A Few fun facts for Friday

Title: The Double-Daring Book for Girls
Authors: Andrea J Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz

Summary: Book of random, fun but not-especially-daring facts.

A few times a week I look through the new books as they arrive at my library. I look through titles for interesting fiction, storytime possibilities, duplicate titles, books that might be perfect for common requests, etc. I don't usually spend a lot of time with the books before they're checked in, but I did spend some time with this one. If it weren't so big, it would be a perfect bathroom book.

Hepaticocholangiocholecystenterostomies is the medical term for surgically created connections between the gall bladder and other organs.

Measurement words to know include jiffy (1/100 of a second), quire (25 sheets of paper) and stone (14 pounds). (This is the second time this week I've seen reference to quire).

Footloose is a sailing term for when the bottom part of the sail itself (called the foot) is properly secured and dancing happily in the wind.

Historical methods of producing batik fabric have included applying wax by hand, canting (a spouted container that holds the hot wax) and cap (which is a copper stamp that is used to apply the design). The cloth is then dyed, the wax -which blocks the dye- is removed, and voila! (Okay, it's a bit more involved than that...)