This series was launched with an entry about the scientific truth behind five common sayings and it was very popular. So our researchers (i.e. - me) felt it was worth it trying out five more, and here they are:
1. All the tea in China: In 2003, the UN's FAO branch filed a report that China's total tea yield was approximately 800,345 metric tons.
2. Eats like a bird: Far from the suggestion that anyone who eats like a bird barely eats anything, birds on average consume more than 90 times their own body weight in food each year. Horses (from "eats like a horse") eat only about 7 times their body weight each year.
3. Only skin-deep: A lot depends on where the skin is. The skin on your eyelid is only 1/100th of an inch, but the skin on your back is 1/5 of an inch.
4. By a hair's breadth: Depends on where the hair is (and no, I'm not going to get crude here). On average, a human hair is 1/48th of an inch thick.
5. A picture is worth a thousand words: It's more a symbolic phrase than anything else, but let's look at the numbers. A photo being purchased by a national magazine like Harper's would have paid the photographer $2,000 (adjusted for inflation) in 1978. Now they pay about $350.
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