You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

[Lee Stewart]

Pips are the little bumps on the surface of a ping pong paddle. Paddles could have long or short pips, depending on the type of table tennis. Short pips are the more common style.

[Lee Stewart]

The tragus is the little lump of flesh in front of the ear canal. When you want to cover your ears from noise, it's the little nub that you press down.

[Lee Stewart]

The empty space between the bottle top and the liquid is an ullage. This leaves enough space, so bottles don't leak.

[Lee Stewart]

Vibrissae is another word for a cat's whiskers. The word was originally meant to refer to human nostril hairs, according to Merriam-Webster.

[Lee Stewart]

The opening in a violin is an F-hole. The violin previously had half-moon, flame, S-shape, and other designs before the standard F-hole.

[Lee Stewart]

An eggcorn is a word or a phrase that is often used by mistake for another. For example, a common eggcorn is for "all intensive purposes" instead of, the correct, "all intents and purposes."

[Lee Stewart]

If you love the smell of fresh air after rain stops, you appreciate petrichor. This pleasant smell is thanks to a mix of bacteria, plants, and lightning, BBC reports.

[Lee Stewart]

One of the common running jokes about doctors is their awful handwriting. And their scrawl has a name, griffonage. The French word means careless or illegible handwriting.

[Lee Stewart]

Zugzwang doesn't roll off the tongue, but it does refer to something people have to do often: something that you don't want to do. The word specifically refers to a chess game strategy where a player is forced to make a move that they don't want to make.

[Lee Stewart]

If you ever get sand in your eye, it likely forms in the caruncle—the small, pink inner corner of the eye.