I did not know that yesterday!

The words "auld lang syne" mean "old long since" or "times long past." They show up in a song traditionally sung in many English-speaking countries on New Year's Eve (or Hogmanay, in Scotland) .

The lyrics as we know them were written as a poem in 1788 by Scotland's national bard, Robert Burns. However Burns noted it was an old ballad, and he "took it down" from a man who was singing it.

The earliest reference to the well-known lines comes from the 15th century. However the best-known written connection to Burns' work was a poem published in 1711 called "Old Longsyne" and attributed to either Sir Robert Aytoun or Francis Sempill.

The old Scots dialect can make the lyrics difficult to understand and remember. Even in Scotland, many people don't get the words right. It's the thought behind the song that really matters -- remembering old friendships in the new year.

Source: ask.yahoo.com

You'd think so, but you'd be wrong. Well, mostly wrong, anyway. While plastic is normally recyclable, traditional grocery bags are not because they're made from petroleum products.

This inconvenient truth has led the political leaders of San Francisco to enact a ban on the plastic bags.

Interestingly, as far as we can tell, some of these plastic bags are recycled. The Christian Science Monitor reports that nationally, "less than 1 percent of 100 billion plastic bags tossed each year get recycled." Obviously that's a very poor ratio, but it does show that the bags are technically recyclable.

The Sierra Club explains how. Supermarkets often offer to collect the plastic bags -- you may have seen the bins in front of stores. "In 2003 Safeway collected 7,000 tons of plastic grocery bags, pallet-wrap plastic, and dry cleaners' bags. The plastic is sold to a company that makes...lumber-like boards."

Still, few of the bags are ever collected, leaving the vast majority to float around in the breeze. In fact, the typical plastic grocery bag takes anywhere from 450 to 1,000 years to break down. The moral? Bring your own bags.

Source: Ask.yahoo.com

Soccer (better known as "football" outside the United States) has been around a long time. And when we say "a long time," we really mean it. According to the National Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum, soccer's been linked separately to ancient Egypt, the Ts'in dynasty in China, and the American Indians of the 1600s.

Many believe the English invented the sport, but from what we can gather, the Chinese deserve the bulk of the credit. Canada's CTV quotes FIFA president Sepp Blatter as saying there is evidence the Chinese played the game "a thousand years ago." It may go even further back. According to that same article, historians have discovered proof the game originated about 2,000 years ago.

FIFA.com goes into considerably more depth. An early soccer-like game called "cuju" bore many similarities to modern soccer with teams, rules, competitions, and stadiums. The game "gained favour among the rulers and the people," and over time, evolved into a worldwide phenomenon.

One question remains, though -- who came up with the word "soccer"? The always reliable Mavens' Word of the Day explains that Britain is the unlikely culprit. "The formal designation for the game we know as soccer is Association football." Mavens' explains that the word "soccer" is a kind of slangy contraction of "(As)soc(iation football)" and an "er" suffix.

Source: ask.yahoo.com