Some interesting facts/trivia, that you might be interested in knowing
By: Dhiren Serai
Tags: Learning, Facts, Interesting, Trivia

Sometimes, there’s no better conversation starter than a totally out-of-left-field bit of information.

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you”

— B. B. King.

I am starting to write this series of blog posts, where I will list down various facts/trivia which I found interesting and read about it recently and also would like to share with everyone. Make sure to read all of them and let me know how did you find it.

Basmati — fragrant rice

Basmati is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally grown in India and Pakistan. The word bas-mati actually is derived from Sanskrit words namely vas-(aroma) and mayup (ingrained). While combining mayup changes it mati making it vasmati.

2. Singapore — Lion’s city

In malay, the name of the country is Singapura, which was derived from Sanskrit words Singha meaning “lion” and pura meaning “city”. Also, it’s the similar root is being used in names like Nag-pur and Singha-asan (ornate chair used by a king, queen, or emperor).

Merlion Park — Singapore

3. Three Stripes — Adidas

Three stripes is a trademark of Adidas consisting for three parallel lines, which typically feature along the side of Adidas apparel. It was actually a Finnish sports brand Karhu Sports who sold the three stripe trademark to Adidas for (the equivalent of) €1,600 euros and two bottles of Whiskey.

4. Facebook “Blue” Logo

It’s suspected that the logo and interface of Facebook is in blue colour because “Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind”, this means that blue is the color Mark can see the best.

Also he had mentioned in one of the interviews, “Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue.”

5. Bournvita name origin

Bournvita is a chocolate drink mix manufactured by Cadbury and sold in the United Kingdom and North America, as well as India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo.

The drink was named by Cadbury which was derived from Bournville, the model village which is the site of the Cadbury factory (Bourn) and Vita is derived from Vital meaning essential/necessary.

6.Nashik City — named derived from Ramayana

Nashik was known as Panchavati before Ramayana period.

Nashik has a rich historical past, as the mythology has it that Lord Rama, the King of Ayodhya, made Nashik his abode during his 14 years in exile.

At the same place Lord Laxman, by the wish of Lord Rama, cut the nose (nashika/naak) of “Shurpnakha” and thus this city was named as “Nashik”.

7. Chevrolet — named after Swiss race car driver

The Chevrolet Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors.

On November 3, 1911, Swiss race car driver and automotive engineer Louis Chevrolet co-founded the “Chevrolet Motor Company” in Detroit with his brother Arthur Chevrolet, William C. Durant and few other investment partners.

8. Switzerland Science day

Switzerland dedicates its Science Day to former Indian president Abdul Kalam. The father of India’s missile programme had visited Switzerland back in 2006. Upon his arrival, Switzerland declared May 26th as Science Day.

9.Twenty-20 Cricket format

Twenty20 cricket or Twenty-20 (often abbreviated to T20) is a shortened format of cricket.

When the Benson & Hedges Cup ended in 2002, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) needed another one-day competition to fill its place.

Stuart Robinson, the marketing manager of the ECB, proposed a 20-over-per-innings game to county chairmen in 2001 and the cricketing authorities voted 11–7 in favour of adopting the new format.

This is how the format of T20 was introduced in the world of cricket.

a photo of inventor to T20 format in Cricket — Stuart Robinson

10. Back to square one = “to go back to the beginning, after a dead-end or failure”

Back to square one (or back at square one — the original saying) derives from football radio commentaries in the 1930s.

Commentators would mentally divide the football pitch into numbered grids and use the numbers to explain the position of play. Square one was in front of the home team’s goal. When there was a goal kick by the home team, play could be described as being back at square one.

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This blog post was written by me as I was exploring the etymology of few brands out of curiosity. I plan to write similar blog post every week.

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If you like this blog post, please share it with other people who you think would be curious to know and also please do give a clap so that I would stay motivated and continue writing this series of blog post every week.