Learn One Thing A Day

In the last week from a colleague and in the The Big Bang Theory (Season 7 episode 11) I heard a nice and simple English expression that uses the American and British pronunciations of the word tomato. The expression by itself is very simple: " Tomato tomato " but what matters is the prounciation: " toe-MAY-toe , toe-MAH-toe " The meaning of the "tomato, tomato" is to express more clearly that two things supposed to be different, aren't or just have minor differences. It originates from the 1937 song "Let's call the whole thing off" by George Gershwin: " ... you like tomatoes [toe-may-toes] and I like tomatoes [toe-mah-toes]... " (from http://www.ishs.org/ ) Reference: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tomato_tomato

Why do earthworms appear on the soil surface when it rains? Even if this is still matter of study and so there is no ultimate answer, experts agree on what is not the explanation: drowing ! Indeed earthworms do not come to the surface to escape drowning since they are perfectly able to survive several days submerged completely in water (provided there is enough oxygen in it)! As disappointed you might be, you have to know that probably earthworms come to the surface in rainy days just to walk much bigger distances than they can do underground. They breath through their skin that must be wet in order to properly work, because of that, rainy days represent a good opportunity to move safely on the soil surface whereas in dry conditions they would dehydrate and die. In a few words, earthworms like to be faster and they can only when it rains!  :) (from http://www.supercoloring.com/color-online/pages/earthworm/ )

Today I learnt that the word Safari means long journey in swahili , the language of the African Great Lakes region (Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique and Congo). More interestingly, the word is used for any kind of journey. In this sense, it is much more general compared to the general idea that we have of a safari like a big game hunt or a trip to observe and photograph wild animals. (from http://www.safari.com/ )