Friday Snippets and Soundbites

It's Friday and that means "Snippets and Soundbites"! If today's edition leaves you wanting more, check out page 38 in the July (and every month) issue of ec. You won't be sorry.

• Swimmer Michael Phelps suffered his first loss in an individual race since 2005 this week. On Tuesday, Phelps was soundly defeated by German swimmer Paul Biedermann, in the 200 meter freestyle. Biedermann finished that race in 1 minute 42 seconds flat, a full minute and 22 seconds ahead of Phelps. Biedermann also lowered the world record for the event that Phelps had set in the Beijing Olympics. On Wednesday, though, Phelps bounced back, winning the 200-meter butterfly and setting a new world record. Phelps has now held 34 world records in his career. Let us know your opinion on the great swim suit debate in the comments section.

• Ever wondered just how confused adults are by your slang? Well, here’s an answer: enough to compile a slang dictionary. Undergrads at UCLA have been compiling the dictionary for years and this year’s book is the sixth edition. It was edited by a linguistics professor, Pamela Munro. Some of the slang words, phrases, and expressions mentioned include: muffintop, chillax, and awkward turtle. Read the whole story here. And if you have any slang terms you’d like to share with us, talk back in the comments.

• We’ve seen a lot of strange things in the year or so we’ve been compiling “Snippets and Soundbites” for the ec blog, but we’re still quite fond of the idea of a room full on Ernest Hemingway look-alikes. Yep, that’s right. The Ernest Hemingway look-alike contest in Key West recently named this year’s winner. And it’s David Douglas of Cypress,Texas. The 55-year-old based his outfit on a famous photograph of Hemingway taken by Yousuf Karsh. That meant that he wore a heavy wool fisherman’s sweater in 90-degree temperatures. Yes, that’s dedication. To read the whole story, click here. If you’d like to learn more about Hemingway, check this out.

• GPS is great—unless you can’t spell. We say that because we just can’t get over the story of two Swedish tourists who misspelled a location in their GPS and ended up some 400 miles away from their intended destination. The tourists wanted to go to the Italian island of Capri. But instead of typing “Capri,” they typed in “Carpi.” The couple only discovered their mistake when they asked hotel staff how to get to the “Blue Grotto,” a popular landmark on the island of Capri. When told that they’d made a mistake, they simply got in their car and started driving south, toward Capri. The island of Capri is in the Gulf of Naples and has been a popular resort since Roman times. Carpi, where the couple mistakenly ended up, is an industrial town on the other side of the country. We’re still a little confused by how the Swedish couple missed out on the fact that Capri is an island while Carpi clearly isn’t. Read all about it here.