Manila folders where originally constructed with the material known as Manila Hemp, a type of fiber that comes from the leaves of the abacá tree.  Manila Hemp gets its name from the capital of the Philippines, which happens to be one of the largest growers of the abacá tree.

[From Wikipedia]

Have you ever wanted to know the origin of those common phrases you hear?  mental_floss has an article detailing the origin and meaning of some odd everyday phrases.

“To skin a cat” doesn’t actually mean a feline. It means a catfish – the skins of catfish are notoriously tough and hard to remove for cooking.

[mental_floss]

“Running is by definition the fastest means for an animal to move on foot.  It is defined in sporting terms as a gait in which at some point all feet are off the ground at the same time. It is a form of aerobic exercise.”

[read more]

From wikipedia.org

“Kinboshi, literally meaning gold star, is a term used in professional sumo wrestling to describe a maegashira victory over a yokozuna.”

[read more]

“A backronym (or bacronym) is a phrase that is constructed “after the fact” from a previously existing word or abbreviation, the abbreviation being an initialism or an acronym. Backronyms may be invented with humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology.”

[Wikipedia]

“The continent of Africa contains over one thousand languages (some have estimated over two thousand), with four major language families native to Africa.”

Language groups:
Afro-Asiatic languages
Nilo-Saharan languages
Niger-Congo languages
Khoisan languages
Non-African language families
Creole languages
Unclassified languages
Sign languages

[wikipedia 1] [wikipedia 2]

From wikipedia.org
“After the conversion of Anglo-Saxon Britain in the early 7th century, Christmas was referred to as geol[3], the name of the pre-Christian solstice festival from which the current English word ”Yule” is derived. The word “Christmas” is a contraction meaning “Christ”s mass.” It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038.”
[source]

Each and every word in the Japanese language either ends with a
vowel or an ”n”.
[en.wikipedia.org]

“”bookkeeper” is the only unhyphenated word in the English language that has three repeated letters, one after the other.”
[source]

“O Henry (pen name of William Sydney Porter) was the first to use the term filet mignon in his 1906 book The Four Million.”
[read more at the Lobster Fact Blog]