USELESS FACTS
Leggi la storia della serie fatti interessanti ma inutili per scoprire la veritá! Testo in inglese con vocabolario.
The hole in the doughnut was invented by a 16-year-old sailor named Hanson Gregory.
In 1916, the Washington Post interviewed Gregory, the man who claimed to have invented the modern donut back in 1847. Gregory was tired of eating greasy and undercooked donuts with raw dough on the insides. It was giving him indigestion. He decided to cut a hole in the donuts first, to make it easier for him to keep his food down. He cut the first donut hole with the cover of a tin pepper box. When he came back home from sailing he told his mom about the recipe, and the rest is history.
to invent – inventare
sailor – marinaio
to interview somebody – fare un intervista con qualcuno
to claim something – chiedere, richiedere, sostenere qualcosa
to be tired of doing something – essere stanco/a di fare qualcosa
greasy – unto, sporco di olio
undercooked – poco cotto (non fatto bene)
raw dough – impasto
indigestion – indigestione
In 1898, 14 years before the Titanic sank, Morgan Robertson wrote a book about a ship called the “Titan” that crashed into an iceberg and sank.
The book is The Wreck of the Titan. In addition to having the same outcome (crashing into an iceberg and sinking), the fictional “Titan” and the real-life “Titanic” had other bizarre similarities. They were both over 800 feet long. They both were known as “unsinkable”. They both sunk in the North Atlantic. They both didn’t have enough lifeboats. They both had 3000 passengers. There are some big differences too. Most importantly, more people survived from the real Titanic than from the Titan.
to sink, sank, sunk – affondare, andare a fondo
to crash into an iceberg – scontrarsi con un blocco di ghiaccio/iceberg
wreck – relitto
in addition to … – in piú
outcome – risultato, esito
lifeboat – battello di soccorso
to survive – sopravvivere
