays. So he wrote the book in an attempt to remind himself about the true spirit of the season. According to his stepdaughter, there's a little Seuss in all of his characters. As she put it: "I always thought that the cat was Ted on his good days, and the Grinch was Ted on his bad days."

12. Christmas pickles are not supposed to be a thing. The idea comes from a German tradition where families hide a dill in their Tannenbaum's branches-the lucky child who finds it the next morning gets an extra gift from Saint Nick. But the story is actually completely untrue! Before F.W. Woolworth, Americans used to trim trees with candy and fruit and paper, but on a trip to a little town in Germany, Woolworth noticed an opportunity- people had started to make and use glass ornaments. Once he started importing the glass trinkets, Woolworth's team concocted the idea of Christmas pickles, along with the fake tradition story to boost sales of their new line at department stores.

Huh, can I start a Christmas tradition of playing Nintendo games all day?

13. Advent calendars first took off in America when a picture of President Eisenhower opening one up with his grandkids showed up in newspapers across the nation. But unlike the Christmas pickle, this tradition actually is German! The calendars were first produced by the German printer Gerhard Lang was inspired to recreate the handcrafted calendars his mother had made for him in the early 1900s. Before Lang, most Germans used to mark the advent by lighting candles or hanging pictures on advent clocks.

14. Now obviously, American customers want the postal service to make holiday stamps, right, because that's the only time we ever send mail anymore. But the service always struggled to figure out how to make a stamp that pleased everyone without offending anyone. In 1962, Jim Crawford came up with a simple design that worked, featuring two candles and a wreath. It was very popular. The postal office sold out its first run of 50 million stamps in no time. By the end of 1962, it had distributed over 1 billion of the stamps.

15. In 2007, the sport Major League Dreidel was formed in New York City. The tournaments occurred during Hanukkah, and the winner is the Dreideler with the longest time of spin.

16. And finally, I return to my salon to tell you that in 1951, artificial trees started outselling natural trees in the United States. But artificial trees aren't new. In fact, the first ones came from Germany in 1913 as a way to lessen deforestation. They were originally made out of goose feathers dyed green and fixed to a wooden pole. But goose feathers are messy and shed all over people's houses, so the toilet brush company Addis Brush Company stepped in, and using the exact same technology as brings toilet brushes into the world, made artificial Christmas trees.

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Don't miss an episode-subscribe today! Images and footage provided by Shutterstock. Here's a transcript courtesy of Nerdfighteria Wiki. 1. Hi, I'm John Green, welcome to my salon, this is Mental Floss on YouTube, and did you know that artificial snow dates back to 1950?

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Online Spell check, Grammar, and Thesaurus checking

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Why use a Grammar Checker?

English grammar is not so simple as you think. Just as one would check for spelling errors before submitting a piece of writing, grammar checking is also important. Spelling errors can make written materials harder to understand or may even change the meaning entirely; so too, with grammar mistakes. The recipients of your writing will notice if your writing contains mistakes and this will reflect unfavorably on you as the writer. Similarly, if you produce materials free from errors, the recipient will notice this and appreciate both your effort and skill. But you must improve your English grammar skill all the time. The English language does not always follow its own rules and can be tricky to master. Successfully navigating the grammar rules of this language tends to impress in a way akin to earning a gold star from one's peers.

Grammar check is a useful habit for professionals in writing-heavy fields such as sales, law, or research or simply writing a term paper. It is a smart habit for individuals new to the English language. And it is an essential habit for teachers (because let's face it, teachers are only human and make mistakes too!). Similarly, students who think "How to write my essay?" should also make a habit of applying a grammar check to their work. Some of them even prefer to use popular custom writing services. However, one does not need to be a professional, teacher, or student to benefit from a grammar checker and, of course, language does not only exist in the written form. Grammar rules apply to the spoken word too! Anyone who writes or speaks in English and wishes to present his or her best image will benefit from a grammar checker.

If you would like to know how to make learning English a part of your life and impress those with whom you interact, Grammar.net can help. Assistance is available in forms such as of the Instant Grammar Checker, informative grammar newsletter, and amusing but educational infographics. While you visit, make sure to explore the easy-to-navigate archives for helpful grammar tips and help with specific areas of difficulty. With the grammar checking assistance of Grammar.net, perfect grammar is just a click away.

It's all about grammar

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Grammar Newsletter - English Grammar Newsletter | It's All About Grammar!

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Online Spell check, Grammar, and Thesaurus checking Pen English grammar is not so simple as you think. Just as one would check for spelling errors before submitting a piece of writing, grammar checking is also important. Spelling errors can make written materials harder to understand or may even change the meaning entirely; so too, with grammar mistakes.

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My second typography project to Stronger by Kanye West. Based on doodles from class.

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Internet lingo (slang)

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This site contains thousands of definitions about computers, the Internet, and the online world of business, technology & communication :-) A popular online dictionary it includes one of the largest collections of text messaging, acronyms and smileys!

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The activity includes a series of exercises, in which students view the literal representations of idioms and then examine the metaphorical meanings of the idioms.

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Pretty cool project

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The Sentence Pairs

Updated: January 24, 2021

About These Sentences

This part of our website uses sentences from the Tatoeba Project. (Read About the Tatoeba Project)

These are sorted by length, with the shortest sentences first.

Warning! There are errors in the Tatoeba Corpus. (Detailed Warning)

In order to minimize the number of errors, I only used sentences that were owned by identified native speakers working on the Tatoeba Project and English sentences that I've personally checked and did not reject. Please remember that even doing this may not have eliminated all errors.

I have also attempted to filter out sentences that are potentially offensive and not appropriate for all ages and cultures. If you find something that should be removed, please send me a "bug report."

Would you like to help?

Do you want the data?

This page is part of Interesting Things for ESL Students.

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Bilingual Sentence Pairs (From the Corpus Created by the Tatoeba Project)

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Updated: January 24, 2021 This part of our website uses sentences from the Tatoeba Project. (Read About the Tatoeba Project) These are sorted by length, with the shortest sentences first. Warning! There are errors in the Tatoeba Corpus.

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Bruce Lee Philosophy (Be Water My Friend)

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Kinetic typography (Be water My Friend) by Bruce Lee http://titusprod.com

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Animated typography for V for Vendetta. Was done by Kory Fenton for a Graphic Interface Design class at Utah State University.

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10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling - The Oatmeal

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I created a handy guide for common spelling errors. A panda bear makes an appearance.

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How to use the term 'used to' with exercises

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Ben used to travel a lot in his job but now, since his promotion, he doesn't.

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Learn English with Let's Talk - Free English Lessons

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Basic Business Conversational Etiquette - Advanced  English lesson

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Basic Business Conversational Etiquette - Intermediate English lesson In this video podcast Ceema explains the basic etiquette one should follow while speaking in various difficult situations in a business environment. You will learn a lot of useful expressions those you would use when you are caught up and will help you to be polite, but, put you point across efficiently.

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Double click on file Once it opens, look in the right bottom corner of the screen/wall Double click on the button (purple) marked 'Source' This opens up the file in a PDF