Do I have your attention? Good. Surely if the title of today's screed didn't grab you, the picture to the left has. More on that in a bit.
The word spermology has two meanings, only one of which is common, well, actually, uncommon usage. The proper meaning of the word is the study of trivia.
It came from the Greek word, sperma, which means seeds, thus it is a study of seeds in the literal sense. However, trivial facts can be metaphorically referred to as seeds, bits of knowledge that if put about will result in a tree of knowledge by sparking curiosity that then spreads to other lines of inquiry. Hence, spermology.
What sparked all this is a trivia question in a quiz we took on a cruise once. It's one of my favorite pastimes onboard a cruise ship. There are usually two trivia quizzes a day, sometimes three. I wracked my brain for the possible definition of the word, convinced that the obvious one wasn't going to be right, and i've never forgotten the answer since.
I have always been a trivia buff. Nerd? Who you callin' a nerd?
Anyway, as to the above picture, yes, it's what it appears to be. A penis. Specifically a killer whale penis. In answer to your question, it measures about eight feet in length when, um, in use. The reason I chose it, other than the obvious bid for lowbrow titillation (I can't believe I just used that word) is that it's germane to the first bit of trivia that i'm offering up here for your edification.
Interesting trivia:
A whale penis is known as a dork. More specifically it is the cartilage that runs the length of it. (And to think we had no idea of that back in junior high school...)
A duck's quack does not echo, and no one knows why.
In days of yore (I wonder when that was exactly...) when clans wanted to get rid of an undesirable member they burned that person's house down. Thus the expression "to get fired".
An Ostrich's eye is larger than it's brain. (I think I know some people like that too...)
The first toilet ever seen on television was on Leave It To Beaver. (There's a cheap joke there that I will refrain from.)
Reno, Nevada is West of Los Angeles, California.
The only mammal that can't jump is the Elephant.
The word Samba means to rub navels together. (Oh yes.)
A jiffy is an actual unit of time. it's 1/100th of a second.
More people are killed annually by donkeys than by airline crashes.
The name Wendy was made up for the play Peter Pan.
And to end this on the theme of the day:
The condom brand Ramses was named after the great Pharoh Ramses II, who fathered more than 160 children.
posted by admin on Spermology, Trivia