stackyFACTSYelling victory across the table has deeply grim linguistic roots. The phrase descends directly from the Persian 'Shah Mat', which roughly translates to the king being utterly stranded or helpless. It is a wonderfully melodramatic way to describe capturing a small piece of carved wood.
Keep exploring facts in this topic.
Culture & entertainment →STACKY FOR IPHONEKeep discovering with Stacky. Interesting facts in an app that is always within reach.
The dominating subgenre of modern hip hop gets its name from trap houses, which are abandoned buildings where illicit substances are sold. The frantic hi-hats…
Discover more
Shouting numbers isn't festive enough for the United Kingdom. Decades of tradition birthed an entire lexicon of bizarre calls where 88 is 'two fat ladies' and…
Discover more
The boisterous centerpiece of casino floors has heavily botched etymology. Evolving from an old English dice game known as 'Hazard', the worst possible roll…
Discover more
You use the word to order hot dogs and fries, but it originated from a highly exploited circus animal. A massive nineteenth-century African elephant named…
Discover more
Writers for The Simpsons completely fabricated the word "embiggens" for the 1996 episode Lisa the Iconoclast, specifically as a joke about how towns will…
Discover more
Marketing truly is everything. The game of flipping two-sided discs to trap your opponent's pieces was already widely known in 19th-century England. A…
Discover more