The Second Book of General Ignorance Quotes

“The phrase “cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey” is often said to refer to a metallic grid with circular holes in it, set under a pyramid of cannonballs on a ship’s deck to keep it stable. When this “brass monkey” got cold enough, the metal contracted and the cannonballs all popped out. In fact, the phrase means exactly what it says; the fake nautical euphemism is an attempt to make its rude humor more acceptable.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“Babbage was a brilliant mathematician but found human beings difficult to deal with. His intolerance of street musicians led to an organized campaign against him: his London home in Portland Place was bombarded by noise at all hours and abusive signs were hung in local shops.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“Black holes generate sound. There’s one in the Perseus cluster of galaxies, 250 million light-years away. The signal was detected in 2003 in the form of X-rays (which will happily travel anywhere) by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite. No one will ever hear it, though. It’s 57 octaves lower than middle C: over a million billion times deeper than the limits of human hearing. It’s the deepest note ever detected from any object anywhere in the universe and it makes a noise in the pitch of B flat—the same as a vuvuzela.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“Pedants should be aware that the English name for the world’s highest mountain should be spoken aloud as EEV-uh-rest, not EV-uh-rest.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“Over half its population consisted of celibate Catholic priests and no children lived there at all, so it can’t have seemed particularly relevant.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“If you thought “Rabbie Burns” wrote “Auld Lang Syne,” you’d be doubly wrong. Burns never signed his name “Rabbie” or “Robbie” (or, indeed, “Bobbie” Burns, as some North Americans insist on calling him). His signatures included “Robert,” “Robin,” “Rab”—and, on at least one occasion, “Spunkie.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“seventy-five Michelin inspectors cover all of Europe and many fewer the rest of the world. They eat out on 240 days a year, file more than 1,000 reports, and must order the maximum number of courses and always clear their plates. To remain anonymous they never return to the same place for several years, and never reveal what they do—even to their parents.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“France has the best military record in Europe. The French have fought more military campaigns than any other European nation and won twice as many battles as they have lost.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance

“To find out what color egg a hen will lay, examine her earlobes. Hens with white earlobes lay white eggs; hens with red earlobes lay brown ones.”
― John Lloyd, QI: The Second Book of General Ignorance