{"id":20481,"date":"2018-10-11T11:34:57","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T15:34:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20481"},"modified":"2018-10-11T11:34:57","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T15:34:57","slug":"curiosities-from-wikipedia-an-occasional-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=20481","title":{"rendered":"curiosities from Wikipedia (an occasional series)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Norfolk_Island\">entry on Norfolk Island<\/a>, pop. 1,748, which lies 877 miles from mainland Australia:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This common heritage has led to a limited number of surnames among the islanders \u2013 a limit constraining enough that the island&#8217;s telephone directory also includes nicknames for many subscribers, such as Cane Toad, Dar Bizziebee, Lettuce Leaf, Goof, Paw Paw, Diddles, Rubber Duck, Carrots, and Tarzan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scots_language\">entry on the Scots Language<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The results from a 1996 trial before the Census, by the\u00a0General Register Office for Scotland,\u00a0suggested that there were around 1.5 million speakers of Scots, with 30% of Scots responding &#8220;Yes&#8221; to the question &#8220;Can you speak the Scots language?&#8221;, but only 17% responding &#8220;Aye&#8221; to the question &#8220;Can you speak Scots?&#8221;.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>From the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Isaac_Newton#Royal_Mint\">entry on Isaac Newton<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As Warden, and afterwards Master, of the Royal Mint, [Sir Isaac] Newton estimated that 20 percent of the coins taken in during the\u00a0Great Recoinage of 1696\u00a0were\u00a0counterfeit. &#8230; Convicting even the most flagrant criminals could be extremely difficult. However, Newton proved equal to the task.\u00a0<sup id=\"cite_ref-FOOTNOTEWhite1997259_74-0\" class=\"reference\"><\/sup>Disguised as a habitu\u00e9 of bars and taverns, he gathered much of that evidence himself. &#8230; Newton had himself made a\u00a0justice of the peace\u00a0in all the home counties. &#8230; Then he conducted more than 100 cross-examinations of witnesses, informers, and suspects between June 1698 and Christmas 1699. Newton successfully prosecuted 28 coiners.<sup id=\"cite_ref-FOOTNOTEWestfall200773_77-0\" class=\"reference\"><\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>See also:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=12713\" rel=\"bookmark\">strange lives<\/a>;\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=18307\" rel=\"bookmark\">the European country that spoke Esperanto<\/a>; and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=16859\" rel=\"bookmark\">Anson Burlingame and the duel that never happened<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the entry on Norfolk Island, pop. 1,748, which lies 877 miles from mainland Australia: This common heritage has led to a limited number of surnames among the islanders \u2013 a limit constraining enough that the island&#8217;s telephone directory also includes nicknames for many subscribers, such as Cane Toad, Dar Bizziebee, Lettuce Leaf, Goof, Paw [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20481"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20485,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20481\/revisions\/20485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}