Corned beef got its name because this beef was preserved with pellets of salt that were the size of corn kernels, which was also referred to as "corns" of salt

Although the exact beginnings of corned beef are unknown, it most likely came about when people began preserving meat through salt-curing. Evidence of its legacy is apparent in numerous cultures, including Ancient Europe, and the Middle East. The word corn derives from Old English, which is used to describe any small hard particles or grains. In the case of “corned beef”, the word refers to the coarse granular salts used to curethe beef.

Although it ceased to be an important commodity in the 19th century Atlantic trade due in part to the abolition of slavery, corned beef production and its canned form remained important as a food source during World War II. Much of the canned corned beef came from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, with over 16 million cans exported in 1943. Even now, significant amounts of the global canned corned beef supply comes from South America.

The Baby Ruth candy bar was actually named after Grover Cleveland's baby daughter, Ruth.

Although the name of the candy bar sounds like the name of the famous baseball player Babe Ruth, the Curtiss Candy Company traditionally claimed that it was named after President Grover Cleveland‘s daughter, Ruth Cleveland. The candy maker, located on the same street as Wrigley Field, named the bar “Baby Ruth” in 1921, as Babe Ruth‘s fame was on the rise, over 30 years after Cleveland had left the White House, and 17 years after his daughter, Ruth, had died. The company did not negotiate an endorsement deal with Ruth, and many saw the company’s story about the origin of the name to be a devious way to avoid having to pay the baseball player any royalties. Curtiss successfully shut down a rival bar that was approved by, and named for, Ruth, on the grounds that the names were too similar.

In the trivia book series Imponderables, David Feldman reports the standard story about the bar being named for Grover Cleveland‘s daughter, with additional information that ties it to the President: “The trademark was patterned exactly after the engraved lettering of the name used on a medallion struck for the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, and picturing the President, his wife, and daughter Baby Ruth.” He also cites More Misinformation, by Tom Burnam: “Burnam concluded that the candy bar was named … after the granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Williamson, candy makers who developed the original formula and sold it to Curtiss.” (Williamson had also sold the “Oh Henry!” formula to Curtiss around that time.) The writeup goes on to note that marketing the product as being named for a company executive’s granddaughter would likely have been less successful, hence their “official” story.

The word "nerd" was first coined by Dr. Seuss in "If I Ran the Zoo."

The first documented appearance of the word “nerd” is as the name of a creature in Dr. Seuss’s book If I Ran the Zoo (1950), in which the narrator Gerald McGrew claims that he would collect “a Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker too” for his imaginary zoo. The slang meaning of the term dates back to 1951, when Newsweek magazine reported on its popular use as a synonym for “drip” or “square” in Detroit, Michigan. By the early 1960s, usage of the term had spread throughout the United States, and even as far as Scotland. At some point, the word took on connotations of bookishness and social ineptitude.

An alternate spelling, as nurd, also began to appear in the mid-1960s or early ’70s. Author Philip K. Dick claimed to have coined this spelling in 1973, but its first recorded use appeared in a 1965 student publication at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Oral tradition there holds that the word is derived from “knurd” (“drunk” spelled backwards), which was used to describe people who studied rather than partied. On the other hand, the variant “gnurd” was in wide use at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology throughout the first half of the 1970s.

Other theories of the word’s origin suggest that it may derive from Mortimer Snerd, Edgar Bergen’s ventriloquist dummy, or the Northern Electric Research and Development (N.E.R.& D.) Laboratories in Ontario (now Nortel). The Online Etymology Dictionary speculates that the word is an alteration of the 1940s term nert (meaning “stupid or crazy person”), which is itself an alteration of “nut”.

The Canadian holiday Boxing Day got its name from the custom of giving.

Servants were given boxes which had money hidden inside them from their employers. The servants would have to break the box into pieces to get the money.

Source

The word Thailand means "land of the free."

Source

The band Duran Duran got their name from an astronaut in the 1968 Jane Fonda movie "Barbarella."

Source

Aztec emperor Montezuma had a nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant "plenty of excrement."

Source

Kermit the Frog was named after Kermit Scott, a childhood friend of creator Jim Henson, who became a professor of philosophy at Purdue University

Source

In 1888, Hollywood was founded by Harvey and Daeida Wilcox, who named the city after their summer home in Chicago

Source

The citrus soda "7 UP" was created in 1929. The original name of the popular drink was "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", but it got changed to "7 UP."

Source

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the"General Purpose" vehicle, G.P.

Source

The word "Nazi" is actually an abbreviation for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, which refers to the National Socialist German Workers Party

Source

There is a town in Texas called Ding Dong. In 1990, the population was only twenty-two people

Source

During WWII, because a lot of players were called to duty, the Pittsburgh Steelers and Philadelphia Eagles combined to become The Steagles

Source

Psychokinesis refers to the ability of moving objects through psychic power

also referred to as telekinesis (Greek τῆλε + κίνησις, literally "distant-movement") with respect to strictly describing mental movement or motion of solid matter, abbreviated as PK and TK respectively, is a term coined by publisher Henry Holt to refer to the direct influence of mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by the mediation of any known physical energy. Examples of psychokinesis could include distorting or moving an object, and influencing the output of a random number generator.

Source

The motto for the Air Force Technical Applications Center is "In God we trust, all others we monitor"

The Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC), based at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla. is an Air Force surveillance organization assigned to the Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency. Its mission is to monitor nuclear treaties of all applicable signatory countries. This is accomplished via seismic, hydroacoustic and satellite detection systems.

Also, their Institutional Mission is: "Enhance national security: Collect and exploit worldwide technical measurements and deliver timely, accurate information to national authorities and warfighters ... teaming to monitor treaties, counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and achieve information superiority" and their Vision is to: "Become the nation's premier collector and exploiter of technical signatures ... enabling policy makers and warfighters to achieve information superiority".

Source

The phrase "rule of thumb" is derived from an old English law whichstated that you couldn't beat your wife with anything wider than your thumb.

Source

In gangster slang, a boxing match that is fixed is called a "barney."

Source

The study of twins is known as gemellology

Source

The word "PEZ" comes from the German word for peppermint—PfeffErminZ

Source