Strange but True
BY SAMANTHAWEAVER

. Raquel Welch,auditioned for the part of Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," but was passed over in favor of Dawn Wells. Incidentally, Welch's birth name was Jo Raquel Tejada.

. In modern society, hundreds of millions of people across the globe speak English. You don't have to go back very far, though, to find a time when English wasn't nearly so widespread or highly regarded. In the 16th century, the age of Queen Elizabeth I and William Shakespeare, only a few million people spoke the language -- and not even all the people of England spoke English.

. The identity of the person who made the following comment is still not known: "A Christian is a man who feels repentance on Sunday for what he did on Saturday."

. In Turkey, a man named Demker Cevik said that he could eat an entire barbecued lamb, a claim that an acquaintance disputed. A small bet was placed, and the contest began. After quite a while, Cevik did, in fact, finish the lamb and win the bet. It was a short-lived victory, however; 10 minutes later, Cevik keeled over, dead.

. If you're like the average American, you'll eat more than 15 pounds of fish this year.

. Did you ever wonder what all the hoopla is about? It doesn't really matter [SET ITAL]what[END ITAL] the hoopla is about, though -- it's the word "hoopla" itself that's interesting. The modern English word actually comes from the French words "houp," which means "hey," and "la," which means "there." The combination is, essentially, the interjection "hey there!" -- which inspired its current use to describe a commotion of some kind.

(c) 2007 King Features Synd., Inc.