A list of curious facts

One: In the nostalgic tales of cricket history, the name rarely mentioned is Palwankar Baloo—the first Dalit to become a member of the Indian cricket team. In fact, Palwankar got his start in the sport thanks to those ‘dreadful’ gora sahibs—who hired him to bowl in the nets during practice. 

He was reluctantly given a place on the Pune Hindu team—because the upper caste players kept losing to the Brits and Parsis. But, but, but:

During tea breaks, Baloo was served his tea in a mud cup outside the pavilion, while the other players enjoyed tea in porcelain cups inside. If Baloo needed to wash his hands or mouth, an untouchable servant would bring water in a kettle,& Baloo would have to wash in a corner. Baloo had his lunch served on a separate plate at a separate table.

He would go on to play for the national team—playing a series in England in 1911. You can see him in the lead image—sitting on the ground, of course. There’s lots more on Palwankar in ‘Cricket Country: The Untold History of the First All India’—by Prashant Kidambi. Also: Ram Guha’s ‘A Corner of A Foreign Field’. (The Print)

Two: Think only your dog can perk his ears? Wrong! We humans also possessed this adorable talent—but lost it 35 million years ago. Here’s the really curious bit: Researchers found that “we make minute, unconscious movements of our ears that are directed towards the sound [we] want to focus our attention on.” Our brains are still trying to make us “prick” our ears even now. Of course, dogs still do it better. National Library of Medicine as the entire study. We also offer you this very educational vid of dog ears in action. (Telegraph UK)

Three: The word ‘profanity’ comes from the Latin word profanus which means “outside the temple.” Hence, the earliest examples originate in some kind of religious tradition—hence all the fuss over innocuous words like ‘holy’, ‘hell’ and ‘goddamn’. More interesting is the process by which perfectly acceptable words became swear words:

During the Renaissance, swearing started to more closely resemble modern profanity. Terms that had simply been direct or descriptive during the Middle Ages — like the C-word, which could once be found in medical treatises describing anatomy — began to take over as the new swear words. “Most of the bad words were around in the Middle Ages, they just weren’t swear words,” says Mohr.

Things got so bad during the puritanical Victorian years, even ‘leg’ and ‘trouser’ were taboo. 

Of course, human beings kept swearing—they just became invisible in any kind of public or published material. It finally changed during World War II thanks to good ole Kurt Vonnegut—who popularised ‘motherf***er’. We could go on forever—but best to stop and direct you toward Discover Magazine and Mashable. Bonus delight: Nicholas Cage’s Netflix series called ‘History of Swear Words’. You can see the trailer below.