Cool tidbits of info on the Internet

[richlevy]

From Dictionary Word of the Day E-mail

Sub rosa comes from the Latin, literally "under the rose," from the ancient association of the rose with confidentiality, the origin of which traces to a famous story in which Cupid gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to bribe him not to betray the confidence of Venus. Hence the ceilings of Roman banquet-rooms were decorated with roses to remind guests that what was spoken sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.

So what do you want to bet that 'Harpo' Marx named himself that as a nod to mythology and not because his character played a harp.

Update:

It appears someone else had the same thought. From the wiki article talk page:

Harpocrates

it was recently suggested and edited into the harpo page here that harpo was names after harpocrates, the egyptian god of silence. This is untrue according to the autobiography "Harpo Speaks", and I have removed it, but Ill be god damned if this isnt an interesting point. We know that there was great interest in egyption culture or at least fashion in the 20's as well. But even if the card player who gave Harpo his name knew this, it is too interesting that harpo happened to play the harp as well, and wasn't this beore he stopped speaking on stage? As far as I can tell it's all unrelated but even if it partially wasn't, it's very coincidential.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Everything Inane (talk • contribs) 01:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC).