Curiosity Is Good For You
Curiosity might have killed the cat but it is good for humans, say
psychologists at the University of Buffalo in New York State. Their study
of ninety university students looked at the degree to which curiosity in
people actively influences their personal growth opportunities and the level
of intimacy that develops when they meet someone new. Researchers say
highly curious folk tend to have a greater number of positive interpersonal
experiences. The study finds the curious have a different way to process
rewarding or “appetitive” stimuli during a relationship.
(Based on a UPI report.)
How about that! I’m not sure about the “appetitive” stimuli (appetitive:
pertaining to appetite), but surmise that it means that the curious folk who
read the Curiosity Corner are people with an appetite for answers to
questions and interesting information. That is what’s presented in this book.
I. Tell Me Why
A Big Blow
Question: They say a tropical storm becomes a hurricane when its
wind speed equals 74 miles per hour. Why such an odd number?
(Asked by a curious hurricane watcher.)
Reply: Come on, 74 isn’t an odd number, it’s an even number. (I don’t want
complaints from my math readers.) Seriously, 74 mi/h is somewhat of a
strange number to pick. Actually it wasn’t picked, it just happened. In the
early 1800s, Commander Francis Beaufort of the British Royal Navy
devised a descriptive wind scale based on the state and behavior of a “wellconditioned man-of-war [ship].” This was a numbered “force” scale with no
mention of wind speed. There were force ranges from 0 to 12 – with force 0
being calm and force 12 a hurricane situation.
With the development of accurate anemometers (which measure wind
speed), wind speed ranges were assigned to the force numbers:
Force 4: winds of 13-19 mi/h (moderate breeze);
Force 10: winds of 56-64 mi/h (storm);
Force 11: winds of 65-73 mi/h (violent storm); and
Force 12: winds of 74+ mi/h (hurricane).
The somewhat arbitrary wind speed of 74 mi/h (64 knots) was taken to be
the initial wind speed of a hurricane. Batten down the hatches!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): An intellectual is a man who takes more words
than necessary to tell more than he knows.
-- Dwight Eisenhower
Oh That $0.009
Question: Why is it that the price of a gallon of gasoline has 0.009 or
9/10 of a cent added on? It’s like they think that people don’t know that
it is essentially another cent. (Asked by a curious motorist.)
Reply: Well, I suspect it has something to do with marketing – sort of like
pricing an item at $0.29 rather than $0.30; it looks “cheaper.” However in
this case, they are really pushing it, $2.999 instead of $3.000. (You save a
whole one-tenth of a cent.)
This is generally confirmed by reply from the Chevron Information
Office in answer to this question: “… the $0.009 is not set by Chevron, but
rather, by the independent dealer… A dealer does not have to use the $0.009
in the pricing. Historically, however, the $0.009 has been used as a
marketing tool by many dealers. For example, rather than increase the retail
price by the next whole 1.0 cent, a price of $1.59.9 may be more attractive to
the price-conscious consumer than $1.600. … We don’t know who first
began using the $0.009 pricing.”
I have to agree, it is a bit disconcerting to have that small 9 there at the
end of the price, and we generally just say the price per gallon is what the
big numbers say, such as $2.75 for $2.759. Let’s fight back against this.
Gas guzzlers of the world unite! How about driving into a gas station where
the price is $2.999 per gallon, and buy just one gallon can of gas (say for the
lawn mower). You pay this with three $1 bills and wait. After blocking the
pumps for a while, an attendant comes and asks what is wrong. Oh, nothing,
I’m just waiting for my change, 1/10 cent please.
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): I’ve learned … that life is like a roll of
toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.
-- Andy Rooney
Do You Know Your Starboard From Your Larboard?
Question: Why do they call the right side of a ship "starboard" and the
left side "port"? (Asked by a curious landlubber.)
Reply: This is, of course, if you are facing forward on the ship. The terms
originate from early ships. These were commonly steered with a large
paddle or oar that was on the right. In old English, this was known as the
"starbord" or steer board. Since it was on the right, starboard became known
as the right side of the ship
Originally the left side of the ship was known as the "larboard'" side.
This term came from "laerebord," meaning empty board (no steering board
on that side). However, because the steering was on the right, the early ships
coming into port would tie up at the dock on the left side, so the left side
became known as the "port" side. Port eventually supplanted larboard, most
likely because larboard and starboard sound alike and could be confused.
The red and green running lights on ships, boats, and airplanes tell
which side is starboard and port. To help remember which is which, the
phrase "red port wine" is often used -- the red light is on the port (left) side
of the craft and the green light on the starboard (right) side.
You may be wondering: why a porthole? The original purpose of
these holes was for guns -- not just for looking out. They were on the port
side of the ship for shelling ports. When portholes were added on the right
side later as windows for the crew to see out, the name porthole remained.
Good thing. Who would want to look out a starboardhole?
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): If it weren’t for electricity, we’d all be
watching TV by candlelight.
-- George Gobel
Good Morning Earthshine
Question: During the first part of April there was a crescent moon near
the horizon with the large dark part of the Moon visible by a faint glow.
What caused this glow? (Asked by a curious moon watcher.)
Reply: You were seeing moonlight (reflected sunlight) from the bright
crescent portion of the Moon and “earthshine” from the faintly illuminated
portion. Leonardo da Vinci explained this phenomenon almost 500 years
ago. During a crescent moon, the Sun is on the other side of the Moon from
the Earth, and the darkened lunar surface is faintly lit by sunlight reflected
from the Earth. And so this faintly reflected light is called earthshine. The
sight is sometimes referred to as “the old moon in the new moon’s arms”, or
the Moon’s “ashen glow.”
Keep in mind that earthshine is quite different from moonshine.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) When I was young, we used to go “skinny
dipping,” now I just go “chunky dunking.”
-- Anonymous
Umbrella, Parasol, or Bumbershoot?
Question: Why is “bumbershoot” a nickname for an umbrella? (Asked
by a curious reader left out in the rain.)
Reply: Before we go bumbering and shooting, let’s get some background on
the origin of the word umbrella. Umbrella is an Italian word meaning
sunshade and was probably derived from the Latin “umbra” meaning
shadow. (When you are in the umbra or shadow of the Moon during a solar
eclipse, you have a total eclipse, and the Sun is completely blocked.)
Another word for umbrella is parasol, which breaks down into the words
para- (guard against) and sol (Sun). The German word for umbrella is
“Regenshirm” – rain shield.
Now back to bumbershoot. Its origin appears to be the result of a play
on words that is prevalent in American slang. Put a “b” in the front of
umbrella, you get “bumbrella” with “bum” as the first syllable. This gives
rise to “bumbsol” from parasol. Then because an umbrella resembles a
parachute, you have “bumberchute,” which became popularized as
“bumbershoot”. No one knows for sure, but the development of the word
likely happened this way.
You might have noticed “bumbershoot” in the lyrics of the song sung
by Dick Van Dyke in the movie, “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang”:
Me ol’ bam-boo, me ol’ bam-boo
You’d never bother me with me ol’ bam-boo
You can have me hat or me bumbershoot
But you’d better never bother me with me ol’ bam-boo
Now a couple of trivia questions to keep the column readers’ minds sharp:
What was “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang,” and what was “me ol’ bam-boo”?
Answers: Chitty was the magical flying car in the children’s musical. Meol’ bam-boo refers to gentleman’s a walking stick made from bamboo.
And one more…who wrote Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang? You’d
probably never guess. (I didn’t know.) Ian Fleming, the author of James
Bond of 007 fame. How about that?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The trouble with bucket seats is that not
everyone has the same size bucket.
-- Anonymous
It’s Not the Third Degree
Question: Why is a college degree called a “bachelor’s” degree?
(Asked by a curious college student.)
Reply: A bachelor’s degree has nothing to do with marital status. You can
still be married and get a bachelor’s degree. Seriously, the word bachelor is
derived from the Latin word baccalarius, which originally referred to
someone of low rank in the feudal system. As time progressed, this meaning
was extended to denote subordinate positions in other systems
and
included those holding a preliminary degree from a college or university.
The holder of a bachelor’s degree could proceed to obtain a master’s degree,
which entitled a person to teach and be a full member of the university.
At one time, the terms “master” and “doctor” were equivalent with
scholars in arts and grammar having the title master, and those in
philosophy, medicine, law, and theology the title doctor. However, in
German universities the term doctor came to be applied to advance degrees
in all disciplines and this usage was eventually adopted throughout the
world.
In the United States and Great Britain, the modern gradation of
academic degrees is usually bachelor (or baccalaureate), master, and doctor.
The bachelor’s degree marks the completion of undergraduate study
ordinarily lasting four years. The master’s degree usually requires one to
two more years of course work, an examination, and a thesis or some
research. (There are non-thesis master’s degrees.) The master’s degrees are
generally the M.A. (master of arts) and the M.S. (master of science).
The degree of doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) is offered by universities
that admit advanced students and is granted after study, examination, and
original research. There are some specific doctor degrees, such as M.D.
(doctor of medicine) and J.D. (doctor of jurisprudence – for lawyers).
Personally, I did the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. route -- 4 years, 2 years,
and 4 years, respectively. Ten years in all after high school, but I was a slow
learner. Recently I was giving some personal data to a person recording it
on a computer.
“How many years of schooling have you had?”
“Do you mean grade school, high school, and all?” I asked.
“Yes, all the years.”
“Let’s see 12 years in the public schools and 10 years of college – that’s 22
years in all.”
A strange look came over the person’s face. He turned to me with a notknowing-what-to-do look on his face and said, “My computer only goes up
to 18 years.” So I settled for 18. That put me on the fast track.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): 2 is not equal to 3, not even for
large values of 2.
-- Grabel’s law
Boom, Boom, Boom, … 21 times
Question: Why does the President receive a 21-gun salute? That is,
why 21? (Submitted by a curious military buff.)
Reply: Various salutes, such as raising swords, have come down through
history. With the advent of guns, a gun salute developed. Early warships
fired cannon in a seven-gun salute. Why seven? Who knows? Seven was a
very auspicious number. Seven planets had been identified at that time, the
Moon changes phases in about seven days, and the Bible says that God
rested on the seventh day.
Ships were somewhat limited in firing guns compared to land
batteries. On board a ship, there was less storage space for gunpowder and it
was difficult to keep the powder dry. With more gunpowder, drier storage,
and faster reloading, land batteries could fire three guns for every one of
those aboard ship (aha, 3 x 7 = 21). With the development of better
gunpowder and conditions, ships were able adopted the 21-gun salute.
Eventually, there was an agreement made that the international salute should
be 21-guns.
The United States didn’t adopt the 21-gun salute as a presidential
salute until 1842. Prior to this time, a presidential salute, as established in
1810, was 17 guns (equal to the number of states at the time). Today a
salute of 21 guns is fired in the honor of the national flag, the sovereign or
chief of state of a foreign nation, a member of a reigning royal family, and
the president, ex-president, and president-elect of the United States. A 21gun salute is also fired at noon of the day of the funeral of any of the latter
three. Gun salutes are also given for military and civilian leaders of this and
other nations. The number of gunshots depends on their protocol rank, but is
always an odd number.
And from the Curiosity Corner, Salute!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and
they think it is hell.
-- Harry Truman
No Air Conditioning Needed
Question: When people live inside an igloo there has to be heat. Why
doesn’t it melt? (Asked by a curious youngun’ who read about Nanook
of the North.)
Reply: An igloo is an icy dome structure that serves as a temporary winter
home or hunting shelter for Alaskan Inuits (Eskimos). In the construction of
an igloo, blocks of hardened snow are cut from a snowdrift and shaped so
that successive circular layers form a narrowing spiral in the shape of a
dome. A keystone block at the top finishes the dome and a half cylindrical
entrance or “porch” is added. The gaps between the snow blocks are then
filled in with more snow.
The finishing touch comes from a whale-blubber lamp placed in the
igloo and the entrance sealed with a block of snow. Heat from the lamp
causes the snow on the inside to melt somewhat. Because of the dome
structure, the water melts down the sides of the igloo and soaks the blocks of
snow. When the blocks are almost saturated, the entrance is opened, the
lamp extinguished, and the cold outside air comes in to freeze the igloo into
one hard and solid structure.
When an igloo is inhabited, it has an interior temperature between 50
and 60 degrees Fahrenheit while the outside temperature may be well below
zero. The interior temperature is maintained by the body heat from the
tenants, along with blubber oil lamps. Not until late spring, when the exterior
temperature rises, does an igloo begin to melt. So in the winter, the
occupants have a relatively warm home in which to live and eat pies -Eskimo pies, of course.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Change is inevitable -- except from a vending
machine.
--Anonymous
Hi-Ho Silver
Question: Commemorative statutes of soldiers on horseback sometimes
have the legs of the horses lifted. I have heard the number of hoofs
lifted into the air reveals how the rider died. Is this true? (Asked by a
curious equestrian.)
Reply: Folk wisdom has it that equestrian statutes have a code whereby the
rider’s fate can be determined by how many hooves the horse has raised.
(Hooves or hoofs are both correct, in case you are wondering.) The common
theory is that if one hoof is raised, the rider was wounded in battle; two
raised hooves, the rider died in battle; and all four hooves on the ground, the
rider survived all battles unharmed.
The hoof code generally holds for statues at the Gettysburg battlefield,
with one noticeable exception. Confederate General James Longstreet was
not wounded in this battle, yet his horse has one foot raised. (He was
wounded later in the Wilderness Campaign – I know, picky, picky, picky.)
If you look at statues in Washington, D.C., the code is not followed well.
Washington, D.C. is the home of more equestrian statues than any other city
in the nation and perhaps only 10 out of some 30 statutes follow the
convention. So it seems that if there was a code, some sculptors were
unaware of the tradition or chose to ignore it.
Another folklore statue code is that statues of Confederates who died
in the war face north, and those who survived face south. This theory can be
tested by examining the statues on Memorial Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.
Here there are Civil War statutes honoring Generals Robert E. Lee,
Stonewall Jackson, Jeb (J.E.B.) Stuart, and Confederate President Jefferson
Davis. Lee faces south and Jackson faces north which follows the code.
However, Stuart’s horse faces north; but Stuart, who was mortally wounded
at Yellow Tavern, faces east, as does Jefferson Davis. [For the curious, the
initials J.E.B in Stuart’s name are for James Ewell Brown. Also, another
interesting tidbit -- Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson was a physics professor at
Virginia Military Institute (VMI) prior to the Civil War.]
There you have it. But what about an equestrian statue with all four
hooves off the ground? Here I can help. Such a statue would be a case of
anti-gravity. (I’m allergic to gravity myself.)
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know
what you have just found out.
-- Will Rogers
Roll No More
Question: Why do dogs like to roll in decaying organic matter? (Asked
by the Curiosity Corner writer – curious me.)
Reply: This question has crossed my mind at various times. I have a dog –
Max. (Full name: Prince Maximillian of Monaco. It’s on his papers. I
wrote the name there right after I got him out of the animal shelter.) Max,
my neighbor’s dog, and most dogs take great pleasure in finding something
that is decaying and rolling in it. Living by a lake, dead fish are a favorite.
Smells to high heaven! No one wants to get close enough to give Max a
bath.
I’ve asked several people about this, including veterinarians, and no one
seems to know. So I got on the World Wide Web and posed the question. A
scientist got back to me with a plausible answer. She wrote:
“Greetings. It is thought that dogs may choose to roll in foul smelling
things to mask their scent, just as wolves do. Wolves may roll in
decomposing carcasses or the feces of herbivores to disguise
themselves. They want to cover their own odors so their prey won’t
be alarmed by their scent. This way they can sneak up on their prey
and have a better chance of making a kill. Some behaviorists feel dogs
may roll in smelly things to advertise what they have found to other
dogs. No matter what the reason, unfortunately some of our domestic
friends have held on to this trait.”
Maybe it’s an old instinct, but I wish Max wouldn’t roll in things to
advertise what he has found.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I am not what I think I am. I am not what you
think I am. I am what I think, you think that I am.
--Anonymous
Is It Real?
Question: I see sales people holding up bills to look at them in the light
and/or marking them with a magic marker. Why is this? (Asked by a
curious currency user.)
Reply: Counterfeiting, or illegal reproduction, of currency is an old
endeavor. Sophisticated copiers, printers, digital scanners, and computers
make this illegal activity easier than in the old days (BC – before
computers). And so, the U.S. Treasury uses various features on bills to
make exact reproductions difficult to do.
When a person holds a bill up to the light, it is being investigated for a
watermark. This is a feature on the 1999 series bills -- those with the
portraits off-centered to the left. The off-centering was done to make room
for the watermark. If you hold one of these bills ($5, $10, $20, etc.) up to a
light with the portrait facing you, you can see the watermark image in the
right part of the bill. The image is the same figure as that of the engraved
portrait. The watermark can be seen from both sides of the bill.
Varying the paper density in a small area during the papermaking
process allows the watermark. The watermark guards against the counterfeit
technique of bleaching ink off a lower denomination bill and using the paper
to “reprint” the bill as a higher denomination note.
The paper on which bills are printed is a special cotton or linen “rag”
paper. It is made from cotton or linen rags that are beaten into fibers. When
formed into paper, the fibers bond together very firmly and water has little
effect on the paper. This is why bills survive a trip through the washing
machine when inadvertently left in clothes. Counterfeit money, on the other
hand, is printed on common paper that is made out of cellulose – trees.
Notebook paper and newspaper print are examples. The cellulose fibers do
not bond firmly and come apart in water.
Now we are ready for the magic marker question. This counterfeit
detection method is based on simple chemistry. The marker contains an
iodine compound in the ink, which is usually a yellowish color. When a real
bill is marked with the marker, nothing happens -- that is, no color change.
But when the marker is applied to a counterfeit bill printed on cellulosebased paper, the iodine reacts with the starch in the paper and the pen mark
turns black.
Oh, oh – what if a counterfeiter put a yellow mark on a bogus bill?
Would a salesperson make a second mark to check?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The secret of a good sermon is to have a good
beginning and a good ending; and have the two as close together as possible.
-- George Burns
A See-Through
Question: We have all seen our share of political speeches on TV. Most
speakers don’t use notes and could not have memorized all the material.
There must be monitors somewhere, but we do not see them. Where are
they? (Asked by a curious TV couch potato.)
Reply: For sure they use them. They are called teleprompters and use a
“two-way” mirror (sometimes called a one-way mirror or a half-silvered
mirror). The audience sees through a teleprompter as if it weren’t there. A
speech is projected on to the other side, which the speaker can see and read.
Think of the police investigation rooms that have a “one-way” glass
window. People outside can see in, but to those inside see a surface
reflecting light and so looks like a mirror. Closer to home (none of my
readers have been in a police interrogation room), think of being in a lighted
room with a big window at night. When you look at the window you see
your reflection as in a mirror, but someone outside can look through the
window and clearly see what is going on inside. Notice there is a difference
in lighting. A person on the bright or well-lit side sees reflected light and a
person on the dark side sees through the window.
So in the TV speeches, a speaker is on the bright side – the podium
well-lit with spotlights. The audience is on the darker side and sees the
speaker through the teleprompter screen set up between the speaker and the
audience. There is usually more than one screen so a speaker can turn and
talk toward different parts of an audience. The speech script is entered into a
computer program, and the script is projected (usually from below) onto the
mirror (speaker) side, which can be easily read by a speaker.
An experienced teleprompter operator can match the scrolling script
to a speaker’s pace and allow for pauses, smile notices, and adlibbing. Of
course the speech is usually rehearsed and the operator formats the script so
things run smoothly. Difficult words can be phonetically spelled out -- like
Qu-ree-oss-it-tee-Koor-ner. (Did you get that one?)
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): My wife has two complaints; nothing to wear
and not enough closet space.
-- Anonymous
Don’t Lag Behind
Question: After long airplane flights, why do people get “jet lag”?
(Asked by a curious frequent flyer.)
Reply: When you have jet lag, your body is out of whack and you may
suffer from fatigue, inability to sleep, headaches, loss of concentration, and
so on. Jet lag occurs when you cross time zones and upset your internal 24hour biological clock process, known as circadian rhythms. The important
factors of sunrise and sunset and periods of daylight and darkness influence
biological cycles and travel can cause these factors to change.
Jet lag results from eastward or westward flights. (North or south
flights generally do not change time zones.) It is easier to cope with flying
in a westward direction compared with flying eastward. When flying west,
you are going with the apparently westward-moving Sun and daylight and
darkness do not change as much. For an eastward traveler going in the
opposite direction to the Sun’s westward motion, the day is shorter, the
disruption of the circadian rhythms is more severe, and the jet lag can be
greater.
Let’s take a short-trip example. Suppose you live in California and
fly to New York, where the time is three hours later (Eastern Standard Time,
EST). On arriving, you set your watch accordingly. At the time of your
usual 11 p.m. bedtime, your body’s time is 8 p.m. (Pacific Standard Time,
PST). As a result you may have a difficult time getting to sleep. Eventually
you nod off, and having set your alarm clock for 6 a.m., you roll out when it
rings. But your body says “Hold it! – it is only 3 a.m. – what is happening?
I’m not rested and need more sleep.” When traveling across even more time
zones, the jet lag gets worse.
Here’s another example, flight from Atlanta, Georgia to Frankfurt,
Germany. You fly out at about 5 p.m., are served dinner, relax a bit, and
then stay up to watch a movie. In so doing, you do not get to sleep until
after 11 p.m. Then, about 1 a.m. – dong, dong – “Ladies and gentlemen
please prepare for landing.” A short night, it is 7 a.m. Frankfurt time (6
hours difference). Needless to say, there are some sleepy movie watchers.
Even flying westward, you can imagine the jet lag effect of flying on a nonstop flight from New York to Tokyo, Japan. There is a 14 hour difference,
and it may be the next day (date) in Japan (the International Date Line is
crossed). Jet lag from such a flight could affect the performance of athletes,
so plans are made for them to arrive well in the advance of an event and
have time to get their circadian rhythms back in sync with local day and
night.
What can you do to help prevent jet lag? For one, don’t drink coffee
or tea in the evening that might keep you awake. During the week prior to
departure, you might gradually adjust the time for going to bed and getting
up according to the time where you are going so you will be used to the new
conditions. Some medications may be appropriate, but don’t lag on
consulting your doctor beforehand.
C.P.S. (Curiosity Postscript): When a woman says she has nothing to wear,
she means nothing new. What a man says he has nothing to wear, he means
he has nothing clean.
-- Anonymous
It’s Your Duty
Question: What are these “duty-free” shops seen in airports? (Asked
by a curious tourist whose eye caught the word “free”.)
Reply: A “duty” is a customs tax paid to import something into a country.
Duty-free shops in international terminals sell perfume, candy, liquor,
tobacco, and so on. The implication is that you get things are cheaper by
being duty free. You buy something in a duty free store and it is delivered to
your flight gate where you pick it up before boarding.
The shop does not pay duty on the merchandise they buy and import.
The idea is that at an airport, the merchandise has not technically entered the
country. Since the shop sells it to you when you are leaving the country, no
import duty has to be paid by the shop. These savings are supposedly passed
on to the departing buyers -- but are duty-free prices bargains?
Merchandise may be cheaper outside the airport than in the duty-free
shop, so it may pay to compare prices. U.S. citizens are allowed a personal
exemption of several hundred dollars (no custom tax) on items purchased in
other countries and brought into the U.S. So you will have an allowance
when you fly internationally that allows you to bring a set amount of dutyfree merchandise home with you. Keep this in mind and do not get too
carried away in the duty-free shops.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Half of the American people have never read a
news paper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half.
-- Gore Vidal (1925 - ), novelist and playwright.
Where Has It Gone?
Question: When I was kid growing up, the antiseptics of choice for cuts
and scrapes were iodine and mercurochrome, which left nice brown and
red stains, respectively. We still have iodine, but where has all the
mercurochrome gone? (Asked by a curious merc man.)
Reply: Mercurochrome is a mercury-based compound used as an antibacterial antiseptic. My mom kept an abundant supply of mercurochrome
around and a scraped knee or small finger cut got a little sting and turned red
with its application -- there was even a yellow-green sheen to it. But now
there is no more mercurochrome (technically known as merbromin) on
drugstore shelves. Has it been banned? Well, yes, in a sense.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the responsibility of
determining whether or not pharmaceuticals and food additives are safe.
When given this responsibility in a 1938 act of Congress, there were
hundreds of unchecked products. Products like mercurochrome that had
been around for years with seemingly no ill effects were given a “generally
recognized as safe” (GRAS) status. In 1978 the FDA began a review of
mercury-containing over-the-counter products. In general, FDA approval
requires studies to be done to show a product is safe and this testing had
never been done for mercurochrome.
Even though the amount of mercury in mercurochrome is small,
mercury poisoning is a consideration. (You may recall a FDA advisory that
warned pregnant women and young children not to eat certain fish because
of high mercury levels.) In 1998 the FDA pulled the GRAS status of
mercurochrome and classified it as a “new drug.” This meant that a
company wanting to sell mercurochrome had to put it through a rigorous and
costly approval process. No one did, and the FDA forbade the sale of
mercurochrome across state lines, which effectively killed the product.
Mercurochrome will probably never be tested because there are more
effective antiseptics such as merthiolate and metaphen. The FDA decision
was one of those “better-safe-than-sorry” decisions since mercury poisoning
can harm various body organs and fetuses.
In some states, mercury fever thermometers for checking body
temperature are illegal. (The electronic digital type is safer.) There is also
controversy about amalgam tooth fillings which are about 50% mercury.
There are claims that the mercury filters out of the fillings into the body.
The FDA has not seen fit to ban amalgam from dentistry. (Plastic fillings
are now commonly used.)
The Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is said to
have suffered from mercury poisoning. A mercury compound was used to
treat beaver skins for hats in the 1800s, and it was common for workers in
the hatting industry to develop mercury poisoning that affected the brain,
making them act a bit weird.
I have a mouthful of amalgam fillings, so I have a mercurial excuse
for my actions.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Veni, Vidi, VISA. I came, I saw, I did a little
shopping.
-- Anonymous
Frost on the Pumpkin
Question: At what temperature does frost form? I have observed it
when the temperature was above 32 degrees. (Asked by a curious frostconscientious observer.)
Reply: To avoid any misconceptions, frost is not frozen dew. Dew results
from the condensation of water vapor to liquid water. Frost results from the
deposition of water vapor – going directly from a gas to a solid (ice).
Deposition is the reverse of sublimation, where the change is from a solid
directly to a gas. Dry ice is an example. We often have frost when the
temperature is above freezing, but the conditions have to be “right” for the
frost to occur.
Water vapor in air condenses to a liquid state when the temperature is
lowered to the dew point (temperature). Frost develops when the
temperature lowers to the frost point, which is essentially the same as the
dew point for temperatures at or below freezing.
Standard air temperature measurements are taken about two yards
above the ground, and on a calm night the ground temperature can be as
much as five to seven degrees cooler than the standard temperature reading.
Thus, frost can form on the ground when the recorded air temperature is
above freezing. Higher levels may be cooler than the recorded temperature
and frost is likely to form first on the roofs of houses. If there is much wind,
frost (or dew) will not form. Wind mixes the atmosphere and any
temperature differences disappear.
Ideal conditions for frost formation are a night with clear skies, light
or no wind, and a temperature forecast near or below freezing. Much of the
water vapor that goes into frost and dew actually comes from the soil and
plants. With dry soil and vegetation, the formation of frost or dew is less
likely. But even with the lack of rain, there may be frost on the pumpkin.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I must confess, I was born at a very early age.
-- Groucho Marx
From Tears to Rears
Here are a few short ones I hope you enjoy.
Question: Why is it said that someone is crying crocodile tears?
Reply: Crocodile tears means to fake sadness or a reason for crying. When
crocodiles eat a big meal, they do cry and have tears. This is because tear
ducts near the corners of their eyes automatically release tears when the jaws
are opened widely. The croc isn't sad at all about getting a meal -- just
shedding crocodile tears.
Question: Why is a skunk called a polecat?
Reply: The polecat is a member of the weasel family native to Europe and
looks similar to a skunk. Skunks were mistakenly called polecats by
American immigrants. However, the smell helped everyone to distinguish a
skunk from anything else.
Question: Why do cakes fall sometimes when an oven door is slammed
shut?
Reply: Baking powder in the batter releases gas to make a cake rise to a
point slightly higher than when fully baked. While rising to this maximum
height, the batter is unstable, with the cell walls holding the gas being very
thin and weak. A loud noise or vibration may cause them to break and cause
the cake to fall. When the liquid batter converts to a solid structure, the cake
is not likely to be affected by a slam of the oven door.
Question: Why is the lowest ranking admiral in the Navy called a rear
admiral?
Reply: Back in the old days of sailing fleets, the ships in a fleet were
divided into sections with a pecking order. The top admiral got to sail up
front and the low admiral on the totem pole brought up the rear, and
therefore was called a rear admiral. (Maybe they sat a lot too.) The word
admiral comes from the Arabic amir al, meaning “lord of the.”
Actually the rank of rear admiral is divided into two grades – upper
half and lower half. The rank is the same, but the upper half admiral is
higher on the seniority list, receives more pay, and wears two stars. Our rear
admiral in the cartoon with one star is a rear admiral lower half.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I went to a fight the other night and a hockey
game broke out.
-- Rodney Dangerfield
II. Things Everyone Should Know
For Good Measure – by Weight or by Volume?
Question: Is the old saying, “a pint’s a pound the world around,” true?
(Asked by a curious cook.)
Reply: The answer is yes and no. It depends on what you are talking about.
The saying is a pretty good approximation for water and other similar freepouring liquids. Water weighs 8.3 pound per gallon (lb/gal); and with 2
cups to a pint, 2 pints to a quart, 4 quarts to a gallon, or 8 pints to a gallon, a
pint of water weighs 8.3 lb/8 pt = 1.04 lb/pt. Pretty close to a pound for
water and other liquids such as milk or juice.
A pint (16 oz.) is close to a pound the world around for water and
similar liquids, but not for heavy liquids such as mercury, and in particular,
solids. The liquid-solid mix up comes about because:
1 pint = 16 oz. (fluid)
1 pound = 16 oz. (weight)
Two different kinds of ounces (oz.)! The fluid ounce is a volume
measurement and the weight ounce, as the name implies, a weight
measurement.
If a recipe calls for a cup of milk or a cup of heavy syrup, both have
the same 8 fl oz. volume, but different weights. But what about cups of
solids? Suppose a recipe calls for a cup each of flour, sugar, and shredded
coconut. Cups of these ingredients would weigh differently, but the recipe is
calling for a volumetric measurement.
For flour and sugar, scraping to level the top of a full cup gives an
accurate volume measurement. How about shredded coconut? One brand of
coconut may be fluffier than another and there would be different amounts
in a cup volume. Do you pack the coconut down in the cup? Enlightened
recipe writers wouldn’t say a cup (volume) of coconut, but rather something
such as 4 oz. (weight) of coconut. You could weigh out this amount or
guess what volume this would be from the weight on the package. For
example, if the coconut package contained 8 oz. (weight), one half the
package would be 4 oz. Generally for solids, weight amounts are the best
way to go.
Looking around the kitchen at home, and here are some examples of
fluid and weight measurements I found: can of soda, 12 fl oz. (355 mL);
maple syrup, 8.5 fl oz. (250 mL); can of pink salmon, net wt., 14.75 oz (418
grams); little can of peas, net wt., 8.5 oz. (240 g). Do you see the difference
in liquid and solid measures in different ounces? The syrup and peas are
both 8.5 oz., but one fluid (fl) and one weight (net wt.). Check it out in your
kitchen cupboard or pantry. Note that the metric amounts are also given, but
no problem there – volume (liquid) in milliliters (mL), and weight (really
mass) in grams (g). No confusion. Go metric!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The reason a dog has so many friends is that he
wags his tail instead of his tongue.
--Anonymous
Big Brass
Question: How many five star generals have there are been? Are there
any now? (Asked by a curious veteran.)
Reply: The rank of five star general (technically General of the Army) was
created during World War II so U.S. commanders wouldn’t be outranked by
Allied officers they might supervise. It was suggested that the new rank be
called Field Marshal, similar to the British rank, but General George C.
Marshall objected. Who would want to be called Field Marshal Marshall?
So, it was called General of the Army and given a five star ranking.
There have been four five-star generals, along with four Navy
admirals (Fleet Admiral is equivalent rank to five-star general), and one Air
Force five-star general. These are, with dates of award:
Army
Date
Gen. George C. Marshall
June 16, 1944
Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Dec. 18, 1944
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dec. 20, 1944
Gen. Omar N. Bradley
Sept. 20, 1944
Navy
Adm. William D. Leahy
Dec. 15, 1944
Adm. Ernest J. King
Dec. 17, 1944
Adm. Chester Nimitz
Dec. 19, 1944
Adm. William F. (“Bull”) Halsey Dec. 11, 1945
Air Force
Gen. Henry H. (“Hap”) Arnold
Dec. 21, 1944
General Arnold actually received his fifth star when he was part of the
Army. When the U.S. Army Air Corps. was separated from the Army, thus
becoming the U.S. Air Force, “Hap” Arnold became the first and only five
star general of the new service. With the death of General Bradley in 1981,
there are no living officers with the five star rank.
Does something outrank a five star ranking? Yes, but again, no living
officer holds it. In 1919, Gen. John J. Pershing was awarded the rank of
General of the Armies (note Armies), which is considered by some to be a
six star ranking. (Pershing never wore six stars, only four, which was the
highest rank at the time.) In 1976, George Washington was posthumously
awarded the rank of General of the Armies by a joint resolution of Congress,
and was to “have precedence over all other ranks of the Army, past or
present.” President Gerald Ford issued a presidential decree that George
Washington would always remain senior and could never be outranked by
another officer in the U.S. military. (Personally, I never got above Specialist
Fourth Class of the Army.)
C.P.S. (Curiosity Postscript): Life would be infinitely happier if we could
only be born at the age of 80 and gradually approach eighteen.
--Mark Twain
Duck, It’s a Duct
Question: Which is it, “duck” tape or “duct” tape? (Asked by a
curious taper.)
Reply: This tape has gotten publicity recently as being part of a home kit
against chemical and biological terrorist attacks – for taping up the doors
and windows. Duck or duct? Take your choice, it has been called both.
This adhesive tape was invented in the 1920s, but wasn’t manufactured
commercially until the early 1940s. It was originally used during WWII to
keep moisture out of ammunition cases, and because of its waterproof
features was called “duck” tape. Also, it was made from duck cloth, a
durable, tightly woven cotton fabric. Heavyweight duck cloth is used in
awnings, tents, etc. Light duck is used in summer clothing. The tape had a
nice Army olive-drab color.
After the war, there was a building boom and the tape found use in
connecting ductwork together. It did not take long for the color to be
changed to silver or gray, so as to better match the color of ductwork, and
the term “duct” tape came into use.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Remember: today is the tomorrow that you
worried about yesterday.
-- Dale Carnegie
Only a Penny More
Question: Why are items sold for “something-9” cents, like 89 cents?
Why don’t they just round it off to an even 90 cents? (Asked by a
curious conscientious shopper.)
Reply: It may sound like a conspiracy to keep pennies in circulation, but it
is more of a marketing psychology. It is generally thought that the pricing
that ends in a 9-digit started when most foods were sold in bulk by the pound
(before all this prepackaged stuff). Odd numbers make it more difficult for
buyers to figure out the cost of a quarter- or half-pound, so they just buy the
whole pound.
This practice seems to have persisted, and now you find many grocery
store prices ending in a 9 digit. One marketing theory holds that consumers
tend to think in multiples of 5 cents: 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, etc. If something
costs 69 cents, then it seems you are getting a penny discount from the 70
cents price. (What if the price were 71 cents? You may think you are being
overcharged by a penny.) Doesn’t a price of 99 cents sound better than
$1.00? What a bargain -- a penny off.
Then there is multiple pricing, such as “2 for 69 cents.” It seems like
you are getting a better buy by purchasing more. Sure, if you buy only one
you are charged the extra half cent – unless it’s “3 for 99 cents” – and you’re
more likely to buy 3. Marketing is a big ploy. For example, grocery stores
will sometimes rearrange their shelves. This is so you can’t find the items
you want in their familiar places. You have to look up and down the aisles,
and as a result you tend to buy more rather than going directly to an item
you want.
I used marketing psychology once at a college function where a
student organization was selling chances. I suggested that they be priced as
“5 cents each or 4 for a quarter.” They took in a lot of quarters.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies,
and statistics.
-- Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
That “something 9” cent Price, One More Time
Question: It has to do with cash registers?
A special treat… a column guest. We’ve talked about this “9” thing in
prices … something 29 cents instead of 30 cents (and you don’t have four
pennies and get a penny back). A colleague of mine, George Franke, who is
an engineer, sent me a more practical reason which I pass on to you.
Here’s what he says: A while back you answered a question about
why prices often end in “9”, such as 29 cents or $1.99. Your answer is
certainly correct in that it makes the prices seem less, thereby increasing
sales. However, there is another reason.
When cash registers were first invented, they were hard to sell. The
pull-out wooden cash drawer was much cheaper. Granted, it would be nice
to have a running total of the cash in the drawer with a cash register, but the
expensive new technology was not quickly embraced.
But the cash register came into use when it was recognized that it
could save more money than it cost. A problem at the time was employee
theft. Some poorly paid sales clerks were stealing money from the cash
drawer. Enter the cash register. The machine would keep track of the
amount of money in the drawer.
But there were still problems. How do you get the clerk to use the
cash register for every sale? The first solution: put a bell on the machine
that rang every time the drawer opened. This helped attract attention of the
“floor walkers” who were originally hired to look for clerks with sticky
fingers. They were alerted to every sale that was rung up on the cash
register.
However, there was another problem. With rounded prices such fifty
cents or one dollar for merchandise, the exact amount could be easily paid
and there was a question about whether the clerk would put the money in the
cash register or in his/her pocket. Therefore, prices were changed to odd
amounts, usually ending in “7”, “8”, or “9”. Few customers would have the
exact amount, making it necessary for the clerk to open the cash register
drawer to make change.
(How about that? I appreciate the insight and input.)
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The quickest way to double your money is to
fold it and put it back into your pocket.
-- Will Rogers
Let’s Get It Strait
Question: People are sometimes put in “straightjackets.” Why are they
called straightjackets? (Asked by a curious confined person.)
Reply: Such jackets may keep one straight, but they are actually
straitjackets. Straight and strait are pronounced the same, but the word
“strait” means narrow or tight, and a straitjacket is just that.
There are some other uses of “strait.” Some people are “strait-laced,”
meaning they have narrow views. Also, a narrow channel of water is
referred to as a strait, for example, the Strait of Gibraltar or the Bering Strait.
You can see this meaning biblically. If you check out Matt 7:13-14 or Luke
13:24 in the King James Version (KJV), you will be told to enter “at the
strait gate.” In the New King James Version (NKJV), the passages refer to a
“narrow gate.” However, in both the KJV and NKJV, there is reference to a
street called Straight (Acts 9:11).
Now, we have that straitened out.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): For every complicated problem, there is a
simple, easy-to-understand wrong answer.
-- Anonymous
Mind Your Q’s and Z’s
Question: Why are there no letters “Q” and “Z” on older telephones?
(Asked by a curious caller.)
Reply: I used to play a joke, telling people they could get the answer to any
question by calling the free number 1-800-THE-QUIZ. Of course, with no
Q or Z on the phone, you get some strange looks on peoples’ faces.
Back in the days of rotary phones with circular plates having 10 holes,
the holes were numbered 1 to 9, and zero. The “1” was used for internal
phone company signals, and the zero was for the operator. This left eight
holes for dialing telephone numbers.
To help remember phone numbers better, letters were assigned to each
of the 8 holes, and the first two numbers of phone numbers were assigned
letters – like for Greenwood, GW-549. Having eight holes (or numbers)
with 3 letters each, gave 24 letters, so the least common “Q” and “Z” were
omitted.
Enter the touch-tone phone with a 3 x 4 key pad of 12 keys or buttons.
With the extra space, newer phones generally have all 26 letters of the
alphabet on the 2 thru 9 number buttons. They cheat a bit and add the Q and
Z by putting four letters on the 7 and 9 buttons.
The “1” button still has no letters; and the zero button in the middle of
the last row has “oper” on it. But this button is now for zero, as in 1-800-.
You have to use a number to get the operator these days. On each side of
the zero button, there is a “star” symbol (*) and a “pound sign” (#). The real
name for the latter is the “octothorpe.” So, if you are on the phone and get
some recording like, “To repeat this menu, press the octothorpe,” you’ll
know what it means.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): A dyslexic agnostic does not believe in Dog.
-- Anonymous
Flea or Jockey, a Lot of Choice
Question: Where did the term “jockey lot” come originate? I have
always heard these places called “flea markets,” but never heard them
called jockey lots until I was down South. (Asked by a curious Southern
shopper.)
Reply: I had never heard of a jockey lot either until someone took me to
one when I moved to the South some years ago. Didn’t see any jockeys
there, and come to think of it, no fleas – but the boiled peanuts were sure
good. In general, the term “flea” denotes such places that are infected by
fleas. For example, a low-rent or cheap hotel is referred to as a flea trap or
fleabag hotel.
It seems “flea market” comes from the French marche’ aux puces,
literally meaning a “market of fleas,” which was an open-air market where
second-hand goods were sold. The term flea market came to America and
meant an informal market where people gathered to sell second-hand articles
of all kinds, some of which were believed to have fleas. (Great place for a
flea circus, I guess.)
Jockeys apparently rode in later and cast their lot. The following is taken
from A Dictionary of American Regional English. A 1939 entry explains “
County court day here is the second Monday of each month, and at this time
every man in the country who can comes in to ‘Jockey Lot,’ to talk and trade
… guns, watches, knives, harness, wagons, horses, mules, and dogs –
anything and everything that can be ‘swapped’ or sold is fetched in.”
Another entry gives the definition: Jockey lot – a flea market,
originally an open space near the courthouse where, on Tuesdays of court
week, horses were swapped. Horse traders then were known as jockeys.
So, flea market or jockey lot? – cast your lot.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Familiarity breeds contempt – and children.
-- Mark Twain
How High to Fly?
Question: How is the decision made to fly the flag at half-staff?
Sometimes the post office has a flag at half-staff and the highway
department’s flag is at full-staff. Also, do businesses have the authority
to decide how to fly their flags? (Asked by a curious flag flyer.)
Reply: Prior to Flag Day, June 14, 1923, there were no federal or state
regulations governing display of a U.S. flag. On this date, the National Flag
Code was adopted by the National Flag Conference made up of over sixty
five national groups. The Code was a guide for handling and display of the
Stars and Stripes. It did not impose any penalties for flag misuse. Penalties
were left to the state and federal governments. Congress formally adopted
the National Flag Code in 1946. States generally follow the Code, but some
may have their own state flag laws.
Only the President of the United States or a state governor can
officially order the flag lowered to half-staff. There are certain accepted
times, for example, 30 days for the death of a past or setting president; 10
days for the death of a Vice President, former and current Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, the Speaker of the House of Representatives; and so on
down the pecking order. Designated times for half-staff flag flying are from
the day of death until interment. The President may order half-staff for the
deaths of other officials and foreign dignitaries. The governor of a state
orders half-staff for state officials.
A flag may be flown at half-staff on certain days such as National
Pearl Harbor Day, Remembrance Day, Patriot Day, and so on. On Memorial
Day, the flag should be flown at half-staff until noon and then at full-staff
for the rest of the day. When flying the flag at half-staff, it should be hoisted
to the peak or top of the pole for an instant, and then lowered to half-staff. A
similar procedure is followed for taking the flag down. When you see flags
at full-staff when they should be flown at half-staff, there is likely a lack of
communication (or ignorance may be a factor).
Businesses cannot designate flying an American flags at half-staff. I
suppose they can fly the company flag any way they want, except above the
American flag. If I saw a company flag at half-staff when other flags were
at full-staff, I would think perhaps the company stock had taken a nosedive.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was
so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got
to be twenty-one, I was astonished how much he’d learned in seven years.
-- Mark Twain
Swear Out a Warranty
Question: What are the meanings of the various types of warranties?
(Asked by curious warrantee.)
Reply: There are many warranties out there, and some have very fine print.
A warranty, or guarantee, is essentially a promise (or contract) a seller gives
to a buyer that certain corrective things will be done if a product proves
defective or does not work. Usually a time frame is given – things are not
guaranteed forever.
At the time of a sale, there is an implied warranty. This is an
unwritten promise required by law that assumes two things – the product
actually does what it is supposed to do and it can be used for the purposes
for which it is sold. (New homes come with an implied warranty.)
Then there is a conditional warranty in which the seller agrees to
repair or replace a defective product within a certain time from the date of
sale, typically, 30, 60, or 90 days. A conditional warranty might state that
you can return the product “unless completely satisfied” within a certain
time. However, there are some conditions. For example, if you damage the
product, repairs will be made at your expense. There was a dentist that gave
a conditional warranty. He would warrant things like crowns and bridges for
six years. These items would be replaced or repaired at no charge during
that time if broken or lost.
An express warranty is one offered by manufacturers to encourage
customers to buy a product. Such warranties may be written or verbal.
Companies that offer written express warranties must do so in accordance
with the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act if the product is sold for
over $15. This 1975 law states than any written warranty must be classified
as a full warranty or a limited warranty.
A full warranty includes these provisions:
* The product must be fixed at no charge to the buyer within a reasonable
time.
* The owner does not have to go to unreasonable effort to return the
product for repair (such as shipping back a refrigerator).
* If the product cannot be fixed after a reasonable number of attempts, the
defective product will be replaced with a new one or the buyer’s money will
be returned. (Many states have something similar in automobile “lemon
laws.”)
* Warranty services will be provided without requiring the buyer to mail
in a registration.
A limited warranty offers fewer benefits than a full warranty, such as
free parts but not labor. Full and limited warranties may apply to different
parts of a product. For example, the engine of a lawnmower may be covered
by a full warranty and the other parts by a limited warranty.
And then there is the biggie, a lifetime warranty. But what lifetime
is guaranteed -- yours or that of the product? If you read the fine print, it
will probably say the life of the product. Then you get into the hassle of
how long is the lifetime of a product. You can imagine what that might
entail. Did you use it every day? For what jobs did you use it? If a company
knows the typical lifetime of a product, why isn’t the warranty for that long?
The answer is that a “lifetime guarantee” sounds more appealing and is a
good sales device. A golden lifetime warranty is on most Sears Craftsman®
tools. For example, if a screwdriver tip ever breaks or bends, you can take it
back to any Sears store for a replacement.
Finally there is an extended warranty, which is not a warranty but a
service contract. Warranties are included in the price of the product.
Service contracts (a.k.a. extended warranties) are sold separately at an extra
charge.
There you have it. Bottom line: read the fine print and caveat emptor
– let the buyer beware – guaranteed.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I don’t always know what I’m talking about but
I know I’m right.
-- Muhammed Ali
Can You Hear Me Now?
Question: Why does the volume on a TV go up when commercials come
on? This is so irritating. (Asked by a curious commercial listener.)
Reply: The loud volume of some commercials can be quite annoying,
distracting, and unwanted. The change in volume is apparent. (Do you hear
me now? I do, without my hearing aid.) I wrote to the Federal
Communications Commission (FCC) for an explanation. Their web site
describes their responsibility as follows:
“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent
United States government agency, directly responsible to Congress.
The FCC was established by the Communications Act of 1934 and is
charged with regulating interstate and international communications
by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable. The FCC's jurisdiction
covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. possessions.”
(ww.fcc.gov/aboutus.html)
Here, in part, is what I received from my inquiry about loud commercials:
FCC CONSUMER FACTS
Program Background Noise and Loud Commercials
Background: Whether or not something is “too loud” is a judgment that
varies with each listener. The decision is influenced by many factors like
content, tone, and style, the speaker’s voice and tone, background sounds,
and music.
The FCC does not regulate the volume of programs or commercials.
FCC rules limit the amount of power that a station can transmit and the peak
level of the program material. Within the limitations of imposed by the FCC
rules, however, there is considerable latitude for broadcasters and program
producers to vary the “loudness” of the program material through the use of
available audio processing techniques, including compression and peak
limiting.
If You Have a Complaint
Under most circumstances, it is in the interest of broadcasters to use
equipment and procedures to avoid “loud” commercials and background
noise. If you have a complaint about “loud” commercials and background
noise, contact the station(s) involved. You should identify each message of
concern by the sponsor or product’s name and by the date and time of the
broadcast.
## After note: This fact sheet is for consumer education purposes only and
is not intended to affect any proceeding or cases involving this subject
matter or related issues.
So there you and I have it. Equipment may be purchased to suppress
the loud commercial sound, but it is cheaper to use the mute button.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have an automatic mute? That is, one where the mute
goes on when the sound is elevated by commercials, and goes off when they
are finished and the sound returns to normal. Sounds like a winner!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it
can achieve.
-- Napoleon Hill
Man’s Best Friend
Question: I’ve often wondered where the phrase "a man's best friend is
his dog" originated. Can you shed any light on this? (Asked by a
curious dog owner.)
Reply: In this politically correct world, this should be Human’s Best
Friend, as a dog can be a Woman’s Best Friend and many dogs are. It is not
known for sure, but the following story may be the origin of the phrase. In
1870 Charles Burden sued his neighbor Hornsbey for shooting his dog, Old
Drum, who had mistakenly wandered onto Hornsbey's property. The case
went all the way to the Missouri State Supreme Court where in defense
Missouri Senator Graham Vest addressed the court. This is what he said:
"Gentlemen of the Jury: The best friend a man has in this world may
turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he
has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are
nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and
our good name, may become traitors to their faith. The money that a
man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs
it the most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of illconsidered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to
do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the
stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads. The one
absolutely unselfish friend that a man can have in this selfish world,
the one that never deserts him and the one that never proves
ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.
Gentleman of the Jury, a man’s dog stands by him in prosperity
and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold
ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if
only he may be near his master’s side. He will kiss the hand that has
no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that encounters the
roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if
he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When
riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his
love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world,
friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than
that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his
enemies. When the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master
in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter
if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the
noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open
in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death.”
CharlesBurden won the case, and received $50 in damages. In 1958 a statue
of Old Drum was placed outside the Johnson County Courthouse in
Warrensburg, Missouri where the case first took place.
Sort of gets you, doesn’t it? I have a faithful dog from the animal
shelter. If you don’t have a canine best friend, go to the animal shelter and
they will fix you up. They even have the feline variety if you are more
inclined in that direction.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you
more than himself.
-- Josh Billings
Calling 911
Question: How did the number 911 become the emergency call
number? (Asked by a curious emergency-conscious reader.)
Reply: People feel secure knowing 911 is only three buttons away. The
number 911 is the national emergency number for the United States. Prior
to 1968, there was no standard emergency number. The FCC (Federal
Communications Commission) got together with AT&T to pick a number –
something easy to remember and unique. The group chose 911 because it
had never been used as an area code.
Congress passed legislation making 911 the standard emergency call
number, and the system was implemented slowly at first. Now most of the
country has 911 services.
Another useful thing would be to have a common calling number for
the highway or state patrol. I travel a bit and see signs along the highways to
call *HP or *SP. Traveling in Ohio last month, I saw a real jewel: “If you
need state patrol help call 1-877-7-PATROL”. That’s easy to remember.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): When it is raining heavily, we say it is
peppering it down. Would it ever be salting it down?
-- JDW
Out, Out, Damn Spot!
Question: Why do wet clothes or water spots on clothes appear to be a
darker color? Does the color change? (Asked by an accident-prone
column reader.)
Reply: There is no color change -- just a little physics going on that has to
do with light. The color of a piece of cloth is determined by the pigment
(dye) in the clothing. You see the color in clothing because of light being
reradiated by the pigment. White light, such as sunlight or from a light bulb,
is made up of light of all colors (or frequencies). When white light strikes
some cloth such as a pale blue shirt, the shirt appears blue because the blue
component of the white light is radiated back to our eyes. The dye pigment
in the cloth absorbs most of the other colors in the white light.
When the shirt is wet or has a wet spot, water fills the spaces between
the cloth threads. Some of the light striking the wet area is bent (we say
refracted in physics) by the water into the cloth where more of the non-blue
light is absorbed. The light coming back to our eyes then has a greater
percentage of blue light than when coming from dry cloth. As a result, the
wet area appears bluer and darker.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
-- Aesop (620 – 560 BC), author of fables.
III. In the Kitchen
Cool Banana
Question: Should you put bananas in the refrigerator? (Asked by a
curious housewife.)
Reply: This is an old one, but first, a little banana background … your
lesson for today. The banana "tree" is not a tree, but a giant herb and is the
largest plant on Earth without a woody stem. What looks like the "trunk" of
the banana plant is the overlapping thick leaves wrapped around one
another. The banana plant bears fruit only once, so the next crop is planted
from rootstock (planting part of the root). The plant grows quickly and has
ripened fruit in a year or less. Each plant bears about ten bunches of fruit,
called "hands;" and each hand contains about twenty bananas or "fingers."
Half of the world's bananas are grown in Africa, but Central America and
northern South America are the leading exporters to the United States.
Bananas are picked green, boxed, and loaded aboard refrigerated ships. On
arriving at their destination, the bananas are stored in ripening rooms until
they are not so green.
Now, back to the original question. Bananas generally undergo their
final ripening in the home after they are bought (unless you buy the overripe
specials). Many people are reluctant to put bananas in the refrigerator,
probably because of the Chiquita Banana commercials from the 1940s.
Chiquita warned:
"Bananas like the climate of the very, very tropical equator,
So you should never put bananas in the refrigerator!”
For the best results, bananas should be stored at room temperature until fully
ripe and then placed in the refrigerator to retard spoilage. Refrigeration will
cause the skin to turn brown, but the fruit will remain unspoiled inside for a
few days. When the skin turns brown, the fruit is all the sweeter. As
Chiquita sang:
"When they are flecked with brown and of a golden hue,
That's when bananas are the best for you."
She never mentioned that they are shipped in refrigerated banana boats.
C.P.S (Curious Postscript): You can observe a lot by just watching.
-- Yogi Berra
Cooking Eggactly Right
Question: How can you get the shells of hard-boiled eggs to peel off
easily? (Asked by a curious cook with apeel.)
Reply: Sometimes the shell of a hard-boiled egg almost falls off. (Peeling
under cold water helps.) At other times, the shell sticks, and chunks of egg
white come off with it -- very eggasperating. There are a couple of ways to
facilitate egg peeling. In one method, start with cold water (about an inch
covering the eggs), heat to just boiling, and then simmer just below boiling.
(A rapid boil may cause the eggs to crack because of the agitation.) After
about 12 minutes, cool the eggs quickly under cold, running water or by
placing them in a bowl of ice water. The cooling process tends to shrink the
egg white (albumen), causing it to pull away from the shell and makes the
egg easier to peel.
A similar method is to bring the eggs to a boil, turn off the heat, cover,
and leave the eggs in the hot water for about 15 minutes, and then cool as
directed above. Both methods give you hard-cooked eggs, rather than hardboiled.
I have tried these methods and both worked eggstremely well. Very
fresh eggs are more difficult to peel because the albumen tends to stick to
the membrane on the inside of the shell. This may be a concern down on the
farm, but most eggs bought in stores are old enough for this not to be a
problem.
There is one other benefit of the above cooking methods. When
boiled at a high heat for some time, the protein in the eggs becomes tough
and rubbery. High heat also causes a chemical reaction between the yolk
and the white, which leaves a green film or coating around the yolk. The
green stuff is iron sulfide from the iron in the yolk reacting with hydrogen
sulfide in the white. Kids might look at the green-covered yolk and say “Oh,
gross!” but it’s Ok to eat the egg and the taste is not affected. There you
have it, an eggstroaordinary eggscursion into cooking eggs which has left
me egghausted. Eggscuse me -- can’t you take a yolk?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Double emphasis. SILENT and LISTEN have
the exact same letters.
-- Anonymous
Spinach and the Popeye Effect
Question: Is spinach as good for you as Popeye told us? (Asked by a
curious Olyve Oyl.)
Reply: Popeye the Sailor Man, supposedly got strong from the iron in
spinach. But the scientist who first determined the iron content in spinach
made a mistake and got it ten times too high. Spinach iron is locked up with
oxalic acid and cannot be used by the body. In addition to this, spinach also
contains phylate, a chemical that prevents iron from entering the blood
stream, so spinach is an iron-blocker. But don’t throw out the spinach yet.
It contains beta carotene (the body converts it to vitamin A), lutein (good for
healthy eyes), antioxidants, vitamin K, minerals, and folic acid.
I’m glad spinach is so healthy. My mother made me eat a bunch of it
during the Popeye era. I knew something was wrong even then – I never got
as strong as Popeye no matter how much spinach I ate.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Clothes make the man. Naked people have
little or no influence on our society.
-- Mark Twain
Shoofly Pie, the Green Sheen, Pretzels, and Chips
Question: What is shoofly pie? (Asked by a curious cook with flies in
the kitchen.)
Reply: Shoofly (or Shoo-fly) pie is a sweet desert that is like a molasses
coffee cake with a layer of gooey molasses on the bottom. The molasses
layer can be thick or thin and are referred to as wet-bottom and dry-bottom
pies, respectively. The pie is usually covered with crumbs made with brown
sugar and spices. There is a variety of recipes for shoofly pie that use
different ingredients and spices. Some cooks put chocolate icing on top for
a chocolate shoofly pie. Shoofly is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dessert.
The pie’s unusual name is said to have originated because in early
days pies were set on window sills to cool. With the sweet ingredients, the
gathering flies would constantly have to be “shooed,” and so we have
shoofly pie.
I know some of you older folks might be wondering about “Apple Pan
Dowdy.” This is another sweet dessert in the form of a cobbler – fruit baked
with a sweet cake top. It evidently goes with shoofly pie as the old song
from the Dinah Shore and Ella Fitzgerald era says:
Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy
Makes your eyes light up,
Your stomach says “Howdy.”
Shoo Fly Pie and Apple Pan Dowdy
I never get enough of that wonderful stuff.
Question: Why does the surface of ham sometimes have a glistening
sheen of colors – sometimes green? (Asked by a curious pork lover.)
Reply: A colorful sheen is sometimes seen on the surface of ham that has
been sliced and exposed to the air (oxygen). This is not spoilage, even
though the sheen may appear green. The color is caused by the chemical
reaction of the nitrate preservative and the iron content of the meat. This
gives the meat surface a color that is made up of several tints with green
being the major shade.
Question: How did pretzels originate?
(Asked by a curious pretzel purveyor.)
Reply: Pretzels are said to have originated about 600 AD by a monk in
Italy. During Lent, he couldn’t cook bread using the usual eggs, fat, or milk;
so the resourceful monk used flour, salt, and water. He formed thin rolls of
bread into a shape that he considered to represent two arms crossed in
prayer.
The new bread was named pretiola, which is Latin for “little gift,” and
were used as treats to reward children for saying their prayers. The word
“pretzel” comes from the original pretiola.
Question: Who invented potato chips? (Asked by a curious chip
cruncher.)
Reply: These crunchy slices originated in Saratoga Springs, New York (an
upstate resort town with a race track) in 1853 by a chef named George
Crum. A guest complained that the french fries were too thick, so George
sliced up some more and made them thinner. The guest did not like these
either, so what did George do? Sliced the potatoes paper thin and fried the
slices. They were a hit and became known as “Saratoga chips” at the time.
Now over 10 million pounds of potatoes are used daily to keep us in the
chips.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look
at it for hours.
-- Jerome K. Jerome
Bag’em Up!
Question: Fruit ripens more quickly when closed in a brown paper bag.
Why is this? (Asked by a curious ripe fruit lover.)
Reply: As fruit ripens, it releases a natural gaseous hormone called ethylene
(C2H4, for you chemistry buffs). Ethylene affects the growth, development,
and ripening of all plants. Putting fruit into a paper bag (doesn’t necessarily
have to be brown) traps the gas close to the fruit and it ripens more quickly.
Technically, ethylene triggers the production of enzymes, which cause
starches to break down into sugars. As we all know, most ripened fruits are
sweeter. (Forget melons, citrus fruit, and pineapples for this process. They
do not contain any starch that can be converted to sugar, which means they
will not get any sweeter after being picked, only an improvement in texture.)
The bag-ripening rate varies with different fruits. Peaches and pears can get
mushy relatively quickly.
Apples in the refrigerator produce a great deal of ethylene, so it is
important to store them separately from vegetables, such as broccoli,
cauliflower, and leafy greens, as these plants can be harmed by the gas.
(Guess that’s why we have separate fruit and veggie storage bins in the frig.)
However, you can add an apple to a bag with plums, tomatoes, and other
fruits to speed up the ripening. ( I can hear you now – the tomato is a fruit?
Yep. See “What’s the Difference Between a Fruit and a Vegetable” on page
xx.)
Ethylene is used commercially in “ripening rooms” to accelerate the
ripening process of early-picked fruits before sending them to market.
Numerous studies have shown there are no important biochemical effects
between naturally ripened fruit or the use of ethylene to trigger the process
in unripened fruit. Also, ethylene is used to “de-green” oranges. It triggers
pigment changes in a green peel by removing chlorophyll, which causes the
orange peel’s green color to change to an orange-yellow. No flavor loss, just
speeding up a natural process. Another plus is that the vitamin C content,
which deteriorates over a long ripening period, is maintained.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) A pessimist is someone who complains about
the noise when opportunity knocks.
-- Michael Levine
Shiny Silver
Question: I clean my silverware by putting aluminum foil in the bottom
of a pan and adding hot, soapy water. When you put the silverware in
and it touches the foil, the tarnish is gone quickly. How does this work?
(Asked by conscientious silverware cleaner.)
Reply: I had to go back to my chemistry book for the answer of this one.
This cleaning method is known as “silver dip” and uses chemical action to
get rid of the tarnish. When silver combines with sulfur, the resulting
brownish silver sulfide is what we call tarnish and makes the silver look bad.
Polishing the silverware with some tarnish remover cream removes it (the
silver sulfide) from the surface. However, in the silver dip method the silver
is left behind.
Aluminum reacts more readily with sulfur than does silver, so
aluminum displaces the sulfur from the silver sulfide compound (the tarnish)
to form aluminum sulfide and leaving the silver behind. The liquid
promotes the process. A substitute for soapy water I read about is as follows:
heat water to steaming and add one tablespoon of baking soda and one
tablespoon of salt per quart of water. Pour this mixture into the pan lined
with aluminum foil. Using tongs (using hot water), place the silverware in
the pan so it touches the foil. Things should start happening right away.
Ok curious silverware cleaners, get rid of the tarnish.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): When you flip a coin, why is "heads or tails"
always plural?
-- Anonymous
Cash Them In
Question: On grocery coupons, you see “Cash value: 1/100th of one
cent.” Does that mean if I get 100 coupons I can trade them in for a
penny? (Asked by a curious coupon collector.)
Reply: This goes back to the days of trading stamps. (Some of us remember
them.) Companies and merchants would issue “stamps,” which were like
coupons. Customers pasted them in a book, and when the book was full, it
could be traded it in for merchandise. Some companies inflated prices to
make their stamps look like they were worth more than the stamps of honest
companies.
Several states tried to eliminate this inequity by making all stamps
have a common value, and grocery coupons fell into this category. Kansas
was the most stringent state. A passed law there overrode the terms and
conditions of the coupons, and if no cash value was stated on the coupon, a
consumer could cash it in at face value. A coupon for a dollar off? Then
give me a dollar.
That would have been great, but manufacturers would not go that
route and put a cash value on the coupons, such as 100th of a cent. Let’s see,
cash in 100 coupons at 1/100th of a cent cash value and get a penny? I don’t
know. You would have to use a postage stamp worth more than the coupons
to mail them and ask for your penny refund. Duh…
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Did you know that the biggest sellers in the
bookstores are cookbooks? The second biggest sellers are diet books about -how not to eat what you've just learned how to cook.
-- Andy Rooney
Sparkling Clean
Question: Dishwasher liquid seems to make the drinking glasses
permanently cloudy – almost like it is etching the glass itself. Why does
this happen? Can I clean the glass? (Asked by a concerned cook.)
Reply: Glassware washed in a dishwasher may be cloudy, but still clean.
There are two major types of cloudiness. One is a buildup of film on the
glass. This is the most common type of cloudiness and is caused by hard
water. The calcium and magnesium minerals in water drops left on
glassware at the end of a washing cycle will dry in place. On the next
washing, new spots will leave more hardness film. Detergents will not
remove this type of film.
To see if you have a hard water film, try scratching the film with a pin
or something with a sharp point. If some of the cloudiness is scratched off,
you have a hard water build up. Another method is to rub some vinegar on
the film area with your finger. If the surface clears on drying, you have a
hard water film. How do you get rid of hard water film? As just noted,
vinegar will remove it. A suggested procedure is to soak the glassware in
undiluted white vinegar for 15 minutes, then rinse and dry.
Also, food films can form on glassware when washing with hard
water. The minerals in the water combine with the protein in the residue of
milk, eggs, and meat. Hot water helps this film process. Food films can be
removed by hand washing.
Now, let’s hone in on the etching question. Etching is a permanent
“film” that cannot be removed. In this case, the culprit is soft water along
with alkaline dishwasher detergents. The chemical composition of the
glassware, excessive water temperature, and insufficient rinsing can cause
pitting or etching on the surface of glassware. You can do the pin and
vinegar tests, but nothing will happen.
A suggestion for the prevention of etching is to use water with
temperatures not higher than 140o F, a minimum amount of detergent, a
rinse agent, and a cycle without heat drying. Also, avoid the manual prerinsing of glassware.
There you have it. Golly -- I feel like Heloise.
C.P.S. (Curious postscript): Minds are like parachutes – they only function
when open.
-- Thomas Dewar
A Cold Burn
Question: Why do foods left in a freezer develop “freezer burn”? Is
the food safe to eat? (Asked by a curious culinary column reader.)
Reply: It is well known that chilling and/or freezing foods retards spoilage.
With modern refrigerators having freezer compartments and freezers, the
time for which foods remain frozen may be quite long. The cold in the
freezer prevents spoilage from bacteria and slows the enzyme processes that
work to chemically change the food. However, wrapped meats and other
frozen foods may show gray-brownish leathery spots (freezer burn) after
being left in the freezer for an extended time.
This discoloration is caused primarily by oxidation. The air inside a
freezer is relatively dry. As a result, ice crystals in frozen foods evaporate
(sublime: changing from a solid directly to gas) and some air (with oxygen)
gets into the food. Eventually, even the most tightly wrapped meats may
have color changes and drying in spots – freezer burn. This is quite evident
in poorly or unwrapped frozen meats. Freezer burn does not make the food
unsafe, merely unsightly and poor tasting. Just cut the freezer-burned
section away before or after cooking.
Another taste change may result from the freezing of water in foods
(particularly meats). The intercellular spaces contain some water. When
freezing occurs, the expanding ice can rupture cell membranes. On thawing
there is a loss of cell fluids. This process makes the meat dry and tough.
Should you refreeze thawed meats? Not really. If you do, you may
get a double-whammy of cell membrane breakdown as just described and
the tough gets tougher. Most importantly, although freezing retards bacterial
growth, it does not sterilize the meat. Some dominant bacteria are still there.
Thawing the meat at room temperature for several hours gives time for
bacterial action to occur that may partially spoil meat before you refreeze it.
This bacterial action may happen especially in large pieces of meat that take
a long time to thaw on the inside, such as a frozen turkey. To prevent
possible external spoilage, put the bird or other large pieces of meat in a sink
full of water so the thawing is quicker and more equalized. You can also
thaw items in the refrigerator over a longer period of time. If you are going
to refreeze meat, fish, or poultry, you should do so after it is cooked.
Be aware that slow freezing gives rise to larger ice crystals and more
cell membrane breakdown. Quick- or flash-freezing produces smaller ice
crystals and minimal breakdown. The advantage of flash-freezing was
recognized by Clarence Birdseye, a fur trader in Canada. He noted that fish
caught by the Inuit (Eskimos) and frozen immediately retained good flavor
after being thawed out months later.
Birdseye developed a method for quick freezing foods in the 1920s.
The result was Birdseye’s frozen foods, a forerunner of the many frozen
foods we have today.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Water taken in moderation won’t hurt anybody.
-- Mark Twain.
Turning Green
Question: Why do potatoes turn green, and are green potatoes safe to
eat? (Asked by a curious spud cooker.)
Reply: Yes, those tater tubers can turn green, which is chiefly a surface
discoloring. (tuber: the underground food-storing stem of many plants such
as the potato.) However, this “greening” (also called “sun-burning”) may be
a half-inch deep in severe cases. French fries made from green potatoes may
have a green end and potato chips a green edge.
Potatoes turn green because of exposure to light and the production of
chlorophyll. No problem -- chlorophyll is the green pigment found in all
plants, particularly green leaves where it is responsible for the production of
plant food through photosynthesis. Potato exposure to light can occur in the
field, on a store shelf, or in the home. In the field, potato plants are “hilled,”
or have soil piled up around them so the tubers can grow without poking
through the soil and turning green from sunlight (“sun-burning”).
Fluorescent lights cause faster greening than incandescent lights and
long exposure to fluorescent lights in stores and homes should be avoided.
Some plastic bags of potatoes have opaque tops for protection from light. In
the home, it is recommended that the taters be removed from the plastic bag,
stored in a brown paper bag or on trays in a cool, dark place where air can
circulate. (My tater bin has a wire screen on the front to allow good
circulation.) Refrigeration is not recommended. At refrigerator
temperatures, the starches in potatoes turn into sugars that will cause
potatoes to turn brown quickly when cooked. Green chlorophyll may be a
bit unsightly, but if chlorophyll is the only cause of the green there is no
eating problem.
However, there’s a green kicker. The potato plant has the capability
to produce its own chemicals to protect it from insect and fungus attacks.
The “greening” of potatoes maybe a sign of an increase in the protective
chemicals, particularly one called solanine. Increased levels of solanine can
cause a bitter taste in potatoes after being cooked. Unlike chlorophyll,
solanine does not need light for formation, but with light, more is produced.
Solanine can be toxic, but only in large amounts. Eating a lot of it can
induce food poisoning with symptoms similar to gastroenteritis. But you
would have to eat a bunch of green potatoes for this reaction to occur.
Cooking halts solanine production, but does not destroy it. The
concentration of solanine in a potato is normally quite low and is localized
near the skin. Peeled potatoes eliminate the problem. But a good rule of the
thumb – if a cooked potato tastes bitter, don’t eat it.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Life is like drawing without an eraser.
-- John Gardner
IV. Hello Sports Fans
Batter Up!
Question: Why shouldn't you hit a baseball with the trademark side of
the bat? (Asked by a curious bat boy.)
Answer: Hitting a baseball with the trademark side increases the probability
of breaking a bat. The trademark of a baseball bat is branded or stamped
into the wood on the top or face of the grain. The grain lines are the rings
you can count to determine the age of a tree. So, with the trademark up (or
down), the ball is hit on the side or outer part of the rings, which is stronger
and less likely to break or split. (If you have ever split log sections for a
fireplace, you know the log splits easier by chopping on the top or face side
of the grain -- going with the grain.) Similarly, a baseball bat is more likely
to break or split if a ball is hit on the face side of the grain or on the
trademark.
It is said that Yogi Berra, who broke a few bats, would turn the
trademark toward the pitcher. According to Yogi, he came up to hit the ball,
not to read the trademark. Of course, if you are having a trademark problem,
you could use an aluminum bat.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I always turn to the sports page first; the sports
page records people’s accomplishments. The front page has nothing but
man’s failure.
-- Chief Justice Earl Warren
It Doesn’t Seem Fair
Question: Baseball players are not allowed to plug their bats so as to hit
the ball farther. Why are golfers allowed to use different materials and
adjust their clubs so they can hit a golf ball farther? (Asked by a
curious duffer.)
Reply: “Plugged” bats are illegal, as Sammy Sosa found out. How do you
plug a bat and why? Typically, a 1-inch diameter hole is drilled into the big
end of a bat to a depth of about 10 inches. The cavity is filled with cork or
small super balls. This makes the bat lighter by a couple of ounces. The bat
is not only lighter, but its center of gravity (the balance point) is moved
closer to the handle. As a result, the batter can swing the bat quicker. It has
the same effect as “choking up” on a bat (nearer the center of gravity) for a
faster swing.
Now back to golf clubs. Golf clubs, like baseball bats, have
specifications with a maximum length and size of club head. (Baseball bats
have a maximum length and diameter of the trunk – the large part of the bat
where the ball is hit.) However, there seems to be no construction material
standards for golf clubs (at least I could not find any). New materials, such
as graphite and titanium, have been adapted in golf clubs to replace older
materials such as wood and iron. But for baseball bats there are only two
choices – wood and aluminum. Aluminum bats are illegal in the big leagues
but can be used in college baseball and little leagues.
C.P.S (Curious Post Script): Better to remain silent and be thought a fool
than to speak out and remove all doubt.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Pitching From On High
Question: In baseball the pitcher’s mound is elevated. In softball there
is no pitcher’s mound. Why this and what is the advantage or reason to
pitch from an elevated mound? (Asked by a curious height-conscious
fan.)
Reply: The pitcher’s mound in baseball is a raised section in the middle of
the diamond where the pitcher stands when throwing the ball. This clay
mound is 18 feet in diameter with a plateau on top five feet wide. The
pitcher’s plate or rubber, on which a pitcher must stand, is located behind the
center of the mound and 60 feet, 6 inches from the apex (front edge) of
home plate. The pitcher’s plate is elevated 10 inches relative the surface
level of home plate.
The elevated mound and rubber give the pitcher an advantage. A
pitcher will push off the rubber with a foot to gain speed toward home plate
when pitching. With an elevated mound the pitcher gains more leverage and
can put more downward speed on the ball, making it more difficult for the
batter to hit the ball squarely. Prior to 1969, the elevation of the mound was
often 16 – 20 inches rather than 10 inches. The lowering of the mound in
1969 is thought by some to be a contributing factor for more hitting in
baseball.
Softball has no pitcher’s mound, in general is a slower game, and was
created as a way for ball players to play indoors in the winter. It is now a
popular outdoors summer sport and things have sped up a bit. There are
now slow pitch and fast pitch softball games. In either case, the softball
must be pitched underhand. There is no specific rule on how to pitch in
baseball, though most pitchers pitch overhand. There have been several
sidearm pitchers and a couple submarine (underhand) pitchers in the major
leagues, but overhand throws allow more control and speed with a whip-like
throw and a follow through.
Here are some comparative differences between baseball and softball,
and the different forms of softball:
* Distance of pitcher
Baseball
Softball
60 ft, 6 in.
46 ft
from home plate
* Contact with base
Runners can leave base before the ball
leaves the pitcher’s hand.
Runners must remain in contact with
the base until the ball leaves the
pitcher’s hand.
* Innings
* Base stealing
9
7
Allowed
Fast pitch: allowed
Slow pitch: not allowed
* Bunting
Allowed
Fast pitch: allowed
Slow pitch: not allowed
* Pitching
Ball may be pitched
in any way
Fast pitch: underhand
Slow pitch: underhand and
ball must arc higher than
batter’s head
And there you have it – take me out to the ball game -- love those peanuts
and Cracker Jacks.
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script) Alright, everyone line up alphabetically
according to your height.
-- Casey Stengel
A Back Nine Too?
Question: Why are there 18 holes in golf? (Asked by a curious puttputt golfer.)
Reply: First a little golf history. The place of origin of golf is somewhat
disputed as to whether it began in Scotland or Holland. In any case, people
have played golf in Scotland for a long time. One of the first mentions of
golf goes back to 1457. It was banned in Scotland because the game had
become so popular that it interfered with archery practice, which was
necessary for defense. There were golf courses with various numbers of
holes, but the most influential organizations for golf development was the
golf club at St. Andrews, Scotland that was formed in 1754 by twenty two
“noblemen and gentlemen.”
Originally, the St. Andrews course was beside the seashore with 11
holes. Each tee was located next to a hole. The golfers played 11 holes
away from the clubhouse and then 11 holes back toward the clubhouse -- 22
holes per round. In 1764 it was decided that the first four holes were kind of
short in distance, so these four holes were made into two holes. This gave 9
holes down and 9 holes back…and so 18 holes.
The Scots noted something else. With golfers playing down and back
on the same holes, there were balls flying in both directions, so another set
of holes was added, giving a front 9 and a back 9. The influence of St.
Andrews spread, and here we are today with most courses having 18 holes.
If you don’t play golf and are thinking about taking it up, let me
quote an excerpt from Encyclopedia Britannica: “… It (golf) combines with
open air and exercise [sure, with those electric carts (sic)] an intrinsic
fascination. Despite its attractiveness, golf is not a game for everyone; it
requires a high degree of skill that is honed only with great patience and
dedication, and it requires an investment in equipment and fees that persons
of average means may not feel worthwhile. The novice is often discouraged
by these factors.”
Once past paying the green fees, I think the key words are “with great
patience.” On a golf course, you may at times see a UFO – maybe it’s not
unidentified, but a flying object -- a golf club thrown by a frustrated golfer.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Long ago when men cursed and beat the ground
with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it is called golf.
—Will Rogers
Fore! Watch Out Caddie!
Question: How did the golf terms such as par, fore, bogey, birdie, and
so on originate? (Asked by a curious golf score keeper.)
Reply: I’d rather fly with an eagle than with a birdie -- or is that a double
eagle or albatross? There are many golf terms named for the birds. But first
let’s consider “par” and “fore.” Please note that there are various
explanations of the origins of golf terms. These are the ones that sounded
good to me.
“Par” is perhaps derived from a stock exchange term meaning a stock
may be above or below a particular value. A sports writer in the late 1800s
asked a couple of pros what score would win a tournament. The reply was
that the perfect play should produce a score of 49 for the 12 holes. The
writer called this “par” for the tournament, and this developed into the
number of strokes or par for a hole under ideal conditions.
How about “fore!”-- a warning that a ball may be coming your way?
There are several stories about the origin of this term. “Fore” is another
word for “ahead” (like fore and aft on a ship). So this means someone ahead
should watch out because a ball might be coming. Another theory is that the
term may have a military origin. In the 18th century, when golf was
beginning to become popular, artillery in battles shot over the heads of their
own soldiers. Gunners getting ready to fire would yell “Beware before!” or
“Fore!”
However, the British Golf Museum has a book from 1881 with a
reference to “fore.” It explains the term evolved from “forecaddie.” A
forecaddie was a person who accompanied golfers, going in a forward
position to indicate the landing locations of hit balls. When a bad shot was
made, a golfer would yell “fore” to alert the forecaddie to watch for the ball.
(Golf balls were quite expensive in those days.)
Incidentally, “caddie” is not the diminutive of cad, but comes from the
French word cadet (pronounced CA-deh), meaning a student military
officer. In Scotland, “cadet” was pronounced “caddie.” In the 1700s
uniformed young men doing odd jobs were called caddies because of their
resemblance to military students. Some got jobs carrying clubs for golfers.
As the game of golf grew and spread, the name of caddie for golfer’s
assistant went along with it.
Now back to the birds. But wait. This article is getting long, so you
will have to wait until next week. I guess I wrote a bogey. But that’s par for
the course.
C.P.S. (Curiosity Post Script): Success is relative – the more success, the
more relatives.
-- Anonymous
Bogie or Birdie?
I had so much fore!thought (pun intended) in the previous article that I
didn’t get around to calling the shots -- bogey, birdie, eagle, and
albatross. So here we go.
* Bogie: the term “bogey” comes from a popular song in Britain in the
1890s, “The Bogey Man.” This elusive figure hid in the shadows and said,
“I’m the Bogey Man, catch me if you can.” (The melody was later known as
Colonel Bogey’s March.) It developed that the elusive ideal number of
strokes for a good player became known as a “bogey score.”
In the 1900s the term “par” became popular to refer to the ideal
number of strokes for a hole. For a time, “par” and “bogie” were used
synonymously. As golf developed and scores got better, pars were lowered
in America, but bogie scores were kept in Britain. Eventually, one stroke
over par was referred to as a bogey because of the higher British scores.
I’m not going into double and triple bogies. (I don’t think anyone shoots
them any more -- or owns up to it.)
* Birdie: the term for one stroke under par. This comes from a 19th century
slang term for anything excellent or good. One story tells about a group
playing a par four hole when one of the golfer’s second shot went near the
hole. He said, “That was a birdie of a shot!” and that he should get double
the bet money if he won with one under par; which he did. Presumably, the
usage spread for birdie to mean one under par for a particular hole.
* Eagle: a score of two under par for a particular hole, and it is thought to be
an extension of the birdie theme. A score of two under par would be a “big
birdie” and the eagle is a big bird. American golfers may have thought of
their national symbol and started calling a big birdie an eagle (or so the story
goes).
* Albatross: a rare bird not too often mentioned on the golf course. A rare
three under par on a hole is called an albatross. Three under par is also
referred to as a “double eagle.” With an “eagle” being two strokes under
par, it would seem that a “double eagle” would be four strokes under par.
Maybe this extreme rarity should be called a “dodo.”
It is often not clear how some terms come into popular usage, but
some good stories are given to explain them. You have to question (be
curious about) some of the stories, like those you hear in the clubhouse after
a round of golf.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If you let a smile be your umbrella, then most
likely you will get your behind wet.
-- Anonymous
It’s Love From the Start
Question: Tennis scores go 15, 30, and 40. This is a rather strange way
of scoring. Why are these numbers used? (As by a curious racketeer.)
Reply: Love! No, I’m not getting fresh – the tennis term “love” means zero,
and comes from the French l’oeuf, meaning “egg.” If your score is love, you
have a big goose egg or zero.
The other scores are not so lovely and have a medieval origin. In
those days, the number 60 was considered to be complete or the end, much
in the same way we consider 100 (percent) to mean the whole enchilada.
Early tennis scoring was based on 60 with four points being 15, 30, 45, and
60. Somewhere along the way 45 got changed to 40, and 60 to “game.”
Tennis originated in France around the 13th century with a handball
game called jeu de paume, or “palm game.” The players’ hands must have
started hurting, as the game went from palms, to gloves, to rackets, and
developed into the ball-and-racket game we have today. The present name
of tennis appears to have been derived from the French way of calling out
tenez! before serving, which meant to take or receive.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it
happened.
-- Dr. Seuss
Some Seedy Characters
Question: Why do they say players in a tennis tournament are
“seeded,” for example, the “top seed”? (Asked by a curious bottom
seed.)
Reply: For some time I thought the term was top “seat,” but indeed it is top
“seed.” The phrase was introduced in the 13th U.S. National Championship
in 1922 and is an analogy to sowing seeds in the ground. Seeds are planted
at different depths or levels with depths depending the soil condition,
climate, and type of seed. Some seeds grow best when sown next to certain
types of seeds. Seeds exposed to the best conditions are expected to produce
the best results, but outside factors that may change the results.
The analogy is similar for tennis players and how they are matched up
with opponents for a tournament. Different conditions such as a player’s
ranking in the tennis circuit, the type of surface on which he or she plays
best on, and strengths and weaknesses based on past performances to match
a player with a suitable opponent. The loser of the match is eliminated and
the winner competes against the next “seed.” It is predetermined which
player is “top seed.” In theory, the top-seeded player should win the
tournament, but of course, this is not always the case.
Incidentally, the game of tennis is about 2,500 years old and began in
ancient Persia. In the 1300s, the game was outlawed in France and England
-- seems that working men were neglecting their jobs and families to play
tennis. British officers brought the game to the West Indies, and a young
American woman, Mary Outerbridge, introduced the game in New York
shortly after the Civil War. Tennis caught on and today over 40 million
Americans play tennis, spending more than $100 million on balls alone.
Appreciation is expressed to the Wilson Sporting Goods Co. for
assistance in answering this question. There is no relationship, but their logo
on shirts save me from getting monograms. I even tried tennis once. Never
played any “top seeds,” only a few “seedy” people. Tennis, anyone?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): He can compress the most words into the
smallest idea of any man I know.
-- Abraham Lincoln
Football Black and Yellow (maybe Orange)
Questions: Why do football players put black under their eyes? And,
how do they get the yellow first down line on the football playing field
on TV? (Asked by curious football fan.)
Reply: You might think that black under the eyes makes players look
meaner, but this is not the purpose. (They are mean looking enough.) The
black marks can reduce glare that could make things difficult to see. Black
reduces the glare because it absorbs more light than other colors.
Now on to yellow line. Everyone wants to know if a team made first
and ten on a play. In some cases it is evident from the sideline markers, but
often it comes close and out comes the chain. Television viewers have had a
disadvantage in knowing where the first-down line is relative to the
offensive line-up on a play. But in the past few years, TV viewers have had
a yellow or orange line extending across the field marking the first-down
line. This virtual line is a computer-generated video effect, which takes
quite a bit of doing.
A production truck at the game site has banks of equipment, including
several computers operated by technicians. Consider some of the data
needed to draw the yellow line regardless of which TV camera is filming a
play at a particular angle. A game is filmed by several cameras at different
vantage points above the field. The virtual line system has to know the
orientation of the field, be able to follow the movements of the TV cameras,
and know where the first-down line is located.
Once all of this data is determined (or predetermined), it is fed into a
central computer. Using video feed from the current on-air TV camera, the
system draws a video-feed line which is sent and imposed on the program
video, giving a first-down line on TV. (As you can imagine, this is a highly
technical and complicated procedure.) Then we sit back and wait to see if
the offensive team gets the football past the line. Notice the players never
trip over it.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): 640K ought to be enough for anyone.
-- Bill Gates, 1981
V. Quizzes and Trivia
Quizzes
Quiz Time!
Get on your thinking cap. (The answers follow. Don’t peek.)
Questions:
1. What was Woodrow Wilson’s first name?
2. Which U.S. state has the least elevation difference (the flattest)?
3. What is a “dewlap”?
4. What is the only winged mammal that can fly?
5. Where did the name “Bubba” come from?
6. Considering the North and South America continents collectively as
America, which other continent name begins and ends with the same
letter?
7. Who is next in line for presidential succession after the Vice President?
8. Why is a sports enthusiast called a “fan”?
9. Does the Statue of Liberty wear shoes?
10. Who was the son and the father of U.S. Presidents?
Answers:
1. Thomas Woodrow Wilson.
2. Florida, from sea level to 345 feet above sea level.
3. The fold of skin under a cow’s throat. (A wattle in fowls, like turkeys.)
4. The bat.
5. Bubba is a corrupted form of “brother,” used for children or by children
for an older brother.
6. All the rest. Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Antarctica.
7. Speaker of the House.
8. Sports “fan” is short for sports “fanatic.”
9. According to National Geographic, Lady Liberty wears 25-foot-long
sandals, equivalent to a woman’s shoe size of 879. (They don’t stock
them much in shoe stores.)
10. John Harrison, son of William Henry Harrison (9th president) and father
of Benjamin Harrison (23rd president).
Figure your score – 10 points for each question. I’ll give you the grade
range next week.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): We are the only animals that let our kids come
back home.
-- Bill Cosby
Pop Quiz
Here you go, something for everyone. Grade your own paper.
Questions:
1. Our national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” has how many verses?
2. How many different animal shapes are there in the Animal Cracker
cookie zoo?
3. Were any bachelors ever elected as President of the United States?
4. In terms of clothing, what is a rabat?
5. How many dots are there on a pair of dice?
6. What first letters of sequential months spell a name?
7. Give the three sets of letters on the standard typewriter or computer
keyboard that are in alphabetical order, reading left to right.
8. How many teaspoons are in a cup? (Hint: there are 16 tablespoons in a
cup.)
9. Which is the only King in a deck of standard playing cards doesn’t have a
moustache?
10. Which Jacks in a deck of standard playing cards have moustaches?
11. Which letter(s) of the English alphabet has/have more than one syllable?
12. The names of some cities in the U.S. have the same name as other U.S.
states. Can you name two or three?
Answers:
1. There are four verses, although most people know only one.
2. 18 – a real zoo.
3. Yes. James Buchanan was a life-long bachelor – no first lady. (His niece
acted as a hostess in the Executive Mansion. It wasn’t officially called the
White House until 1902, although this was a common name before then.)
Another was Grover Cleveland, who married while in office and was the
only president to be married in the White House.
4. A sleeveless, backless, vest-like garment extending to the waist worn by
some clergy beneath the cleric collar. (Rabat is also the name of the capital
of the northern African country of Morocco.)
5. 42 dots. Count them up.
6. The first letters of July through November – JASON.
7. The three sets are: f-g-h, j-k-l, and o-p.
8. 48. Remember, there are three teaspoons in a tablespoon.
9. King of Hearts
10. Jack of Hearts and Jack of Spades
11. Only one, w. Three syllable if said slowly (dub el yoo), or two if said
fast (dub ya).
12. There are several: California, KY; California, MD; Delaware, AK;
Indiana, PA; Kansas, OK; Louisiana, MO; Michigan, ND; Nevada, MO;
Oregon, WI; and Wyoming, OH.
How many did you get correct?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): In life, you must try to be the type of person
your dog thinks you are.
-- Anonymous
Trivia Quiz
Let’s have a trivia quiz on a popular subject – money; in particular, bills.
Most of us can tell who is on the fronts of bill denominations, but what
pictures are on the back? Here are the bills:
1. $1
5. $20
2. $2
6. $50
3. $5
7. $100
4. $10
That’s far enough—about as far as we can go. Since 1969, the $100 bill is
the largest issue. The answers follow along, with (whose picture) is on the
front, in case you don’t remember.
1. $1: (George Washington) The Great Seal of the United States.
2. $2: (Thomas Jefferson) A portrait of the signing of the Declaration
3.
of Independence.
3. $5: (Abraham Lincoln) The Lincoln Memorial.
4. $10: (Alexander Hamilton) The U.S. Treasury.
5. $20: (Andrew Jackson) The White House.
6. $50: (Ulysses Grant) The U.S. Capitol.
7. $100: (Benjamin Franklin) Independence Hall.
So how did you do? Pretty easy, right? I could have been tough and ask
you about the back of the $2 bill, which shows a John Trumbull painting of
the “Declaration of Independence” (from 1790). Take a look at one of these
bills. Who is the person standing with the wide-brimmed hat? (The only one
with a hat – at about the 11 o’clock position.) Trumbull’s painting included
people who did not support or sign the Declaration of Independence. It is
believed that the fellow with the hat is John Dickinson, a Pennsylvania
Quaker who opposed independence.
You only get stuff like this in the Curiosity Corner.
C.P.S. (Curious PostScript): Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too
crowded.
-- Yogi Berra
Jeopardy Quiz
Let’s see how informed you are. This time the quiz will be reversed. I’ll
give you an answer and you give me the question – like on the Jeopardy
game show. (See how close you come to my questions, which are given at
the end of the quiz. Of course, there may be other applicable questions, but
we’ll see if great minds run in the same channels.)
Answers:
1. Gerald Ford
2. talent
3. Barrow, Alaska
4. Sandwich Islands
5. Oscar Hammerstein
6. basketball
7. palindrome
8. Minnesota
Questions:
1. Who was the only person to serve as Vice President and President of the
United States, but was not elected to either office?
2. What is something of which I don’t have much? True, but how about:
What was a unit of money in Biblical times that was equal to four days’
wages?
3. What is the northernmost city in the U.S.?
4.
What was the original name given to the Hawaiian Islands by Capt.
Cook?
5.
Who was the only person named Oscar to win a movie Oscar?
6.
What is the only major sport to have originated in the U.S.?
7.
What is a word or phrase that reads the same forwards and
backwards? Like “level” or “Able was I ere I saw Elba” – supposedly
said by Napoleon on being exiled to the island of Elba.
8.
What is the northernmost state in the conterminous (lower 48) U.S.?
Most people say Maine (ME), but technically it is Minnesota (MN).
This is because there is a little piece of MN, not connected to the state,
that lies above the long 49th parallel (49o N) boundary of the U.S. and
Canada – the Northwest Angle, which is mostly a Native American
reservation. The northernmost part of MN is around 45oN.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The national budget must be balanced. The
public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be
moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be
reduced, if the nation doesn’t want to go bankrupt. People must again learn
to work instead of living on public assistance.
-- Marcus Tillius Cicero, 55 BC
Bring-Your-Grade-Up Quiz
Quiz time again. You’re not doing so well. Let’s try to bring that grade up.
Questions:
1. How many colors did the Ford Model T come in the decade following
1914?
2. When was the first baseball World Series, and who won it?
3. Which U.S. state has no straight-line boundaries?
4. How many letters in the game Scrabble have only one block?
5. What was the first usage of the term “atomic bomb”?
6. Who signed Clark Gable’s Army discharge papers?
7. What did the first vending machines in the U.S. dispense?
8. Who issued the first mail order catalog in the U.S.?
9. How much did Eastman Kodak’s Brownie camera cost when it was
introduced in 1900?
10. Is the proper way to write the capital of Missouri St. Louis or Saint
Louis?
Answers:
1. One, black. Prior to 1914 they came in a variety of colors, but from 1914
to 1926 they were black because the black enamel used dried more quickly
and helped speed up production. Henry Ford is quoted as saying, “You can
buy a Model T in any color you want, as long as it is black.”
2. 1903. The National League Boston Pilgrims beat the American League
Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pilgrims later became the Red Sox.
3. Only one. Hawaii.
4. Five: J, K, Q, X, and Z. The E appears most – 12 blocks.
5. In a story, The World Set Free, by H.G. Wells in 1914.
6. Captain Ronald Reagan.
7. Chewing gum, starting in 1888.
8. Ben Franklin in 1744, to sell books.
9. One dollar.
10 Neither. It is written Jefferson City. (Gotcha.)
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The trouble with free elections is you never
know who’s going to win.
-- Lenoid Brezhnev (former party chairman, U.S.S.R.)
Quiz, One More Time
Here’s a warm-up question. What is the only non-zero number that when
added to or multiplied by itself, gives the same result? (I always start off
with an easy one.) Now that you have it all two-gether, let’s get on with the
quiz.
Questions:
1. What does “quotidian” mean? (See, questions are getting more difficult.)
2. There are the twin sisters, Esther Pauline Friedman and Pauline Esther
Friedman. How are they better known?
3. Which college did Thomas Alva Edison attend? (You know, the inventor
of the light bulb, etc.)
4. What does the term “o’clock” stand for?
5. How many U.S. presidents wore beards and who was the last one?
6. What was the last naval post held by John Paul Jones?
7. What is normal body temperature on the Celsius scale?
8. Which U.S. coin has a president’s image on both sides of the coin
9. Which U.S. coin has the president’s image facing right?
(Check your piggy bank.)
10. Not counting Iowa and Utah, how many U.S. states have only four
letters in their names?
Answers:
1. It means “occurring every day.” The newspaper funnies are quotidian.
The Curiosity Corner isn’t quotidian, thank goodness.
2. Ann Landers and Abigail Van Buren, who wrote the syndicated columns
“Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby.”
3. None. Tom dropped out of public school at the age of 12 to work on
railroad trains.
4. “Of (the) clock.”
5. Only five, the last being Benjamin Harrison (served 1889-99).
Before him, in descending order, James A. Garfield, Rutherford B.
Hayes, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln.
6. An admiral in the Russian navy.
7. 37o C
8. The Lincoln penny. Abe’s head is on the front and his memorial is on
the back, If you use a magnifying glass You can see his image sitting in
there between the pillars.
9. The penny again. Abe is facing right. Note that I said “president’s
image.” Susan B. Anthony and Sacajawea face right on their dollar
coins Gee, I should have asked you to name all three.
10. Are you ready for this? The answer is seven: Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii,
Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Note for example, if you
count the letters that make up Kansas; there are four, K-A-N-S. Read the
question again. Tricky, tricky.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): When serving on a serious jury case, to be
acquitted the accused must be found innocent beyond the shadow of a doubt.
I couldn’t serve on such a jury – I’ve never seen a doubt’s shadow.
-- JDW
Pre-tested Quiz
Ok, time for another quiz. This one was pre-tested on kindergarteners.
They all passed.
Questions:
1. What U.S. city is the largest in area?
2. After whom was Mt. Rushmore named?
3. What is the difference between white and brown eggs?
4. What does ZIP in ZIP code stand for?
5. Are there any male ducks?
6. What is the difference between a gaggle of geese and a skein of geese?
7. We use “iota” to mean small things, for example, “There’s not one iota of
of truth in that.” Why does iota have this meaning?
8. Is Holland a country?
9. George W. Bush is the 43rd president. How many presidents have there
been before him?
10. What are the following presidents’ middle names?
(a) Grover Cleveland. (b) Woodrow Wilson. (c) Calvin Coolidge.
Answers:
1. Sitka, Alaska (2,874 sq. mi) – what urban sprawl. Followed by Juneau,
AK (2717 sq. mi), Anchorage, AK (1697), Jacksonville, FL (758 sq. mi),
and Oklahoma City, OK (607 sq. mi.). Others? Los Angles, CA (469 sq.
mi), New York City, NY (321 sq. mi), and Atlanta, GA (132 sq. mi).
2. Charles Rushmore, an attorney from New York. He was on a horseback
tour and asked the guide what the mountain was called. Jokingly, the guide
said it didn’t have a name, but would be called Mt. Rushmore from now on.
The name stuck. Rushmore later donated money toward the carving of the
images on the mountain.
3. Other than color, not much. Same taste, same nutrition. White eggs come
from hens with white feathers and ear lobes. Brown eggs come from hens
with red feathers and red ear lobes. Major difference is price. Those brownegg layers, Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, and Plymouth Rock, are
larger and eat more, which jacks up the price.
4. ZIP: Zoning Improvement Plan.
5. No, but there are male drakes. Ducks are female.
6. A group of geese is on the ground is a gaggle of geese. A group in the air
is a skein of geese.
7. The 9th letter of the Greek alphabet, iota (), is the smallest letter of this
alphabet, and came to be used in reference to very small things.
8. No. Holland is a province in the Netherlands. Actually, it is two
provinces. There is a North Holland and a South Holland.
9. There were 41. Grover Cleveland was elected two separate times, and
was the 22nd and 24th president. Benjamin Harrison slipped a term in there
in between.
10. Middle names: Grover, Woodrow, and Calvin.
The complete names are Stephen Grover Cleveland, Thomas Woodrow
Wilson, and John Calvin Coolidge.
Oh yes, in the family Bible, David Dwight Eisenhower is listed… not
Dwight David.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Get the facts first, and then you can distort
them as much as you please.
-- Mark Twain
Curiosity Corner Quiz
Number your papers from one to ten, and don’t peek at the answers.
Questions:
1. What are the circular dots or markings on dice and dominoes called?
2. Spam® (not the kind you get on the internet), is the pork product made
by Hormel. What does Spam® stand for?
3. What is wrong with the expression “sweating like a pig”?
4. What is an octothorpe?
5. What is the only continent without a desert?
6. What is the oldest hamburger chain in the U.S.?
7. In cooking, what does “al dente” mean?
8. Is there any corn in corned beef?
9. Is there any ham in hamburger?
10. Is there any… let’s put it another way. Why do we call wieners “hot
dogs”?
Answers:
1. Pips. So when you roll a two, you can say pip-pip.
2. SPiced hAM.
3. Pigs have no sweat glands.
4. The “pound” sign (#), as on the telephone or a keyboard.
5. Europe. (FYI, the eastern part of Washington state is considered a desert
because of its arid conditions.)
6. White Castle, founded in 1921 in Wichita, Kansas. They served steamfried hamburgers, 18 per pound of ground beef, cooked on a bed of onions,
for a nickel. (Almost bite size.)
7. Pasta and vegetables are sometimes cooked “al dente” – firm to the bite
8. No, corned beef is cured in brine. In old times before refrigeration, meat
was dry cured in “corns of salt,” about the size of kernels of corn; hence, it
was corned beef.
9. Nope, just beef. Supposedly the old-time Tartars shredded tough beef to
make it more edible. The practice was introduced to Germany; and in the
city of Hamburg, it became known as “Hamburger steak.” An Englishman
brought the idea to England, and he made “Salisbury steak.” Of course it
came to the Colonies, and a patty eventually got put into a bun, along with
catsup, onions, pickles, etc.
10. Called “wieners” (named after Vienna, Austria) and “frankfurters” (after
Frankfurt, Germany), there are several theories on how the name “hot dog”
developed. One has it that early lunch wagons that served hot sausages were
called “dog wagons” and “hot dog” developed in describing the sausages
being sold. Another is that a newspaper cartoonist coined (or popularized)
the term “hot dog” when he used it in a cartoon caption illustrating sausage
vendors, not being able to spell “frankfurter.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Every teenager should get a high school
education, even if they know everything already.
-- Anonymous
Presidential Quiz
Let’s see what you know about U.S. presidents.
Questions:
1. Which president lived the longest after his presidency?
2. Who was the oldest president?
3. Which president won a Pulitzer Prize before he became president?
4. Which president wrote fourteen books before entering the White
House?
5. The United States had three presidents in one year. Who were they?
6. Who was the only president to have his likeness on both sides of a
coin?
7. Who was the first president to be born in a hospital?
8. Which four presidents had state capitals named after them?
9. Which president has a plaque honoring him for saving 77 lives?
10. Was Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address the main speech at the dedication
of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, PA, in 1863?
Answers:
1. Herbert Hoover, 33 years, died at the age of 90.
2. Ronald Reagan. Left office just before his 78th birthday.
3. John F. Kennedy, for Profiles in Courage.
4. Teddy Roosevelt. Histories, biographies, nature studies, etc.
5. The year was 1841. Martin Van Buren left office March 3. William
Henry Harrison was sworn in, but died on April 4, and Vice President
John Tyler became the tenth president.
6. Abraham Lincoln, on the penny. You will need a magnifying glass to
see Abe on the back of the penny sitting in his chair in the Lincoln
Memorial. (Tricky, tricky.)
7. Jimmy Carter.
8. Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson City, Missouri); James Madison
(Madison, Wisconsin); Andrew Jackson (Jackson, Mississippi);
Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska).
9. Ronald Reagan: during 1927 – 1932, when a summer life guard, he is
credited for saving 77 people from drowning. The plaque was erected
before he became famous as an actor and politician.
10. No. The main address, two hours long, was given by Edward
Everett, a well-known orator of the time. Lincoln’s famous brief
speech followed. Everett wrote to Lincoln saying, “I wish I could
flatter myself that I had near to the central idea of the occasion in two
hours as you did in two minutes.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If Lincoln were alive today, he would roll
over in his grave.
-- Gerald Ford
Final Exam
Make it good. Your grade depends on it!
Questions:
1. Why do we call important dates “red-letter days”?
2. Why are laws “blue” on Sunday? (“blue laws”)
3. Did a band called the “Quarrymen” ever amount to anything?
4. What do the writing abbreviations “et al.,” “i.e.,” and “e.g.” stand for?
5. Why is some china called “bone china”?
6. Does “biweekly” mean “twice a week” or “every two weeks”?
7. There is commonly a loop on or near a belt buckle through which the end
of the belt is ran to keep it in place. What is this loop called?
8. Who are Gruffi, Cubbi, Tummi, Zummi, Sunni, and Grammi?
9. Which camel has two humps?
10. Whose faces are on the Mt. Rushmore Memorial in South Dakota?
11. Who is on the Stone Mountain Memorial sculpture outside of Atlanta,
Georgia?
12. How many people were there on Noah’s arc?
13. How many decks were there on Noah’s arc?
14. What animal’s milk is used in the making of Roquefort cheese?
15. (And finally, a toughie. Extra credit if you get it right.) What is the
largest amount of different U.S. coins one can have and not be able to give
someone change for a dollar?
Answers:
1. The term “red-letter day” originated with the tradition of marking holy
days on church in red. Now we use it to denote days of more secular
significance.
2. “Blue laws” are those forbidding certain activities on Sunday. It is
believed that this originated from strict Sabbath rules being printed on blue
paper in colonial times.
3. Yep, they made it. The Quarrymen was the original name of the Beatles.
4. Et al. stands for “et alia,” meaning “and others”; i.e. stands for “id est,”
meaning “that is”; and e.g. stands for “example gratia,” meaning “for
example.”
5. Because bone china is made from porcelain containing bone ash. Plain
porcelain is strong, but chips fairly easily, and is usually tinged with blue or
gray. Bone china is strong, doesn’t chip easily, and has an ivory-white
color.
6. The prefix “bi-” is ambiguous. It can be taken to mean “twice each” or
“every two.” A suggested resolve is to look at the word’s root, “biweek”-ly.
A biweek would be a two-week period. “Semiweek”ly, or semiweek, would
be twice a week. The same with bimonthly and semimonthly. Of course,
you could just say “every two weeks” and “twice a week.”
But there’s an exception. “Biennial” is the word for “once every two
years.” Then “semiannual” and “biannual” would mean twice a year. Oh,
this English language.
7. It is called the “keeper.”
8. The Gummi bears – all six of them.
9. The Bactrian camel, found in Central Asia form Turkistan to Mongolia,
has two humps. The Arabian, or dromedary camel, found in the Middle East
and Asia, has one hump.
10. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and
Theodore Roosevelt.
11. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson, on horseback.
[The American sculptor, Gutzou Borglum (1871 – 1941), carved most of the
Mt. Rushmore Memorial, and started the Stone Mountain sculpture. He died
before finishing Theodore Roosevelt at Mt. Rushmore and his son finished
the work.
12. Eight. Noah, his wife; sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and their wives.
13. Three. (Gen. 6:16)
14. The female sheep – the ewe.
15. $1.19. Three quarters, four dimes, and four pennies.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Only cosmetologists give make-up exams.
-- Anonymous
Trivia
Crossroads Trivia
Here’s some trivia I’ve been saving up for you – very important stuff. Trivia
was the Roman goddess of crossroads. People met at the crossroads and
exchanged gossip.
 The first church bells in the U.S. were installed in the tower of Boston’s
Old North Church in 1745. (That’s where Paul Revere had his lanterns
hung thirty years later – on the 18th of April in ’75 – one if by land and
two if by sea.)
 Chickens lay eggs small end first. (Makes good sense.)
 Longest life spans: mammals, humans (100+ years); reptiles, giant
tortoises (150 years); birds, turkey buzzards (118 years); animal,
quahogs, a thick-shelled ocean clam or mollusk (200 years). (And we
humans think we age well.)
 Technically, the banana is a berry. Berries are identified as being many
seeded with a fleshy inner layer. (Yes, we have no berries, we have no
berries today.)
* A commercial airliner’s emergency door cannot be opened in flight. The
cabin is pressurized (to normal atmospheric pressure). At 30,000 to 40,000
feet in altitude, the outside pressure is much less, so there is a large outward
force on the door, which opens inward. The emergency door is for getting
out after the plane has landed and the cabin depressurized.
* According to a National Public Radio article, the most popular U.S. street
names are (in order): Second, Third, First, Park, Main, Sixth, Oak, Seventh,
Pine, Maple, Cedar, Eighth, and Elm. Why is Second St. at the top of the
list? Many towns prefer to give their first, or main, street a proper name
(like Wilson Boulevard).
* Most all mammals (having hair and feeding their young milk) have belly
buttons, resulting from umbilical cord feeding during gestation. However,
there are two exceptions – the duckbill platypus and the echidna, both from
Australia. The platypus is a small, furry animal with web feet and a ducklike bill. The echidna, also called the spiny ant eater, has long spines or
quills and long, sharp claws for digging for ants. (There are two varieties of
echidnas: long-nosed and short-nosed.) Both the platypus and echidna lay
eggs (no belly button) and feed their young milk.
* “Scot free,” meaning absolutely free without punishment or harm, has
nothing to do with Scots (from Scotland). In 12th century England, there
was a tax called a “scot” or “sceot.” Anyone who “got off scot free” didn’t
have to pay anything.
* The word “run” has the most definitions in an unabridged dictionary. (In
my Webster’s Unabridged, there are 179. Check your dictionary.)
And there’s your Curiosity Corner trivia for the day. Hope you learned
something.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the
national debt.
-- Herbert Hoover
Penny Trivia
All about pennies.
 The U.S. Mint produces over 10 billion pennies annually.
 Pennies are produced at an average rate of 1,040 per second.
 About 30 million pennies are produced per day.
 Over two-thirds of all coins produced by the U.S. Mint are
pennies.
 During the early penny-making years, the U.S. Mint was so
short of copper that it accepted copper items from the public to
melt down for coins.
 The early copper penny coin was reddish in color, and so you
may not have to pay “one red cent.”
 It now costs more than a cent to mint a penny.
 The average penny lasts 25 years.
Composition of the penny:
1793-1837
Pure copper.
1837-1857
Bronze (95% copper, and 5% tin and zinc.
1857-1864 88% copper, 12% nickel.
1864-1962 Bronze again. Note; In 1943, the penny composition was
changed to zinc-coated steel because of the critical use of
copper in the war effort.
1962-1982 95% copper, 5% zinc.
1982 -
97.5% zinc, 2.5% copper (copper-plated zinc).
This trivia may spark some questions:
(1) Why do they produce so many pennies – over 10 billion a year?
The Mint has to produce a lot of pennies to keep an average number in
circulation. People save them, but most likely they are an annoyance –
heavy in the pocket, filling up the change purse – so they are thrown in jars
and bowls, and taken out of circulation. Messing around with pennies when
paying for something can be a nuisance. You don’t have any, so you get
some back in change. To help out, some stores have “take one and give
one” bowls, from which you taket pennies if needed and give pennies if you
don’t want to carry them around.
(2) Why don’t they use copper much anymore?
Copper is relatively expensive. The cost of copper to produce a copper
penny is now more than a cent. I recall when I was young (a long time ago)
that copper electric lines were cut down and stolen because copper could be
sold for a good price. That caused aluminum to be used for electric lines. It
is not as good a conductor as copper, but a lot cheaper, and who would want
to steal aluminum lines? There are plenty of aluminum cans along the side
of the road from litterbugs, which shows its value.
(3) Why don’t we just do away with the penny?
Because of the inconvenience, it would seem like Congress should just do
away with pennies so things would have to be rounded to five cents. This
was tried. The Rounding Act of 1989, which would require merchants to
round prices off to the nearest nickel, got nowhere. Oddly enough, one poll
showed that 63% of the American people didn’t want to do away with the
penny – sentimental attachment, I guess. (No one polled me.) And, more
than likely the greatest influence to keep the penny is a lot of lobbying from
the zinc industry.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Doing nothing is a full-time job, with never a
day off.
-- Anonymous
Presidential Trivia
Some presidential tidbits.
* Washington’s second inaugural address was the shortest in U.S. history,
containing less than 300 words. (The longest? Find out below.)
* John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the only future presidents to sign
the Declaration of Independence.
* John Adams lived long enough to see his son, John Quincy, win the
presidency in 1824. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826. John
Adams is one of two presidents whose son went on to become president.
(You should know the other.)
* Martin Van Buren was the first president born a U.S. citizen.
* William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address. He talked for
almost two hours in a freezing rain, refusing to wear a hat or warm winter
coat. He caught cold, which developed into pneumonia. Harrison died a
month later, becoming the president with the shortest term in history.
* John Tyler had the most children of any U.S. president – 15. ( Fourteen
lived to maturity.) Eight were by his first wife, and seven by his second.
Tyler married the latter during his term in office. She was 30 years younger
than he.
* Zachary Taylor never voted in an election before he voted for himself for
president.
* James Buchanan was the only unmarried president.
* Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have a beard.
* Grover Cleveland did not fight in the Civil War. He bought a substitute
for $150, which was perfectly legal at that time. Also, Cleveland was the
only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms (1885-1889 and 18931897). Between terms, his first child, Ruth, was born. A new candy bar,
Baby Ruth, was named after her.
* Electricity was installed in the White House in 1891. Benjamin Harrison
was afraid of the new technology and refused to touch the light switches.
* Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White
House, making Washington the first African-American to dine in the
executive mansion. Roosevelt also had a boxing match in the White House
with the heavyweight champion John L. Sullivan. The president lost sight in
one eye after being hit by Sullivan.
* William Howard Taft was the heaviest president in U.S. history,
weighing close to 350 pounds. At one point, he got stuck in the White
House bathtub. A new, larger tub was installed. Taft was the first president
to play golf, and became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court after his
presidency.
* Gerald Ford was the only person in U.S. history to serve as both vice
president and president without being elected to either office. He was
appointed to both positions. In the fall of 1975, President Ford survived
two-assassination attempts…one the gun did not fire, and the other by a
bystander intervening and the bullet missed.
* Ronald Regan was the oldest president to be elected to office at age 69,
and was the first president to have been divorced. At age 73, Regan was the
oldest man ever to run for the presidency. He won a second term with the
largest victory in U.S. history, 49 states, and 525 electoral votes.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript):a I’m not sincere, even when I say I’m not.
-- Jules Renard, French author
I Didn’t Know That
Trivia potpourri.
 The MG, of the MG automobile, stands for Morris Garages.
 You have to count to 1000 before the letter “a” is used in spelling a
number.
 Try to think of a word that starts and ends with “he.” (Don’t let it give
you a headache.)
 The parrot is one of the few birds that have two toes pointing forward and
two toes pointing backwards. (Most birds have three forward and one
backward.) This allows the parrot to climb trees, hang upside down, and
hold food with one foot. I read where woodpeckers also have this toe
arrangement.
 Some nerve impulses, like muscle signals, travel up to 390 ft/s (265
mi/h). Others travel more slowly. If you stub your toe, you feel the
contact right away (signals traveling 250 ft/s), but the pain is felt a bit
later with pain signals traveling at about 2 ft/s.
 President Calvin Coolidge (“Silent Cal”) was a man of few words. There
is a popular story that a White House dinner guest made a bet that she
could get the President to say more than two words. She told Coolidge of
her wager, and he replied, “You lose.”
 Coolidge’s last will and testament was one sentence, twenty three words
long: “Not unmindful of my son John, I give all my estate, both real and
personal, to my wife, Grace Coolidge, in fee simple.” (Go ahead and
count the words if you don’t believe me.)
 Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural
address with out using the word “I.” Tied for second place with the use
of only one “I” – Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight
D. Eisenhower.
* The now defunct Florida St. Petersburg Evening Independent used to
give the paper away any day the sun failed to shine. (The Sunshine State,
you know.) During its 76 years of publication, betting on the sun was
relatively inexpensive. The paper was free only 295 times -- an average of
fewer than four times per year.
* The phrase “The blind leading the blind” comes from Matthew 15:14.
* The phrase “mind your own beeswax” is said to have originated from
medieval smallpox epidemics. Those that survived the disease were left with
pockmarks on their bodies and faces. Ladies would fill in these facial
pockmarks with beeswax, which, on a hot day, might melt. One lady
shouldn’t mention this to another, at the risk of being told to “mind your
own beeswax.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the
United States. Ask any Indian (Native American).
-- Robert Orbsen
A Bunch of Trivia
Some interesting facts and things for the really curious.
 The saxophone is named after Antoine Sax, a Belgian instrument maker,
who introduced it in the 1850s for use in orchestras and military bands.
 Earthworms come out of the ground when it rains so as not to drown
when their holes fill up with water. Earthworms live in burrows (holes)
that are 14 – 18 inches deep. In cold, dry weather, they may burrow up
to 79 inches deep in search of moisture.
 Chickens have ears (or ear holes). They do not have an outer ear (pinna)
as most mammals do. Chickens do have earlobes. White chickens have
white earlobes and lay white eggs. (Hens, that is.) Non-white chickens
generally have reddish earlobes (color may vary) and lay brown eggs.
 A double-yolk egg (one shell, two yolks) is the chicken equivalent to
identical twins. Fraternal chicken twins get separate shells.
 Identical human twins have the same DNA typing, so you can’t
distinguish them using DNA. Hence, if one twin commits a crime and
leaves DNA evidence at the scene, you couldn’t use DNA matching to
determine which twin did it. But identical twins do have different
fingerprint patterns. (Crime never pays, even for identical twins.)
* The expression “winning hands down” comes from horse racing, where in
a “hands down” victory, a jockey feels so confident of winning the race
that he/she (we have female jockeys) drops the hands and relaxes the grip
on the reins when nearing the finish line.
* No Vice President of the U.S. has ever been assassinated.
* Penny is used to specify nail size because in England nails were once sold
by the hundreds. Nails that sold for ten pence per hundred were know as
10-penny nails. Larger nails that were sold for 20 pence were 20-penny
nails. The nail sizes remain, but not the prices.
* Some parts of Illinois are farther south than Richmond, Virginia.
* There are parts of Wisconsin that are farther east than parts of Florida.
(Check these out on the map.)
* The Pilgrims drank beer, and this may have affected their landing on
Plymouth Rock. An excerpt from the journal of a Mayflower passenger
tells why they landed at the first sight of land: “We could not now take
time for further search, or victuals being much spent, especially our
beere.”
* Founded in 1897, Woolworth’s 5-and-10 cent stores top price was 10
cents for 53 years, until 1932.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) ) Don’t gain weight in the wrong places.
Eat in good restaurants.
-- Anonymous.
You Don’t Say
Very interesting.
* All U.S. coins have a “coin turn.” That is, if you look at a “heads” right
side up, the image on the “tails” side is inverted. (Why do we say “heads”
or “tails” when we flip a single coin?)
* The four-leaf clover is a genetic mutation that occurs for about every
10,000 clovers.
* The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is
“uncopyrightable.”
* The Dutch painter, Vincent Van Gogh, cut off his left ear. His
“Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear” shows the right ear bandaged because
he painted his mirror image.
* Tennis pro Andy Roddick, called the Rocket Man, has the record for the
fastest serve – 155 mi/h.
* The Pentagon was built with twice as many bathrooms (284) as needed
because it was built in segregated Virginia.
* Africa has the shortest coast line of all the continents; and of the various
cultures have the shortest (Pygmy) and tallest (Watusi) people in the
world.
* The word “automobile” means “self-moving” and was coined to give a
name to horseless carriages.
* Mark Twain purchased a Remington typewriter in 1874 and became the
first author to submit a typewritten manuscript to a publisher. It was the
manuscript for a novel entitled Thomas Sawyer.
* The national song of Australia is “Waltzing Matilda.” Matilda was not a
woman, but a blanket (swag) worn over the shoulder. A “swagman” was
an itinerant sheep shearer. When “waltzing Matilda,” the swagman was
dancing with his blanket.
* When you snap your fingers, the loudest sound is caused by the air being
forced out between the middle finger and the palm and the air striking the
palm. Place and hold a piece of tissue or soft cloth on the palm and snap.
The sound will be muffled.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The first place to look for something is the
last place you would expect to find it.
-- Anonymous
VI. What’s the Difference?
To Drip or Not To Drip
Question: What’s the difference between regular candles and dripless
candles? (Asked by a curious candle buff.)
Reply: The question might be answered that one drips and the other doesn’t,
but that is a cop-out. First, some candle background. The word “candle”
comes from the Latin candere, meaning “to shine.” Candles have been
around for a long time. They were used in Egypt around 3000 BC, and were
a major light source for many centuries.
For a long time, candles were made from tallow (rendered animal fat).
But with the advent of paraffin (from petroleum) in the 1800s, tallow
candles went by the wayside. Beeswax and bayberry wax are also used in
candles, and some are scented. There is a lot of candle burning over the
Christmas holiday season. In fact, candles were used on Christmas trees
before electric lights. (Big fire hazard.)
Now back to the drip question. How a candle burns depends on the
wax (and additives) and the wick. Some candles are made from wax that
drips down the side of the candle and holder while melting. As the liquid
wax hardens, it forms “waxicles.” This is sort of a tradition with candles.
However, for longer-burning candles with little or no mess, “dripless”
candles are preferred. These are made with wax that contains stearic acid,
which gives a hard wax with a higher melting point. In all candles, heat
from the flame liquefies the wax near the base of the wick. The liquid wax
rises in the wick by capillary action (like water in a paper towel), and is
vaporized. The flame is the combustion of wax vapor.
Because of the higher melting point of the dripless candle wax, the
heat from the wick is not sufficient to melt the outer edges of the candle. So
there is a pool of liquid wax within a solid wax rim. A thicker wick helps
the dripless process. It absorbs more wax from the liquid wax pool, give a
longer burning time. But even “dripless” candles will drip. For example, if
there is an air draft that blows hot air or the flame from the wick to one side,
this can cause the hard rim to melt. Then you get the drips.
Candles have a special aurora – as in dinner by candle light. Also in
poetry as in a poem by Edna St.Vincent Millay:
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night.
But ah, my foes, and oh my friends –
It gives such a lovely light.
I don’t know if Edna’s candles were dripless or not, but you really should
not burn your candle at both ends – you can run out of wax very quickly.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) I don’t make jokes. I just watch the
government and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers
A Potpourri of Differences
Question: What’s the difference between a lawyer and an attorney?
And why an “attorney at law”? We don’t say “doctor at medicine” or
“professor at physics.” (Asked by a curious barrister.)
Reply: I’ve never thought about this. I have wondered why lawyers
practice law and physicians practice medicine. (I always hope that it’s not
as in practice makes perfect.)
In everyday usage the terms lawyer and attorney are basically
synonymous. Here are typical dictionary definitions:
attorney: 1. a lawyer, attorney-at-law
2. an attorney-in-fact; agent
And so, an attorney is a lawyer, and
lawyer:
1. a person licensed by a state to advise clients in legal
matters and to represent them in courts of law or other forms of disputes.
Note there are two types of attorneys – attorney-at-law and attorneyin-fact. These are not synonymous.
An attorney-at-law is a lawyer as defined above. An attorney-in-fact
is a person authorized to act on a person’s behalf in matters outside a court
of law. The scope of the authority is controlled or limited by a written
document, a power of attorney, granted by the person. No legal training is
needed. You may be an attorney-in-fact someday. A common use of a
power of attorney is conducting business for an incapacitated person.
That gives one distinction between attorney and lawyer. You can
have a power of attorney, but you never hear about a power of lawyer or a
lawyer-in-fact.
Question: What is the difference between a fruit and a vegetable?
Reply: Botanically, “fruit” refers specifically to those items that arise from
the ripening of the plant ovaries to encapsulate seeds. That is, fruits have
seeds inside. Apples, peaches, bananas, melons, tomatoes, cucumbers,
squash, pumpkins, and peas in the pod are fruits.
Other edible parts of a plant -- for example, leaves, stems, and roots
are vegetables. Vegetables do not contain seeds. Carrots, beets, celery, and
potatoes are vegetables. So be careful. The next time you order a fruit salad,
it could be a tomato salad.
Question: What is the difference between a woodchuck and a
groundhog?
Reply: Marmot is the name for a group of large, gnawing squirrels. One
species in North America is called either a woodchuck or a groundhog.
There is no difference, except on Feb. 2 -- ever hear of Woodchuck Day?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) I’m not crazy. I’m just intellectually
independent.
-- Anonymous
Soup De Jure – Chowder or Bisque?
Question: What’s the difference between chowder and bisque, for
example, clam chowder and clam bisque? (Asked by a curious clam.)
Reply: To get the scoop firsthand, I was in a seafood restaurant and asked.
The waitress said she would check, and on returning from the kitchen, told
me that chowder had potatoes and bisque did not.
When I got home, I pulled up my Random House dictionary and
found these definitions:
chowder: a thick soup or stew made of clams, fish, or vegetables, with
potatoes, onions, and other ingredients and seasonings.
bisque: a thick soup, especially of pureed shellfish or vegetables.
There was a loophole here – potatoes and vegetables. So I called in to
“Ask the Chef” on the radio. He told me that bisque could have potatoes,
but generally not. That’s reasonable. Pureed potatoes would be like mashed
potatoes, which would make for a pretty thick soup.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If you would not be forgotten, write either
things worth reading, or do things worth writing.
-- B. Franklin.
Taken for a Ride
Question: What’s the difference between a “cab” and a “taxi”? (Asked
by a curious cabbie.)
Reply: Let’s start by catching a cab. Back in the 18th century, well-to-do
English folk used fashionable one-horse carriages to take Sunday rides.
These were called “cabriolets” (from the French, meaning “to leap”). It
wasn’t too long until larger carriages were available for hire in cities and
cabriolet was shortened to “cab.” And so in some cities one could “catch a
cab” or “hail a cab.” The cabs of the time were also known as “hackneys” or
“hacks” from the French haquenee, meaning horse. In modern connotation,
a cab driver may say he drives a hack – but a horseless carriage in this case.
So where does taxi come in? -- as a result of technology. When
taking a “cab”, cabbies would quote a loose price based on the distance of
the ride. As you might imagine, this allowed room for profitable error. But
in the late 1800s, enter the invention of the “taximeter” (from the French
taxi, or tariff; and metre or meter). The taximeter measured the actual
distance traveled by a cab and was quickly in wide use. Cabs then became
known as “taxicabs” or just “taxis” for short.
However, the present-day taximeters (or “meters”) are based on time.
That is, the time it takes in going from pick up point to destination. The
meter keeps ticking away when stopped at a red light or in traffic. Another
method for fares is based on zones, going from one zone to another, so you
pay for approximate distance.
Have you ever taken a taxi ride in New York City? I did once, and
came to the conclusion that the cab or taxi drivers were in training for
NASCAR.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Life is like drawing without an eraser.
-- John Gardner
Reinventing the Wheel
Question: What is the difference between all-wheel drive and fourwheel drive vehicles? (Asked by my curious motorist.)
Reply: The all-wheel drive (AWD) is a full-time system – it is there
whenever you are driving. This is opposed to the traditional back-wheel or
front-wheel drives. The AWD was designed to provide traction when roads
are slippery from rain, snow, or ice. Originally, the power to the wheels was
divided mechanically. However, newer vehicles usually have computerized
traction control systems. Data from sensors in the wheels are fed into a
central computer. If the computer senses one or more wheels about to slip, it
redirects power to the other wheels so you keep on trucking.
A four-wheel drive (4WD), on the other hand, is a part-time system
designed for icy and snowy roads and off-road use (mudding). When
traction is needed, the 4WD can be activated, giving a “low” gear setting
which for most designs adds power to the front wheels of a rear-wheel drive
vehicle.
I understand that some vehicles now have 4WD and AWD
combinations – an AWD that can be changed to a 4WD. No wonder things
are confusing. I’m going to use CCD (Curiosity Corner Drive) and get out
of here.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If I were two-faced, would I be wearing
this one?
-- Abraham Lincoln
Get Ready for Din-Din
Question: What’s the difference between dinner and supper? (Asked
by a curious fellow sitting down at the dinner -- or supper? -- table.)
Reply: I’m not sure there is a definitive answer as to what you call the meal.
It seems this depends on your eating habits. Let’s first go to the dictionary:
dinner: the main meal of the day, eaten in the evening or midday.
supper: the evening meal, often the principal meal of the day.
And we may as well throw in
lunch: a light midday meal between breakfast and dinner.
Got that? Really helps. I think the key designation here is dinner being the
main or large meal of the day. People eat their large meal of the day at
different times. In the old farm days, the big meal was generally eaten at
midday to give the workers a rest and enough energy to get through the rest
of the day; so this was dinner. When I was growing up, we had breakfast,
dinner, and supper – my mother was raised on a farm. Also, in parts of
Germany, the big meal of the day is usually at noon. Shops and schools are
closed for a two-hour dinner break. City folks tend to eat lighter noon meals
(lunch), so supper for them is dinner – which may be fashionably late.
The time of the main meal of the day has changed historically,
particularly in England. Henry VIII had his big meal at midmorning.
During the reign of Queen Victoria, it was fashionable to have dinner as late
as 10 p.m. As a result, the English got a bit hungry in the afternoon and
invented teatime – tea and crumpets to tide you over.
So, call it what you will. Moral of the story: bring on the food!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The hardest thing to understand is the income
tax.
-- Albert Einstein
Kiss my Grits
Question: What’s the difference between hominy and grits? Asked by
a curious connoisseur.)
Reply: That’s a real Southern question. Being originally from Ohio, I’m
familiar with hominy – my mom served it. However, not everyone has had
the pleasure. I recall one time at a Southern university cafeteria salad bar, a
student pointed at some white stuff and said, “What’s that?” I told him it
was hominy, and that he had probably eaten it many times in the form of
grits. I’m not sure he believed me. However, I digress.
There are “corn” grits and “hominy” grits, and both are made from
yellow and white corn. But first let’s take a look at a kernel of corn. A
kernel has an outer hull, and below that a bran layer. At the bottom of the
kernel (the end attached to the cob) is the germ or embryo. You’ve probably
seen this somewhat round and elongated germ when eating corn on the cob.
Corn oil makes up about half of the germ.
Corn grits is made from corn that has been dried to about 14 percent
moisture content and cleaned with forced air. The kernels are then ground
by mill stones (or steel rollers in modern processing) to a certain texture and
sifted through metal screens. The three products sorted are corn grits,
cornmeal, and bran.
Hominy grits, of course, is made from hominy. To make hominy, the
corn is soaked in lye or “potash” water for a day or two until the hull and
bran come loose and rise to the top. (In modern commercial techniques, the
corn is boiled in dilute sodium hydroxide and the hull is removed
mechanically.) The kernels swell to about twice their original size. After
rinsing, they are dried.
Both yellow and white hominy can be found in grocery stores.
Coarsely ground hominy makes grits, with white grits being preferred over
yellow grits, which are starchier. “Quick” grits are made by grinding the
granules finer, which allows faster cooking. “Instant” grits are precooked,
dried for packaging, and then “recooked” quickly by adding boiling water.
If you are really into grits, you can attend a couple of annual festivals
in April – the National Grits Festival in Warwick, GA, and the World Grits
Festival in St. George, SC. Both towns claim to be the “Grits Capital of the
World.” You can get grits topped with butter, cheese, or red-eye gravy.
Not a bad column for a damn Yankee, don’t you think? (A damn
Yankee is one who comes down South and stays.) I knew grits didn’t grow
on “grit trees” like they told me when I first came down years ago.
Bonus: Why is it called red-eye gravy? Legend has it that Andrew
Jackson asked his cook to prepare lunch. The cook had been drinking corn
whiskey the night before, and his eyes were red. Jackson told him to fix
some ham gravy as red as his eyes. Others overheard this, and ham gravy
became known as red-eye gravy.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): It’s hard to be nostalgic when you can’t
remember anything.
-- Anonymous
A Cheesy Difference
Question: What is the difference between yellow and white cheeses?
(Asked by a curious cheese lover.)
Reply: Basically not much, other than a little coloring. Most cheeses are
naturally white or pale cream color. The yellow cheeses, such as American,
longhorn, and cheddar, are dyed with a food coloring called annatto. This
yellowish-red dye comes from the pulp of the annatto tree found in tropical
America. The dye is also used in coloring butter and fabrics. Butter made
from the milk of cows eating dry, stored feed during the winter may not have
enough beta-carotene to give a yellow color, so annatto is added, as it is for
cheese. Some cheeses aren’t colored and are preferred in some regions, such
as Vermont cheddar, mozzarella, and other varieties.
Some people believe that light-colored cheeses are healthier than
yellow or light orange-colored cheeses because they have less fat. However,
given a particular type of cheese, such as cheddar, the white and yellow
varieties differ generally only in color. Both have ample cholesterol and
saturated fat (unless the fat has been removed). I love cheese of either color
– much to my physician’s dismay.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If winning isn’t everything, why do they keep
score?
-- Vince Lombardi
Mules, Donkeys, and Burros – What a Combo
Question: How do mules, donkeys, and burros differ? (Asked by a
curious cowpoke.)
Reply: Let's start with mules. A mule is the offspring of an ass (donkey)
and a horse. Generally, this is a cross between a male donkey and a female
horse (mare). The resulting mule has the features of a donkey, but in bulk
and stature resembles a horse. The mule usually excels both parents in
muscular endurance, sure-footedness (one of the best), and age span.
However, the breeding can go the other way -- a female donkey crossed with
a male horse. The result in this case is called a hinny, which is smaller, has
a bushier tail, and more docile.
Male and female mules are usually sterile. But there have been
instances where female mules have been crossed with horses or donkeys and
foals produced. Mules are generally stereotyped as being stubborn or stupid
-- "stubborn as a mule" -- but they are relatively intelligent in their own way.
Now let's look at the donkey (technically an ass, if you check your
dictionary, encyclopedia, or Bible). The male donkey is called a jack or
jackass, while a female is known as a jennet or jenny. The Spanish brought
the donkey to the New World and the Spanish name for this animal is burro.
In Mexico and the southwestern U.S., the name burro has come to be applied
to small donkeys that evolved there. They are much smaller than their Old
World relatives. However through breeding, donkeys can be much larger,
which is done so as to produce large mules.
So that’s how they differ. Another difference is that the party game is
pin the tail on the donkey – not pin the tail on the mule.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Seen on a sign in a store: Prices may vary
according to the customer’s attitude.
Salt of the Earth
Question: How do popcorn salt, margarita salt, and sea salt differ?
Are they different from regular table salt? (Asked by a curious old
salt.)
Reply: It would appear that the main difference is price. Salt is salt
(sodium chloride, NaCl). There is rock salt (or halite), which is mined from
salt domes or deposits. These deposits were laid down hundreds of millions
of years ago when ancient seas dried up. Mined rock salt isn’t suitable for
food use because it contains some mud and such. Its common use is the
salting of icy roads in the winter. Common table salt (which we eat) is
mined by pumping water down a shaft to dissolve salt in underground
deposits. The brine is pumped back to the surface and the impurities are
allowed to settle out. When the water of the brine is evaporated, crystals of
salt are left behind.
Sea salt is just what it says, salt from the sea or sea water. When sea
water is evaporated, certain mineral compounds are left behind in the salt,
containing such elements as iron, magnesium, and calcium. Sea salt is often
labeled as having “nutritious minerals,” but they are in trace amounts.
(You’d have to eat a lot of sea salt to have any benefit. A multi-vitamin
would be better.)
Other salts, such a popcorn salt and margarita salt, simply depend on
the coarseness of the salt granules. For margaritas and pretzels, you want
relatively coarse granules that stick to the glass or pretzels after moistening.
Popcorn salt, on the other hand, has fine granules, that easily get into the
popped kernels and stay. Bottom line: salt is salt, even though it is sold
with additives – garlic salt, seasoned salt, etc.
I can’t sign off without mentioning “salt substitutes,” which are near
and dear to my palate. Sodium in the diet is believed to be a possible cause
of high blood pressure. There are conflicting studies, but why take a
chance? The main salt substitute is potassium chloride. (This a salt too,
chemically speaking, where a salt is the product of a reaction between an
acid and a base.) Potassium chloride (KCl) tastes similar to sodium chloride
(NaCl), and is not suppose to give your blood pressure a boost.
If you want to cut down, and still have some sodium chloride taste,
there is Lite ® salt mixture, which is half KCl and half NaCl. Then there
are several brands of “salt substitutes” (chiefly KCl). One salt “alternative”
(still KCl), says it “Flavors like salt, but is salt free!” Some containers have
inspirational sayings such as, “Shake the Salt Habit!” and “Don’t be a
Saltaholic!” Also, it is stated that reducing sodium intake may help high
blood pressure. But in the fine print, “Please Note: The development of high
blood pressure depends on many factors.”
One of the “best” ones I noticed on the shelf was SaltSense®. Not a
salt substitute – real salt it says, but “33% LESS SODIUM.” What? Then
below it says (in smaller print), “per teaspoon.” I bought a box to see what
was going on, and as suspected, it has to do with density (mass or weight per
volume). The salt is fine and flaky, not like the normal granular table salt.
So, there is 33% less sodium (per teaspoon) because the flaky salt doesn’t
pack as well, and there is 33% more air per teaspoon.
The label says it “is made a special way to help you and your family
consume less sodium.” But, a footnote about the sodium in this and regular
table salt states, “100 grams of either product contains 100 milligrams (mg)
of sodium” -- same mass (weight), same amount of sodium. Another
giveaway is to pick up a box of SaltSense® and a box of regular salt. Both
appear to be the same size or volume, but you can detect a weight difference.
The “less” salt brand has a weight of 17.3 ounces, and the regular table salt,
a weight of 26 ounces. Maybe they should also have in fine print, “Caveat
emptor.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): When it is raining heavily, we say it is
peppering it down. Would it ever be salting it down?
-- JDW
Don’t Scratch!
Question: What’s the difference between poison ivy, poison oak, and
poison sumac? (Asked by a column reader with a curious itch.)
Reply: Not being familiar with a couple of these nasty weeds, I checked
with the American Academy of Dermatology and here is what I found out.
These plants grow practically everywhere in the U.S., except Hawaii,
Alaska, and some desert areas in Nevada. Poison ivy grows as a vine in the
Southeast, and as a shrub up North. Poison oak grows as a shrub in the East,
and as a vine in the West. Poison sumac grows in standing water in swampy
areas, and each leaf has 7 to 13 leaflets.
It’s not so much their differences, but what they have in common, and
that is a substance called urushiol (pronounced you-ROO-shee-ol). This is a
colorless or slightly yellow oil or resin that oozes from any cut or crushed
part of the plant, including the stems and leaves. Once it touches the skin, it
begins to penetrate in a matter of minutes, and if you are sensitive, a rash
forms within 12 – 48 hours with a lot of itching. The rash may develop into
blisters. It usually takes about ten days for the rash to heal.
You can develop a rash without ever coming into contact with the
plant because the oil is so easily spread. Sticky and almost invisible, the
urushiol can be carried on garden tools, the fur of animals, or anything that
comes in contact with the crushed or broken plant. It can even be carried by
the wind if the plant is burned in a fire. Sensitivity to urushiol is developed
after several exposures to the oil. This varies from person to person and
tends to diminish with age. In some instances, the allergic reaction can be
quite severe and require medical treatment.
So what do you do if you stray into a poison patch? First, wash all
exposed areas in cold water as soon as possible. If done in five minutes, the
oil will be deactivated. Soap is not necessary and may even spread the oil.
Second, wash all your clothes that may have come in contact with the plant
outside with a garden hose. If brought into the house, the oil could be
transferred to rugs or furniture. Keep in mind that the urushiol can remain
active for months.
And finally, here are some myths about the weeds:
 Scratching blisters will spread the rash. Wrong. It’s the oil that causes
the rash, and if on your hands you can spread it, for instance in wiping
your forehead.
 Poison ivy is “catching.” Wrong. The rash cannot be passed from
person to person – only the oil.
 Dead poison ivy plants are no longer toxic. Wrong. The plant resin can
remain active for months, and even years.
 “Leaves of three, let them be” (for poison ivy and oak). A good rule of
the thumb, but only partially correct. The number leaves varies in
different environments and may have groups of three, to groups of five,
seven, or even nine.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If brains were taxed, some people would get a
refund.
-- Anonymous
Bottoms Up
Question: What is the difference between pilsner and lager beers?
(Asked by a curious beer lover.)
Reply: Beer, a beverage made from fermented grain, has been around from
early civilizations. Unlike wines, which uses easily fermented crushed
grapes, grains are more stubborn. The grain has to be soaked in water and
allowed to germinate. When the kernels reach the stage where their
developed sugars can support sprouts, the process is stopped by drying. The
grain is now “malt” and has the sugar for fermentation. Barley, wheat, oats,
and rye can all be malted. The malted grain is ground and mixed with water
to start the fermentation process. Additives such as herbs, spices, and hops
may be used. Excessive hops give the bitter taste that can be found in some
German beers.
But there is another essential ingredient, yeast, which causes the sugar
to turn to alcohol. In the old day, the vats of malt and water were exposed to
the atmosphere by opening roof panels. This allowed wild yeast cells in the
air to go into the vats and start the fermentation. However, the wild yeasts
varied and so did the beer. With the development of refrigeration in the
1800s, yeasts were isolated or cultured and could be stored. Brewers could
then make consistent tasting beers.
Also, before refrigeration, beer would go bad after a while in a warm
environment. In the 1400s, brewers in Bavaria stored their beers in the
summer in cool caves in the Alps. It remained good, but they didn’t know
why. One reason was that it was not exposed to any more wild yeasts,
which could cause problems in a warm environment. This storage was
called “Lagerung” in German. In German, “lager” means storehouse. A
lager is a beer which is fermented with yeast at cool temperatures, then put
into cold storage.
Prior to 1842, all beers were dark and cloudy. Then, a brewery in
Pilsen, Bohemia, using another lager method, introduced a beer called
pilsner that was golden and clear. Within the family of lagers, the pilsner (or
“pils”) is now the most widely produced.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Actually, it only takes one drink to get me
loaded. Trouble is, I can’t remember if it’s the 13th or 14th.
-- George Burns
Birds of a Feather
Question: What is the difference between an ostrich and an emu?
(Asked by a curious Big Bird.)
Reply: One thing they have in common is that they are big birds. However,
the ostrich is a bit bigger, being the largest and strongest of birds. The
ostrich is native to Africa and stands up to 8 feet tall with the neck
accounting for about one-half the height. A grown ostrich can weigh in at
over 300 pounds, but even so, with long legs can run at speeds up to 40
miles per hour. The ostrich’s diet is mainly plants. An ostrich egg is quite
large and weighs up to 3 pounds. In the hatching process, the male sits on
the egg during the night (night shift) and the female takes the day shift.
In the late 1800s, ostrich farming became popular with plumage being
the main crop. Ostrich feathers were a big thing in ladies’ hats in those days.
With a change in fashion without feathers, ostrich hide was used to make
quality leather. Nowadays they are being raised for food. Ostrich meat is
low fat, but an ostrich burger can be expensive with the meat on the order of
$12 a pound.
The ostrich is associated with the saying “burying your head in the
sand,” referring to someone who is timid. Ostriches aren’t timid at all and
will chase you. Contrary to popular belief, ostriches do not bury their heads
in the sand. If a predator threatens their nest, ostriches will lay their head
against the sand to try to blend in with it. In addition, male ostriches use
their bills to dig shallow nests in the sand and move their eggs around. From
a distance, this could look like the ostrich's head is disappearing in the sand.
The ostrich has a South American cousin called the rhea. These
ostrich-like birds are smaller, only about 4 feet tall, and have three toes
instead of two like the ostrich.
The emu is a large, flightless bird native to Australia. Next to the
ostrich, it is the largest of all birds. A grown emu can stand 6 feet tall,
weigh about 130 pounds, and can run 30 miles per hour. They eat mainly
roots, fruits, and plants. Emus lack the graceful plumage of the ostrich.
Their feathers are hair-like and resemble shaggy fur.
It is interesting to note that emu egg sitting takes place over a couple
months and is done solely by the male, who also takes care of the chicks.
I've heard of being hen-pecked, but I guess this is a case of being emupecked.
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): The length of a film should be directly related
to the endurance of the human bladder.
-- Alfred Hitchcock
VII. Plants and Animals (including Humans)
Sexist Bugs
Question: I am curious to know if all ladybugs are female. Are there
any male “lady” bugs? (Asked by curious amateur entomologist.)
Reply: I usually avoid sexually oriented questions, but this one seems safe
enough. Yes, there are male ladybugs. They are much maligned, not being
recognized as “gentlemen bugs.”
Seriously, ladybugs (also called ladybirds, primarily in Europe) are
members of a beetle family, with about 5000 relatives (species). They do
quite a bit of good, and clusters are sometimes sold to farmers to combat
insect pests, such as aphids and mites. (I recall they imported some Asian
ladybugs a few years ago to do something like this and they really multiplied
big time.. they were everywhere, inside houses, everywhere.)
In any case, these “person bugs” mate. (Is that politically correct or
what?) The female lays fertilized eggs and the bugs hatch out as larva and
go through a common bug cycle: egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Ladybugs have
been honored historically, probably because they belong to the family
Coccinellidae (order Cleopatra), a name that originated in the Middle Ages
when the beetle was dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was called “the beetle
of Our Lady.”
My mother taught me that it was good luck to have a ladybug in the
house. When you found one, you caught it (male or female, I couldn’t tell)
and put it outdoors, saying “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. You house
is on fire and your children will burn.”
So, that should answer your question. Have you ever seen a ladybug
fire department? Think about it.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Education is the best provision for old age.
-- Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)
Elementary, My Dear Watson
Question: Humans have fingerprints. Do any other animals have
them? (Asked by a curious Sherlock Holmes.)
Reply: Fingerprints, the ridges on our thumbs and fingers, make life easier
in that they help us grasp and hold things, particularly slippery objects.
They are analogous to the tread on the tires of a car – they give a better grip.
Yes, there are animals other than humans that have fingerprints.
Gorillas and some monkeys have fingerprints. They are primates like us
humans and have a great deal of manual dexterity. However, it is interesting
that perhaps our closest relative, the chimpanzee, does not have fingerprints.
But on the print side, “down under” koala bears do have fingerprints.
Other visible human characteristics change, but fingerprint patterns do
not, even as we grow. Since no two person’s swirling fingerprints are
identical (as far as is known), they are used as a means of identification.
You’ve seen enough detective movies – don’t leave your fingerprints at the
scene of the crime. Don’t go barefoot either…toe prints are unique and can
be used too.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Baseball is 90% mental, the other half is
physical.
-- Yogi Berra
After the Sun Goes Down
Question: Why does the Cereus cactus bloom only at night? (Asked by
a curious Cereus cactus cultivator.)
Reply: This was a new one on me, so I had to dig a bit and got started off
wrong. I thought it was Cirrus cactus (Cirrus, like the cloud), but it is
spelled Cereus and sounds the same. Getting the right spelling, here’s what I
found. The night-blooming Cereus is native to the deserts of the U.S.
Southwest, Mexico, and South America (there are several varieties). In the
desert, it resembles nothing more that a dead bush most of the year. But
once a year in June or July, it flowers. The bloom is up to four inches wide
and as much as eight inches long, has a distinctive vanilla-like smell, and
lasts only one night for about six hours. (The Cereus is also called the
Queen of the Night.) At the node of each flower, an egg-shaped edible pear
develops, which has an acidic juice. This has been used as a homoeopathic
cardiac stimulant.
As for the original question, it is not known why the Cereus is a nightblooming cactus. Some animals are nocturnal; so I guess with equal rights,
plants can be too. Or maybe they are just shy.
P.S. Maybe you wondered, like me, about that big word “homoeopathic.” I
thought it had to do with natural remedies, but there seems to be a bit more
to the philosophy. Here’s a definition:
Homoeopathy (also spelt as homeopathy or called
homeopathics) is a system of medicine based on three
principles:
1. like cures like
For example, if the symptoms of your cold are similar to
poisoning by mercury, then mercury would be your
homeopathic remedy.
2. minimal dose
The remedy is taken in an extremely dilute form; normally one
part of the remedy to thousands of parts water.
3. single remedy
No matter how many symptoms are experienced, only one
remedy is taken, and that remedy will be aimed at all those
symptoms.
Sounds pretty curious to me.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): There are no dumb questions, just dumb people.
-- Anonymous
Hold Your Horses and Radishes
Question: What does horseradish have to do with horses? (Asked by a
curious horse owner.)
Reply: In a couple of words, not much. The horseradish is a perennial plant
of the mustard family. The roots contain a pungent oil that gives the radish
its bite. In processing, the horseradish is grated and mixed with white
vinegar, making it a good sinus-clearing condiment.
The horseradish has been around for a long time. The early Egyptians
cultivated it, as did the Greeks. When it got to Europe, it was called
“meerrettich,” which is German for “sea radish.” It grows well by the sea,
and in some moist areas it is considered to be a troublesome weed.
The story goes that when growing horseradish spread to England, the
German pronunciation of “meer” was taken to be “mare” (as in the old gray
mare). So then it was known as a mareradish, which led to the general name
of horseradish. Maybe they were gender-conscious back then too.
Stallionradish wouldn’t work either.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Four U.S. presidents were never elected to
public office before becoming chief executives. They were Grant, Taft,
Hoover, and Eisenhower, who never even voted until he ran for president.
Nature’s Compass?
Question: Why does moss always grow on the north side of a tree?
(Asked by a curious lost person.)
Reply: It doesn’t, but that’s the most likely place because of certain
conditions. I noticed in my yard the other day that there was some moss on
the south side of a tree. The reason moss preferentially grows on the north
side of a tree comes from the fact that we live in the northern hemisphere,
and above the 23.5o N latitude (except in Hawaii). Above the Tropic of
Cancer (23.5o N), the Sun is always to the south of your zenith (point
directly overhead). As such, the south side of a tree gets more sunlight and
in general the north side has the greatest amounts of shade and moisture,
which favors moss. However, given the right conditions moss will grow all
around a tree.
Bonus: I received a couple of comments about my inventing prowess
from a previous column. Well, try this one. What I’m working on now is a
television you can fast-forward like a VCR or DVD. How about that! Think
it will sell?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): He who hesitates is last.
-- Mae West
Keep Bobbin’ Along
Question: Some birds, such as pigeons and chickens, bob their heads
back and forth when they walk. Why is this? (Asked by a curious bird
watcher.)
Reply: Well, I know crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight, but
bobbing birds is another (biology) question. The bobbing has to do with
depth perception; that is, the bobbing helps in getting a better side view.
Many birds have eyes that are positioned back on the sides of their heads
and they don’t have good binocular vision. There is a variation among
species, of course. Most predatory birds (e.g., hawks) have better binocular
vision that do seed eaters (e.g., pigeons and doves), who are the ones you
most often see bobbing.
I asked a professor who is a bird man and he told me this: Birds with
eyes situated more frontally have a greater binocular field, which aids in
better distance determination. Binocular vision, in addition to providing
distance determination, allows a keener depth perception, which gives a
better three-dimensional effect. Many birds that have limited binocular
vision have developed actions that enhance their depth perception. For
example, the Common Pigeon in walking, or the American Coot in
swimming thrusts the head forward, then jerks backward with brief pauses
between each motion. The result is a quick succession of views at rapidly
changing angles that gives the bird a better estimation of distances.
Another substitute for depth perception is rapid peering. When some
birds are about to pick up food, such as seeds, they frequently tilt or cock
their heads at different angles to get a better idea of the shape and location of
the food.
So now you know when you see the Red, Red Robin comes bob, bob,
bobbin’ along.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Middle age is when your age starts to show
around your middle.
-- Bob Hope
And Tupelo, Too
Question: What is Tupelo honey, and why do some doctors allow
diabetics to have it? (Asked by a curious honey consumer.)
Reply: When asked this, I really didn’t know and had never heard of Tupelo
honey, so I asked a couple of busy bees. They told me that this honey is
produced from the blossoms of the tupelo gum tree which grows in the
swamp areas of South Carolina, Georgia, and northwest Florida. It is the
only place in the world that this type of honey is produced commercially.
Tupelo honey will not granulate, and because of the particular sugar
content (on the average, 44% levulose and 30% dextrose), some physicians
have permitted diabetic patients to eat Tupelo honey. Pure Tupelo honey -from the white blossoms of the Tupelo gum tree that blossoms in April and
May -- is a light amber color with a greenish cast. Other trees, such as the
black tupelo and willow, bloom in advance of the white-blossomed Tupelo,
and the honey from these blossoms build up in bee hives. To get unmixed
Tupelo honey, the hives must be stripped just as the Tupelo starts to bloom
so there will be clean combs and no mixing. This is why Tupelo honey is
relatively expensive. (In case you are interested, commercial suppliers of
Tupelo honey can be found on the Web.)
It should be noted that the management of diabetics has changed.
Some people have thought that eating too much sugar causes diabetes, but
this is not true. Also, people with diabetes were warned to avoid sugar
because it was believed that eating sugar would rapidly increase the blood
sugar (glucose) to unwanted high levels.
However, according to the American Diabetes Association, diabetics
can eat sweets. Research has shown that sugar has the same effect on blood
glucose levels as other carbohydrates, such as bread or potatoes. Now it is
generally agreed that diabetics can eat foods with sugar as long as they are
worked into the meal plan so as to keep the blood sugar in the target range.
But there are a lot of variables. Bottom line: check with your doctor.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Preach not to others what they should eat, but
eat as becomes you, and be silent.
-- Epictetus (55 – 135 AD)
Don’t Let the Rain Come Down
Question: When we were in France, it rained frogs – there were small,
green frogs all over the windshield. How can this happen? (Asked by a
curious frog-wet traveler.)
Reply: Raining frogs? You’ve got to be kidding. No, I’m the one that is
kidding. There have been various instances of frog rains over the years, not
only in France, but also here in America. To be sure, amphibian rains are
rare, but do happen and the incidents are well documented.
It is believed that frog rainfalls are caused by tornadoes or violent
thunderstorms. The accompanying heavy winds pass over ponds and creeks,
picking up small creatures from the water. These may be lifted to high
altitudes and carried some distance before they drop to the ground along
with rain. There are also several accounts of raining fish.
Before leaving this, I know someone is going to ask about raining
“cats and dogs.” This saying is believed to have a mythological origin. At
one time, it was believed that cats had influence over storms, a particular
belief of sailors, and that dogs were the symbol of storms. Both animals
were attendants of the Norse storm god Odin. The cat symbolized the
downpouring of rain, and the dog the strong gusts of wind that accompanied
storms. So, a rain of “cats and dogs” meant a heavy rain with wind.
There have been no actual accounts of raining cats and dogs…or
pitchforks either.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Go to other people’s funerals, or they won’t
come to yours.
-- Yogi Berra
Here Doodle, Doodle
Question: What are doodlebugs and can they be called out of the
ground? (Asked by a curious doodling column reader.)
Reply: Well, I’ve heard of a hay doodle and there are other types of
doodling. Dictionary reference: 1. to draw or scribble idly: He doodled
during the whole lecture. 2. to waste (time) in aimless or foolish activity. (I
wonder if doodlebugs doodle?) Bug-wise, I believe we are talking about
the ant lion, which is colloquially referred to as a “doodlebug.” The ant lion
excavates a funnel-shaped pit in sandy soil about an inch deep by crawling
backwards in circles. The slope of the funnel is adjusted so that the sides
readily gives away under the feet of a would-be prey, and the doodlebug
waits at the bottom of the pit.
Crawling insects, particularly ants inadvertently fall into the pit and
are unable to climb very far back up because of the loose sand on the steep
walls that gives away. Down they go, and the doodlebug makes quick work
of them with its sickle-like jaws. This is perhaps why they are called ant
lions.
The sand hole resembles a small ant hill somewhat and Apollo 16 astronaut
Charles Duke compared certain craters on the Moon to ant lion pits. He is
recorded as saying, “Doodlebug, doodlebug, are you at home?”
Now for the question. Folklore has it that the ant lion or doodlebug
can be called out of the ground by saying a verse. A straw from a kitchen
broom may be put down the hole to assist the coming out. Supposedly,
doodle bugs can be coaxed out of their holes by saying, “Doodlebug,
doodlebug, come blow your horn, the sheep and cows are in the corn.”
There are other coaxing sayings such as “Doodlebug, doodlebug, come up
and…get some bread and butter…get a barrel of sugar…get a chew of
tobacco.” That sure gives them a choice for making an appearance.
Doodlebug references can be found in literature. In Mark Twain’s
1897 novel, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom was having a perplexing
problem, and “…so he searched around until he found a small sandy spot
with a little funnel-shaped depression in it. He laid himself down and put his
mouth close to this depression and called – ‘Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me
what I want to know!’ The sand began to work and presently a small black
bug appeared for a second and then darted under again in fright. ‘He dasn’t
tell! So it was a witch that done it. I just knowed it.’ ” And in Thomas
Harris’ book The Silence of the Lambs: “…and Dr. Lecter said, ‘Looks like a
straw down a doodlebug hole, doesn’t it?’ ”
So can you coax a doodlebug out of its hole? I don’t know. In a case
like this, one should apply the scientific method and experiment. I’ll try the
next doodlebug hole I come across. (Got out of that one pretty good, didn’t
I?)
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): Don’t you know that four-fifths of our trouble
in life would disappear if we would just sit down and be still?
-- Calvin Coolidge (Silent Cal), U.S. President
Happy Tickle?
Question: Why does a dog kick its back leg when you scratch its
“happy spot”? (Asked by a curious dog lover.)
Reply: Most dogs have what is known as a “tickle spot.” (I’m not sure it is
a “happy spot.” Tickling doesn’t make me happy.) This spot can be in
various places, but is usually located on the back. The hind leg kicking is
thought to be a nerve reaction, similar to the reaction when a person is
tickled. The tickle spot must be important. I have seen sales advertisements
for dogs on the Internet that, among the dogs’ characteristics, list the
locations of tickle spots.
While on spots, let’s consider the “yubb spot.” This is a spot on a pig.
When scratched, the pig starts wiggling, chewing, and sometimes even bites.
Generally, it is located on the back between the hips. Next time you see a
pig, check it out. On second thought, better not. Some pigs do not like it at
all and can get nasty.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The reason a dog has so many friends is that he
wags his tail instead of his tongue.
-- Anonymous
Asleep Again?
Question: Why does your arm or leg fall asleep? (Asked by a curious
person with numb extremities.)
Reply: We’ve all had an arm or a leg “fall asleep.” Technically, this is
called neurapraxia, which is a temporary loss of nerve function resulting in
tingling and numbness. It is usually caused by a compression of a nerve
with no damage involved and complete recovery in a short time after the
compression is relieved. A nerve sometimes gets compressed between a
bone and some hard object such as a desk edge for an arm or a table leg for a
leg. The most likely nerve candidates are the ulnar nerve in the arm and the
peroneal nerve in the leg.
The “sleeping” limb is often rubbed with the thought of getting the
(blood) circulation going again so as to “wake” it up. However, when a limb
is “asleep,” the blood continues to flow normally. The limb “wakes up”
with the recovery of the nerve compression. As noted above, complete
recovery occurs, usually in a short time. However, don’t put your weight on
a leg that is asleep. It may collapse and you might get a big boo-boo or
something worse from the fall.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys
them more.
-- Oscar Wilde
Get Control
Here’s something I came across. Try this. Sitting on a chair (or
standing up), make clockwise circles with your right foot. While doing
this, draw the number “6” in the air with your right finger. Question:
In what direction is your foot going now?
Reply: The circular foot motion is interrupted. Why? As explained to me:
the motor control center in the left side of the brain controls movements on
the right side of the body. Similarly, the right brain side controls the left
body side. When you are moving your right foot in a circular path while
trying to make a figure six with your right finger, you are using the same
(left) side of the brain and it has trouble discriminating the prior foot
command. Try using the left finger to draw a “6” while circling the right
foot. No problem. If the right one don’t get you, the left one will.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) I’m giving you the right answers! You’re just
asking the wrong questions.
-- Dennis the Menace
If the Right One Don’t Get You, the Left One Will
Question: Why are some people right-handed and some left-handed?
(Asked by a curious "lefty".)
Reply: Most animals have a preferred paw or hand to perform tasks, but it
appears that only humans have a species preference for the right hand.
About 90% of the human population is predominantly right-handed. Of the
other 10%, some are predominantly left-handed (perhaps up to 8%), while
the others are ambidextrous -- capable of using either hand equally as well.
It is not known why some people are right-handed and others are lefthanded. There have been studies and theories concerning association with
the right and left parts of the brain, and even speculation that handedness
may be partially genetic. However, there does not seem to be a conclusive
scientific answer. The majority of right-hand preference may be because of
social pressures resulting from historical cultural beliefs. For example, the
right may have gotten the upper hand because the heart lies on the left side
of the body. In battle, a shield is carried with the left hand so as to better
protect the heart, while the right hand did the activity of wielding a sword or
some other weapon. The Romans were very right-hand oriented. They
adopted the right-hand handshake (to show there was no weapon in the
fighting hand), and of course giving a breast salute to the heart is easier to do
with the right hand.
The Roman right preference is indicated in their words for right and left
-- "dexter" (right) and "sinister," (left) -- from which are derived
"dexterous," meaning skillful or artful, and "sinister," meaning threatening
evil or harm. Also in Judeo-Christian traditions there appears to be a
religious right preference. In both the Old and New Testaments there are
positions of grace "at the right hand of God." Also, in Matthew (25:31-42),
Jesus talks about separating the sheep from the goats (sheep on the right,
goats on the left), and it was a good thing to be with the rightful sheep.
Another theory associates the predominance of right-handedness with
tool development. As tools were invented, more complicated ones were
better suited for one hand and were especially fashioned for this hand
(presumably the right). Tools became prized possessions and were passed
down from one generation to another and using one hand became
predominant in activities. Probably because of such social development,
children showing left-hand tendencies were at one time discouraged from
being left-handed. Left-handers got down to about 2% of the population
because of this. (I remember some of my grade school teachers telling
students to quit using their left hand and write with the right.) Fortunately,
that's not done much anymore and there has been somewhat of a left
comeback.
Whatever the case, lefties have had a tough row to hoe. Well, a hoe
isn’t a problem -- works for both right and left hands. But think about
scissors, a bolt-action rifle, and golf clubs. Left-handers do have some
special advantages. For example, in baseball, first base men are usually
lefties. They can throw more easily to home and third base. Southpaw
pitchers have various advantages pitching to different batters. (Incidentally,
a Chicago sportswriter noting that left-handed pitchers going into a stretch
with a runner on first, faced south in an old ballpark, and coined the term
“southpaw” for lefties.) Also, switch hitters are sometimes told to bat lefthanded, which gives a half-step start in going to first base.
Even we right-handers do some things left-handed. I shuffle cards
right-handed, but I deal left-handed. I don't know why -- maybe because the
deal is to the left and it's easier.
But left-handers can hold their heads high. There have been many
famous lefties. Try Gerald Ford, Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton, Charlie
Chaplin, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Lefty Gomez (naturally),
Robert Redford, Rex Harrison, Pablo Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci,
Michelangelo (maybe ambidextrous), and Albert Einstein. Left on!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I went to a good school where some of the IRS
people learned their three R’s – this is Ours, that is Ours, everything is Ours.
-- Anonymous
Drat, a Gnat
Question: I have a question about gnats. When I bring bananas into
the house, there are gnats. Where do they come from – the bananas?
(Asked by a curious gnat finder.)
Reply: Those small flies or gnats in your kitchen are probably fruit flies.
They can be a problem year round, but are especially common during late
summer and fall because they are attracted to fermenting fruits and
vegetables. Fruit flies have sort of a humped back, are black on top, and
have distinguishing red eyes. (You have to get pretty close to see the red
eyes.)
There doesn’t need to be fruit in the house to have fruit flies. They
breed in moist, decaying organic matter found in drains, garbage disposals,
trash cans, mops, and cleaning rags. Infestations can originate from overripened fruit and vegetables that are previously infested and brought into the
home. Also, adult fruit flies can fly in from outdoors if you don’t have good
window and door screens.
A female fruit fly will lay about 500 eggs. The larvae emerge about
thirty hours later and feed for about a week on the necessary moist, organic
matter. They then crawl to drier areas and pupate (a stage before the adult
fly emerges). Newly emerged fruit flies are attracted to light and moisture.
This is why you may find them around windows.
The life cycle, from egg to adult, is about a week and another cycle
can begin very quickly. Fruit flies are primarily nuisance pests, but they also
have the potential to contaminate food with disease-producing bacteria.
How do you get rid of the flies? The key to controlling fruit fly
infestations is to locate and eliminate their breeding sources. There are
sprays and traps used to kill the flies, but you have to eliminate the breeding
sources to eliminate the pests. When the sources are located, they can be
removed (scrubbed away), sprayed, or there are gels to use in drains. Flies
are often found in drains in the thin layer or film that naturally accumulates
in pipes, traps, and drains.
To check to see if you have fruit flies in your drains, it is suggested that
plastic wrap or a plastic bag be taped over the drain. If your drain is
infested, you should be able to observe the flies under the plastic in about a
day.
And there you have it. If you keep exposed bananas in the house for
sometime, your fruit flies will be fruitful and multiply.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s
written on.
-- Samuel Goldwyn
Getting Old Fast
Question: Is it true that dogs age seven times faster than humans?
(Asked by a curious canine.)
Reply: It is often heard that one “human” year is equal to seven “dog”
years. This is not really true. Dogs mature very fast in their early years,
with the most growth occurring in the first two years. A one-year-old dog is
analogous to a human teenager, and a two-year-old dog corresponds to an
adult in his/her twenties. Of course, the growth process varies with dogs,
just as it does with humans. After the first two years, dogs age about four
years per human year. Here is a chart on the corresponding ages:
Dog years
Human years
1
15
2
24
3
28
4
32
5
36
6
41
7
45
8
49
9
52
10
56
15
76
20
98
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): An intellectual snob is someone who can listen
to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.
-- Dan Rather
Blue Blood
Question: Blood is red, so why do veins in an arm look blue? (Asked by
a curious would-be blue blood.)
Reply: Blood is red, but how red it is depends on where you find it. Red
blood cells account for this. These cells, which make up about 40% of the
blood, have an oxygen-carrying pigment called hemoglobin. When red
blood cells pass through blood vessels in the lungs, the hemoglobin
combines with oxygen and forms oxyhemoglobin, which gives the blood a
bright red color.
The oxygenated blood is sent out through the arteries into tiny
capillary blood vessels. A healthy pink skin (if not covered up by a tan) is
evidence of the red blood in the capillaries of the skin. And if you are
embarrassed, the capillaries in the face may dilate so more blood flows with
a reddening of the face -- it's called blushing.
When the oxyhemoglobin of the red cells loses oxygen to tissue, it
then has a dark color with a purplish or bluish hue. The blood from
capillaries goes into veins for the trip back to the heart and lungs. (If you've
ever given blood, which is taken from a vein, you know how dark venous
blood is.)
The biggest veins within the body tissue cannot be seen, but there are
some fairly large veins just under the skin; for example, in the forearm.
These have a bluish appearance because of the deoxygenated blood passing
through. No, you are not a blue blood.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit
is sweet.
-- Aristotle (384 – 322 BC)
Water, Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink
Question: Why can’t you drink seawater (saltwater) when you are
stranded on the ocean without fresh water? (Asked by a curious old
salt.)
Reply: You can drink saltwater, but it is not advised. What it does after you
drink is the problem. In being stranded on the ocean without fresh water, the
problem is dehydration or loss of water from the body cells. The process by
which this is done is called osmosis. The osmosis of vital substances goes
on all the time in our bodies; for example, between the lungs and the blood,
and the blood and tissue cells. The osmosis process can be very complex,
but let’s take a simple case that will hopefully answer our question.
First, a review session. Recall that an aqueous solution is one with a
solute (for example, table salt) dissolved in water (the solvent). Then
consider a semi-permeable membrane. This is a barrier which can be used
to separate solutions with different salt contents. That is, the salt molecules
of the solutes can not pass through. However, the “semi-” means that the
solvent (water molecules) can pass through. This is osmosis. The water
passes through the membrane toward the solution with the greater salt
content, so as to equalize the salt concentrations on each side by diluting the
higher salt solution.
Back to drinking saltwater. The walls of the cells of tissue are semipermeable membranes and water can pass through. In a nutshell, if you are
suffering from thirst stranded out in the ocean and drink saltwater, this
increases the salinity (salt concentration) of the fluids outside the cells.
Osmosis kicks in to dilute the salt concentration outside the cell walls and
water leaves the cells. You are probably dehydrated in the first place and
drinking saltwater only makes it worse with water leaving the cells. Vital
functions of the body cannot go on with increasingly dehydrated cells.
So “water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink” – if you do not
want osmosis to take place.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): They say that genius is 99 percent perspiration
and 1 percent inspiration. Then again, so is mowing the lawn.
-- Anonymous
VIII. Words, Phrases, and Sayings
The Dibs Was Jury-Rigged
Question: Where does the word “dibs” come from, as in “I got dibs on
that”? While on word origins, how about jerry- or jury rigged? (Asked
by a curious column reader.)
Reply: The word “dibs” commonly implies a right of priority, claiming
precedence or next in line. My familiarity with it comes from playing
marbles in a younger day, “Dibs!” meaning you are establishing the right to
shoot next.
It is generally thought that the term comes from the game of
“dibstones.” An early writing in 1895 refers to “a game of dibs.” Dibstones
was a game similar to jacks that was played with marble-like “dibs,” which
were sheep knuckle bones.
It is unclear how dibs became associated with a children’s way of
claiming right of priority. Maybe there was a dib rule in the dibstones game.
Another associated term is “dubs,” used to claim two or more marbles
knocked out of the ring by a single shot – another laying claim to a right or
privilege. Whatever the source, just remember, a little dib’ll do ya.
Now for jerry-rigged or jury-rigged. The latter term has nothing to do
with juries in the judicial sense. Another related term is jerry-built. Let’s
look at jury-rigged first. Jury-rig is an old nautical term coming from “jurymast.” It refers to a temporary mast to hold the sail (and the rigging) lost in
a storm or a battle. It may have been short for an “injury-mast.
A jerry-builder in jolly old England was a house builder who
constructed shoddy, poorly built homes out of inferior materials. Such
jerry-built structures were a bit more lasting than a jury-rig. How the jerry
got in jerry-built and jerry-rigged is not known. The jury is still out
(hopefully not being rigged).
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you.
-- Al Capone
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Question: In baseball, the teams bat in an “inning.” Why is it called an
inning? (Asked by a curious baseball fan.)
Reply: The term comes from the game of cricket and one team bats during
an “innings.” The Brits always use the plural, but we have shortened the
singular to an inning. The word supposedly comes from the old English
“innung,” which meant “to put in” or “to take in.” So “innings” is the period
of time a team is “in” or “in play.” However, in baseball, both teams get to
bat in an inning.
I know, you’re wondering if they have a “seventh inning stretch” in
cricket. A cricket match lasts at most two innings, but these can go on for an
afternoon or several days. However, the “seventh inning stretch” is pretty
much American. Legend has it that President William Howard Taft was at a
baseball game. It was a long game, and the 300-pound, six-foot-two
president, being uncomfortable sitting for a long time, stood up in the middle
of the seventh inning to stretch his legs. The fans, thinking the president
was leaving, stood up in respect. Taft sat back down, and the seventh-inning
stretch was born.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The first principle is that you must not fool
yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool.
-- Richard Feynman
My Huckleberry Friend
Question: Recently I heard that Andy William’s agent had not wanted
him to record “Moon River” because of the “adverse connotations” of
the phrase “my huckleberry friend.” Also, in the movie Tombstone, Doc
Holiday (Val Kilmer) while trying to goad one of the Clanton gang into
a gunfight, said, “I’m your huckleberry!” Please explain the meanings
of these huckleberry references. (Asked by a curious huckleberry. )
Reply: I’ve always wondered about “huckleberry friend” myself. So,
checking with my etymological friends (how about that big word?), here is
what I found out.
First, the huckleberry in the northern U.S. is a blue-colored berry
having more seeds than its relative the blueberry. (In the southern U.S., the
red huckleberry is commonly called the southern cranberry.) The early
colonists used huckleberries in puddings and in fruitcakes.
It seems that an early writer from England mistook this native “blue”
berry for the English bilberry, which was also called “whortleberry” or
“hurtleberry” because its blue color reminded some of being “hurt” or
bruised flesh. Somewhere along the way the names hurtleberry or
whortleberry got changed to huckleberry. This native wild berry became
associated with the American wilderness – wild and rough. (Like Doc
Holiday at the OK corral.)
I think perhaps the rough meaning has been tamed a bit. Mark Twain
(or was that Samuel Clemens?) wrote “The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn” in 1864. Huck was a little rough, but not too bad. So a huckleberry
friend can be good one.
And it’s probably a good thing the name evolved to huckleberry.
Who would want to watch cartoons of Whortleberry Hound?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The sign of a bad cook – the family prays after
they eat.
-- Anonymous
Can’t Cut It on the Right Side
Question: I know the phrase “cut the mustard” means you can not do
something or it does not meet standards. What is the origin of this
phrase? And how about “getting out on the wrong side of the bed”?
(Asked by a curious column reader who doesn’t think he’s too old to cut
it on the right side.)
Reply: The origin of “cut the mustard” is unknown. The first known use of
the phrase is in a 1907 novel by O. Henry. It is speculated by some that the
phrase is a corruption of “cut the muster” -- that is, not attending a military
muster or an assembly of troops for inspection. But this doesn’t seem to be
connected to the meaning of “cut the mustard.” Another suggestion is that
“mustard” was once used to imply something to add zest to a situation, and
“the proper mustard” was something that was the genuine article. To cut the
mustard would imply a lesser standard is used.
So the origin is a mystery and the phrase is used with its recognized
meaning. I think I’m getting too old to cut the mustard and sometimes a bit
cranky in the mornings. At these times I’m told I “got out on the wrong side
of the bed.” This refers to a state of being a bit grumpy or ill-humored. I’ve
never been accused of getting out on the right side of the bed. Always
getting out on the same side of the bed, there seems to be no clear meaning
of this phrase.
Overall, the “right side” is used to refer to the good side of things,
whereas the “wrong side” refers to the less desirable. Examples of the latter
are “the wrong side of the tracks,” “getting on the wrong side of
somebody,” “laughing out of the wrong side of your mouth,” “on the
wrong side of the law,” and “on the wrong side of forty.” (I’ve been on the
wrong side of forty for some time, and glad to still be there.)
The bottom line is that some things are perceived as right, and some
things as wrong. As Shakespeare said, “Nothing is right (side, sic) or wrong
(side, sic), only thinking makes it so.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The national budget must be balanced. The
public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be
moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be
reduced, if the nation doesn’t want to go bankrupt. People must again learn
to work instead of living on public assistance.
-- Marcus Tillius Cicero, 55 BC
Knock on a Wooden Long Tooth?
Question: I attended church service Sunday and the minister was
talking about old sayings. He asked if anyone knew how the expression
“knock on wood” originated. I told him I would check with the
Curiosity Corner to see if I could get and answer for him. Do you have
any ideas? (Asked by a curious church-goer.)
Reply: This “knock on wood” saying is said by people who knock their
knuckles on wood hoping for good luck. (In Great Britain, it is “touch
wood” – saves on knuckles.) No one is sure about the origin of this
superstition, but it goes way back. There are several theories -- take your
pick from the following.
One theory is that it goes back to the old game known as “wood tag”
in which a player that succeeded in touching a wooden base was free from
capture. Another says it comes from primitive tree worship when trees were
believed to harbor protective spirits. Knocking on (tree) wood would call up
a spirit for protection. The Druids believed that good spirits lived in trees,
and people would touch the bark and ask for a favor. When a wish was
granted, they would come back and knock on the tree to say thank you.
Knocking three times was especially helpful in frightening away evil spirits.
(And knock three times on the ceiling if you want me…so says Tony
Orlando.)
Finally, and probably more along the lines that your preacher was
thinking, some believe that the superstition is of Christian origin and that in
some way was associated with the wooden cross on which Christ died.
I don’t know if that answers the question, but hopefully it does –
knock on wood.
Question: What is the meaning of the expression “long in the tooth”?
(Asked by a curious dentist.)
Reply: The phrase “long in the tooth” implies being elderly or over the hill.
Oddly enough, it is comes about because of horses. As horses age their
gums recede, which is why a horse’s teeth are examined to get an
approximate age. An old horse’s gums may have receded to the point that
the roots of the teeth are visible, thus making the teeth appear longer.
Hence, “long in the tooth” implies old age.
I guess that makes Generation X “short in the tooth.”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I am nobody. Nobody is perfect. Therefore, I
must be perfect.
-- Anonymous
Say What?
The English language is something else. It is considered a difficult
language to learn and here are a few things that may give you a clue as
to why this is so (source unknown).
Beware of HEARD, a very strange word
That looks like BEARD and sounds like BIRD.
And DEAD: it’s said like BED, not BEAD.
For goodness sake don’t call it DEED!
Watch out for MEAT and GREAT and THREAT
(They rhyme with SUITE and STRAIGHT and DEBT).
Now for a few homonyms—words that are spelled the same and may sound
similar, but have different meanings.
 A farm can produce produce.
 The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
 The dump (landfill) was so full it had to refuse refuse.
 The dove dove into the bushes.
 I did not object to the object.
 The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
 The bandage was wound around the wound.
 After a number of injections, my jaw got number and number.
 I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
 I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
 I spent last evening evening out a pile of dirt.
 He could lead if he got the lead out.
 The Polish polish furniture.
 The present is a good time to present the present.
 Colin (as in Colin Powell), I think we are going to have to examine your
colon.
 The oarsmen sitting in a row had a row about how to row.
How about that? Aren’t you glad you learned English first?
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): If pro is the opposite of con, then what is the
opposite of progress…Congress?
-- Anonymous
Up or Down
Question: I hear people say “We’re going down town, but it is up on the
map. My husband said it was because a nearby river flows up. How do
you know if a river flows up or down? [Asked by a curious, mixed-up
(or mixed-down) person.]
Reply: There seems to be a direction mix up at times. Overall, it is a matter
of definition and/or convention. The one “up and down” we can be sure of
is vertically. You drop something and gravity takes it “down,” and the
opposite direction is “up.” When it comes to a land surface direction, it’s
not so clear. Generally, the direction a river flows is taken as “down”
(downstream). We say rivers flow down to the sea, or down to a lower
elevation.
This eliminates giving specific directions, such as east or west. But
try talking about the direction of a river. Some rivers are so circuitous that
in some places a river can flow in the opposite direction from which it came.
However, on a map, we generally take north as “up” and south as “down.”
You can be down south in Florida or up north in Canada.
We can go “down” the street or “up” the street. How is this
determined? Who knows? Maybe by house numbers? We say we are going
“downtown” (to the city center), while “uptown” is high class. It does get a
bit confusing.
Moral of the story: everyone has their ups and downs.
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): The cow is of the bovine ilk; one end is moo,
the other, milk.
-- Ogden Nash
And the Turtledove Moans
Question: We have a bird, the turtledove. Why turtledove? What do a
turtle and a dove have in common? (Asked by a curious turtle and bird
watcher.)
Reply: Not much. A turtle is quite a bit slower, and a dove is particularly
calm and peaceful. “Turtle” got tacked on because the Latin name for the
bird was turtur, which got slurred to turtle. Oddly enough, several species
of turtledoves are found in the Mideast and have gained notoriety by finding
their way into the Bible. For example, in the purification of Mary,
turtledoves or pigeons were the only birds allowed sacrificed [Luke 2:24,
King James Version (KJV). Noah did use a dove to check for land. Gen.
8:11 (KJV). ]
And it looks like David compared himself to a turtledove in his
lament: “O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the multitude of the
wicked,” (Ps. 74:19). The turtledove reference can be found in other places;
for example, “Oh the hoot owl, she hollers, and the turtledove moans” -from “Stewball,” a song made popular by Peter, Paul, and Mary. (Now I’m
dating myself.)
In any case, turtledove sounds better than tortoisedove.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Only a blind man walks where he cannot see.
-- Joshua Boyleston
Hee-Haw or Gee-Haw?
Question: There is something that has puzzled me for years. As a boy
(a long time ago) when plowing and driving mules, “gee” meant right,
“haw” meant left, and “gee haw” meant straight ahead. Where did the
“gee” and “haw” come from? (Asked by a curious one-time mule
driver.)
Reply: I recall my granddad doing a lot of geeing and hawing with his team
of horses. Gee/haw apparently dates back to 17th century English farms.
The first mention of “gee” appears in a 1628 book where the author says,
“He expostulates with his Oxen very understandably and speaks Gee and
Ree better than English.”
In the 1920s in England, “gee-gee” was used to mean a horse and geegees (gamblers) played the horses. There was also a gee-gee dodge where
someone sold horse meat for beef. In any case, “gee” came into the
American lexicon as meaning for a horse or other draft animal to turn to the
right.
“Haw,” on the other hand (no pun intended), means to turn to the left.
This word is thought to be an American version of the Middle English
hawen, which means “look!” Haw is also a call in square dancing for
progressing to the left.
And there are a couple other meanings. Haw is fruit of the Old World
hawthorn, and haw is the name of the thin protective membrane at the inner
corner of the lower eyelid of a horse or dog.
So it seems these commands just developed over the years – sort of
like the TV show Hee Haw.
This was a short one so I’ll leave you with some thoughts on which to
contemplate.
 Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just lack film.
 Seen it all, done it all, can’t remember most of it.
 Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?
 If you could have everything – where would you put it?
 Light travels faster than sound. This why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.
Ok, I know – gee haw out of here.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): The latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people
make up 75% of the world’s population.
-- Anonymous
Heads UP
I hope you are up to this. (It came across my monitor. I don’t know the
source, but some one is very clever.) There is a two-letter word that
perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and this is
“UP.”
It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or moving higher
on a list, but when we waken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP, and
why are political offices UP for election, and why is it UP to the secretary to
write UP a report?
We call UP our friends. We use pictures to brighten UP a room; we
polish UP the silver, warm UP leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock
UP the house and some guys fix UP old cars.
At other times the little word has special meaning. People stir UP
trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To
be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
And UP is very confusing: a drain must be opened UP because it is
stopped UP. Stores are opened UP in the morning and closed UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP.
To be knowledgeable of the proper uses of UP, look UP the word in
the dictionary. In my dictionary, the word UP takes UP a great deal of
space, and the definitions add UP to 93.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways
UP is used. It will take UP a lot of time, but if you don’t give UP, you may
wind UP with a long list.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the Sun
comes out, we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it wets things UP. When
it doesn’t rain for a while, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP because my time is UP,
so….. I’ll shut UP. (This is UPserd, but I thought my readers would eat this
column UP.)
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script) Up, Up, and away.
-- Superman
You Got To Have Heart
The heart is basically a pump that keeps our blood circulating – a vital
organ. Yet, we associate various feelings with the heart. Consider the
following common expressions:
 heartache – deep grief or pain
 heartbreak (broken heart) – extreme disappointment (lost at love)
 heartfelt – most sincere
 have a heart – be forgiving
 heavy heart – very sad
 know it in my heart – know for sure
 change of heart – change of mind or opinion
 to know by heart – got it memorized
 have your heart set on – a big desire
 cry your heart out – big grief
 wear your heart on your sleeve – obvious emotion
 give my heart to you – true love or a transplant
 cross my heart – a sincere promise
You can probably think of others – if you have your heart in the right place.
How about heartless, heart rendering, heartsick, heartstrings, heartwarming,
heartthrob, and so on. I’m glad we had this little heart-to-heart.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) I will wear my heart upon my sleeve.
--(Iago, Shakespeare’s Othello)
A Glitch in Time
Question: What is a “glitch” – a computer glitch, that is? (Asked by a
curious non-computer person.)
Reply: As most of us know who use the word, it is something designed to
cover up our ignorance on the cause of a malfunction. In the dictionary,
“glitch” is defined as (1) a defect or malfunction in a machine or plan, e.g., a
glitch in a spacecraft’s fuel cell. (2) Computers: any error, malfunction, or
problem. Well, that’s general enough.
To focus in a bit more, I looked in a couple other sources. In the book
Small Bytes: An Irreverent Computer Dictionary by Gene Brown
(Macmillan, 1983), a glitch is defined as: “an electronic error in hardware or
software – a hitch in the glutch between input and output.”
Glitch is a relatively new word of the space age and electronics. From
The Secret Lives of Words by Paul West (Harcourt, 2000), glitch is: “From
spaceman’s argot into our everyday misadventures with equipment,
especially of the electronic kind, this evocative word, from the German
glitschen and Yiddish glitshen, to slip, has replaced mishap, fault, and
defect, but not malfunction. This amounts to a provoking disturbance that
remains minor problem.”
I guess that’s like saying a glitch is an electronic banana peel -- a slip
that won’t ruin your life, but sure could spoil your day. I hope no one calls
the Curiosity Corner a glitch!
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I don’t always know what I’m talking about
but I know I’m right.
-- Mohammed Ali
Spell Check
Let’s take a look again at our English language. It is so much fun.
Here’s an old one (source unknown).
Poetically Speaking English
* We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox
became oxen, not oxes.
* One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese; yet the plural of moose
should never be meese.
* You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is
houses, not hice.
* The plural of man is called men; then why shouldn’t the plural of pan be
called pin?
* If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and give you a boot, would
pair be called beet?
* If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth; why shouldn’t the plural of
booth be beeth?
* Then one may be that, and three may be those; yet hat in plural would
never be hose, and the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
* We speak of a brother and also of brethren, but though we say mother, we
never say methren.
* Then the masculine pronouns are he, his, and him; but imagine the
feminine being she, shis, and slim.
And to top it off, a few oxymorons (the plural is really oxyamora) which are
figures of speech that are seemingly self-contradictory:
* Found missing, * Good grief, * Alone together, * Small crowd,
* Sweet sorrow, * Clearly misunderstood, * A definite maybe,
*Pretty ugly, * Advanced BASIC, * Synthetic natural gas,
* Twelve ounce pound cake.
The following are not true oxymorons, but they have a ring to them:
* Government organization, and * Temporary tax increase.
C.P.S. (Curious Post Script): Be careful about reading health books. You
may die from a misprint.
-- Mark Twain
Idioms or Idiot-oms
The English language is difficult enough for people to learn. But on top
of that, we have a bunch of idioms that get put in. (Idiom: an
expression whose meaning is different from the usual meanings of the
words making it up.) First, some foods-related items that have crept
into the vernacular, then we will take it on the nose.
Some of the things we do:
* fish for compliments
* stay cool as a cucumber
* beef about the weather
* ham it up to get a laugh
* know that he’s just plain chicken
* egg on his face
* egg someone on
* butter people up
* toast the bride and groom
* have dinners to roast our friends
* get caught with our hands in the cookie jar
* cook up new ideas
* offer recipes for success
* turn beet red
* want the whole enchilada
* has a cheesy grin
* bet dollars to donuts
* talk turkey
* quit cold turkey
* And as Forrest Gump says: Life is like a box of chocolates.
So, be careful. You may have to eat your words. (If you are into such food
idioms, a long list may be found at www.learn4good.com/languages >
idioms > food.)
And another word that has crept into or nosed into our idioms is “nose.”
Did you know that some people:
* have a nose for news
* can’t keep their nose out of other peoples’ business.
* bet that horse wins by a nose
* count noses
* cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face
* follow one’s nose
* keep their nose clean
* keep their nose to the grindstone
* get led around by the nose
* look down their nose at people
* can tell you exactly, right on the nose
* pay through the nose
* rub someone’s nose in it
* turn up their nose
* can’t find something, even if it is right under their nose
So there you have it. It should be as plain as the nose on your face.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Every teenager should get a high school
education, even if they know everything already.
-- Anonymous
It’s a Bird, It’s a Dodo
Question: I jokingly called my grandson a “dodo” the other day, and he
asked, “What is that”? Please enlighten him and me. (Submitted by a
curious grandpa.)
Reply: I think most of us know what Grandpa meant when joking with his
grandson. The reference is to the extinct dodo bird. The dodo was
discovered by Portuguese sailors in the late 1500s on Mauritius, a small
island off the coast of Africa. The flightless bird had no natural predators
and no fear of humans. Presumably the sailors thought this lack of fear was
a lack of intelligence and named the bird the dodo, from the Portuguese
doudou, meaning “simpleton.”
The island became inhabited and the dodo numbers started to dwindle.
They were hunted for sport and food. Not being able to fly away, things
became pretty grim for the dodos. Also, their eggs were laid individually in
nests on the ground and were easy pickings for the settlers’ animals -- pigs,
for example. As a result, in eighty-some years the dodo population was
completely wiped out – extinction.
As a sidelight, it is interesting to note that the dodo extinction almost
did the same for a type of tree. The seeds of this particular tree only
germinated after having passed through the digestive tract of the dodo. With
the dodo gone, the tree began to slowly die out. There were only a few of
them left when it was discovered that turkeys could perform the dodo
function. This saved what is now known as the “dodo tree” from similar
extinction.
Moral: the dodo tree needs doo-doo.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in
such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.
-- Ludwig Erhard, German politician
To Indent
or Not to Indent?
Question: What was an indentured servant, and what was
“indentured”? (Asked by a curious history buff.)
Reply: Indentured servant? Isn’t that another name for husband? (Just
kidding – lighten up.) Nor does indentured have anything to do with
dentures. At one time, a person became an indentured servant by borrowing
money and agreeing to work off the debt during a specified time. We are
most familiar with the term from colonial times. By some estimates, as
many as half of the settlers of our country were indentured servants. They
agreed to work for someone (the purchaser of the indenture) upon arrival in
the colonies to pay for their passage. The time period was usually seven
years.
I wasn’t certain about the actual meaning of indentured, so I put the
word out and someone sent the following, which sounds good to me.
“I had an ancestor that came over in 1748 as an indentured servant.
An indentation was made along the middle of the agreement document.
Local courts used a tool something like a pizza cutter with teeth. Both the
servant and owner would sign the two pieces. The magistrate would tear
them apart and each got one half. When the time was up, the servant and the
owner would go to the local court and match the two indentures. The court
would seal them together with wax and they would be recorded and filed in
the county archives.”
So I guess after an indentured person had served their time, he/she
became outdentured.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) The most wasted of all days is that on which
one has not laughed.
-- Nicolas Chamfort, French writer.
You Don’t Ring These Bells
Question: Why do they call exercise weights “dumbbells”? (Asked by a
curious weightlifter.)
Reply: The term in this context has nothing to do with stupidity, although it
does have this slang connotation. The emphasis here is on the bell.
Back in the old days, there were a lot of bells to be rung and
professional bell ringers gained muscular upper bodies pulling the ropes in
plying their trade. Early weightlifting machines were designed to mimic bell
ringing, and weights in the shapes of bells were attached to ropes that run
over pulleys. A weight or bell was lifted by pulling down on the rope.
The “dumb” part comes from the old English word meaning “silent”
or “mute”. Other examples of this are “dumbfounded” and “dumbwaiter.”
So, a dumbbell referred to a silent bell – having no ding-dong. Now free
dumbbells (without ropes) are used in exercising and may have adjustable
weights.
But don’t put too much weight on and hurt yourself. If so, then you
become the dumbbell, or a dum-dum.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore
and you sleep alone.
-- Anthony Burgess, English writer.
Editor, Help! Is it Right, Write, or Rite?
As an author of science textbooks, my editors are always throwing up
The Chicago Manual of Style to me… the “bible” of proper form with
which I don’t always agree. Here’s something I found (source
unknown) and sent to my editors to see if it would pass editorial muster.
What do you think?
When you write copy, you have the right to copyright the copy you write, if
the copy is right. If, however, the copy is not right, then you must rewrite
your copy. If you write religious services you write rites. Very conservative
people write right copy. A right wing cleric would write right rites, and has
the right to copyright the right rite he has the right to write. His editor has
the job of making the right rite copy right before the copyright can be right.
Should Tom Wright decide to write a right rite, then Wright would write
right rite. Duplicating that rite would copy Wright’s right rite, and violate
copyright, which Wright would have the right to right. Right?
I told my editors I write to get it right.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): By the time a man is wise enough to watch his
step, he’s too old to go anywhere.
-- Anonymous
IX. Finale (Odds and Ends)
It’s All Greek to Me, Except When It Comes to Pencils
Question: What’s the origin of “It’s all Greek to me,” meaning you
don’t understand something?
Reply: This appears to have originated with the Shakespeare play Julius
Caesar. In the first act, Casca said this when he heard Cicero tell about
Caesar’s refusal to become emperor. Seems that Cicero was speaking in
Greek (instead of Latin) to prevent spies from learning what he was
explaining. I assume that Casca didn’t understand and it was all Greek to
him.
Does the Curiosity Corner give you culture now and then, or what? I
really didn’t get a copy of Julius Caesar and check this out personally. It
would probably be all Greek to me.
Question: Why most wooden pencils have six flat sides?
Reply: Because it is cheaper or more cost-effective (as they say these days).
By making pencils hexagonal (six-sided), there are more pencils for the
same amount of wood than if made round. The wood it takes to make eight
round pencils can be made into nine hexagonal ones.
Also, hexagonal pencils are easier to sharpen; and as we all know,
they are less likely to roll of your desk.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Never put both feet in your mouth at the same
time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
-- Anonymous
Who Put the Chicken in Chicken Pox?
Question: Does chicken pox have anything to do with chickens?
Reply: Chicken pox is a mild, highly contagious disease that a lot of people
contract, mostly children. It may be “mild,” but oh how you want to
scratch,and can’t do so for fear of scarring. Animals other than humans can
be infected with chicken pox.
Chicken pox, or varicella by its technical name, is caused by a virus
and is characterized by a pox-like rash. It is not known how the “chicken”
got into chicken pox. One speculation is that the name may be derived from
an imagined resemblance of the pox lesions to chickpeas. (I don’t know
how the “chick” got in chickpeas either.) The virus can be cultured and
identified using chick (chicken) embryos. That’s a possible “chicken”
connection, although it would be a relatively recent development. A
gentleman at the local lumber store told me it was because children with
chicken pox looked as though they had been pecked by a chicken. So take
your choice
In any case, here are a couple of other things about the pox. Persons
who have had chicken pox usually have long-term immunity. The people at
the local health department tell me you don’t get it twice. However, the
virus that produces chicken pox appears to be identical with the one that
causes herpes zoster, or shingles, an inflammatory disease of the nerves.
This is supported by the fact that children have developed chicken pox after
being exposed to adults with shingles. Herpes zoster (shingles) occurs most
commonly in older people. It causes a blister-like rash with neuralgic pain
most often in a band (Greek, zoster) around one side of the trunk of the
body. It is speculated that the chicken pox virus in once-affected children
remains latent for many years, and then for some unknown reason becomes
active and gives shingles to some people.
Of course, some older folk remember another pox -- smallpox, or at
least the vaccination for it. This is a highly fatal pox that once ran rampant.
An English medical student, Edward Jenner, developed a vaccine for the
disease using a cowpox virus. Cowpox is a viral disease of cows
characterized by lesions on the teats and udders, which can be transferred to
humans on direct contact. Jenner found that matter from a cowpox lesion on
the hand of a dairymaid transferred to the arm of a small boy gave the lad
immunity to smallpox. (Incidentally, for you trivia buffs the Latin name for
cow is vacca, and cowpox is called vaccine; hence the name “vaccine.”)
The development of a smallpox vaccine from Jenner’s work, along with
widespread vaccination programs, has virtually eliminated the disease. It is
so rare in the United States that children are no longer required to receive
vaccinations. For many of us, the only memory is an occasionally observed
vaccination scar on the arm or thigh.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Accept that some days you’re the pigeon, and
some days you are the statute.
-- Anonymous
Pallbearers and Perennials
Question: Why do they call people that carry coffins pallbearers?
(Asked by a curious pallbearer.)
Reply: We know what a bearer is, so the question comes down to what is a
“pall.” The word comes from the Latin pallium, meaning “covering” or
“cloak.” So a pall refers to a cloth covering a casket. An example of a pall is
the American flag used to cloak caskets in military funerals.
The coffin pall probably came down from the early procedure of
wrapping a body in burial cloths. Check out John chapter 20 in the Bible for
a reference.
Question: What are some common perennial vegetables? (Asked by a
curious gardener.)
Reply: Somebody must be tired of planting. Like perennial flowers,
perennial vegetables come back every year after harvesting. Most common
are asparagus and rhubarb, but there are also horseradish, Jerusalem
artichoke, and lovage (a member of the parsley family). Some of these may
reproduce up to twenty years. There are a variety of other, less-well-known
perennial vegetables.
The Curiosity Corner has been perennial for some time, but not a
veggie.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Does steel wool come from metal sheep?
Anonymous
Give it a Clink, but Not Before Breathing
Question: Why do people clink their glasses when making a toast?
(Asked by a curious party goer.)
Reply: This old custom was originally somewhat like a handshake. Holding
out your empty hand to shake showed that you weren’t carrying a weapon.
Similarly, when having a drink with someone, there might be a fear of being
poisoned. The host would hold out his glass and the guest would pour some
of his drink into it. Then both drank the same liquid. Seeing no effect, the
guest would show his trust by clinking glasses. (Trusting souls, weren’t
they? There are slow-acting poisons.)
Now we just clink glasses without trying the other person’s drink. Ever
watch the glass-clinking at a long table with a lot of people? A whole lot of
stretching going on.
Question: Why are you supposed to let red wine “breathe”?
Reply: “Breathe” here means exposing to air or aerating. By doing this, it is
believed by some that the tannic or astringent quality of some wines may be
mellowed. Tannin or tannic acid in wines gives that mouth-puckering
quality. The tannin content varies with grape varieties, but is most
prominent in those used to make dry, red wines (and some white wines).
Breathing is an attempt to achieve some of the flavor that aging would give
the wine.
As wine ages, the tannins soften and the mouth-puckering is
diminished, and allowing wine to breathe may also help. Just uncorking the
bottle and letting it sit doesn’t do much. To promote breathing, usually in
red wines, the wine should be poured into a wide-mouth decanter or served
in wide-mouth wine glasses. The breathing doesn’t take place quickly, and
may take 10–15 minutes. You might swirl the glass to help, and while you
are waiting, you can watch the “tears” described in the next article.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Nowadays on TV news programs, it seems that
more time is spent telling what is going to be reported than reporting.
-- JDW
Tears Without Crying
Question: When you swirl wine in a glass, what causes the "tears” to
form on the glass? (Asked by a curious wine watcher.)
Reply: This person was probably swirling while contemplating over a
Curiosity Corner article. To see the “tear” effect, swirl some wine (or some
liquor) in a thin wine glass so as to wet the inside surface. Then hold the
glass still and watch closely. In a short time you should see a ring of liquid
clinging to the inside of the glass a short distance (maybe half an inch)
above the liquid surface. As the ring gets thicker, the liquid begins to run
down the side of the glass in streams somewhat resembling tears. Hence, the
name "tears"; or sometimes they are called "legs."
This effect was explained by an English scientist, James Thomson,
over 140 years ago. It has to do with surface tension. The surface of a
liquid is under tension because of the attractive forces between liquid
molecules in the liquid. At the surface with air molecules above, the forces
between the molecules in the liquid provide a net inward force that gives rise
to a contracting surface tension. A well-known effect of surface tension is
the beading up of water droplets on a newly waxed car.
Considering the two major components of the wine --water and
alcohol – there are couple major physical differences. Alcohol evaporates
faster than water, and alcohol has less surface tension. So after swirling, the
alcohol evaporated more quickly from the liquid film on the glass, leaving a
more watery film with more surface tension or stronger molecular attraction
than the wine in the glass. This stronger molecular attraction pulls more
wine up the side of the glass until a ring forms. When the weight of the
liquid in the ring exceeds the attractive force, liquid runs down, forming
"tears" or "legs."
Thomson checked his explanation by putting wine in a vial and noted
tears formed on swirling. He then corked or sealed the vial so as to prevent
the evaporation of alcohol, and guess what -- no crying.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Quitting smoking is easy. I have done it
thousands of times.
-- Mark Twain
A Definite Possibility
Question: Is it possible for a woman to become pregnant after giving
birth to a baby and while still nursing the baby? (Asked by a curious
father.)
Reply: I thought I knew the answer to this, but figured I had better consult
with my physician. He confirmed my thought that this was possible, but
added that it may be less likely than normal because of hormonal imbalances
during this time.
I was in another doctor’s office later in the week and mentioned it to
him. He got up, walked out of the room and came back with a picture of his
second son. “It certainly is possible, and here’s proof!”
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Experience is what we get when we do not get
what we want.
-- Enio Carvalho, marketing specialist
The Law and the Leader
Question: Why does furniture have tags that say: DO NOT REMOVE
UNDER PENALTY OF LAW? (Asked by a curious law-conscientious
consumer.)
Reply: These tags apply to stuffed furniture. In the past, some furniture
manufacturers would use materials other than advertised. Laws were passed
that requires manufacturers to attach a label telling exactly what the
materials were. The tag warnings are for furniture sellers, not consumers.
But a lot of people thought that it was against the law for them to remove the
tags. As a result, the tag has been modified to read: UNDER PENALTY OF
LAW THIS TAG IS NOT TO BE REMOVED, EXCEPT BY THE
CONSUMER. There’s such a tag on the bottom of my chair as I write. I’ll
remove it.
Question: What does the term “loss leader” mean? (Asked by my dog’s
curious veterinarian.)
Reply: At first, I thought he was saying “lost (metric) liter” or “lost litter.”
(He should know the latter.) But I finally got it -- “loss leader” -- which
refers to a piece of heavily advertised merchandise (the leader) sold at a loss.
The idea is to attract customers into the store in the hopes that once inside
they will make other purchases.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): He who laughs last thinks slowest.
-- Anonymous
Hail to the Chief
Ronald Reagan had a wit and some very humorous quotes. Here are a
few:
* What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who’s played with a chimp,
could have a future in politics? (on Clint Eastwood’s bid to become mayor
of Carmel, CA.)
* I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.
* I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of a national
emergency – even if I’m in a Cabinet meeting.
* Politics is suppose to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to
realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
* They say hard work never hurt anybody, but I figure why take a chance.
* Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you
lose yours. And a recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.
* I’ve noticed that everyone for abortion has already been born.
* But there are advantages to being elected President. The day after I was
elected, I had my high school grades classified as Top Secret.
* Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short
phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops
moving, subsidize it.
* I hope you’re all Republicans. (comment to surgeons as he entered the
operating room after the 1981 assassination attempt)
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I wonder at times what the Ten
Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the
U.S. Congress.
-- Ronald Reagan
A Couple Health Highlights
Question: Does hay fever have anything to do with hay? (Asked by a
curious hay-bailing farmer.)
Reply: A little, perhaps. “Hay fever” became a popular term resulting from
nasal congestion, sneezing, and eye irritation associated with hay harvesting.
The correct term is “allergic rhinitis.” Rhinitis means irritation of the nose
(rhino means nose). Many substances cause the allergic symptoms
associated with “hay fever,” and hay represents just a small percentage of
the problem. Moreover, how many people with hay fever are around hay
these days?Question: What is whooping about whooping cough? (Asked by a
curious cougher.)
Reply: I’m pretty certain that whooping cranes have nothing to do with
whooping cough, the technical name of which is pertussis. This is a
bacterial infection that causes intense coughing spells. At the end of a spell,
there is often a “whoop” sound as the infected person gasps to inhale.
Whooping cough was all but eradicated with the routine children
vaccinations that began in the 1940s. However, more cases of the illness
have occurred in the U.S. in the last quarter century, some of which could be
because adolescents have outgrown their vaccination immunity.
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you
don’t mind, it don’t matter.
—Mark Twain
C.P.S. (Curious Postscripts)
Request: I enjoy the C.P.S. (Curious Postscript) at the end of your
articles. Please do a column on the C.P.S. Thank you. (A curious
C.P.S. lover requesting from cyberspace.)
Reply: Thank you .(dot)com, wherever you are. I started the Curious
Postscript (C.P.S.) a couple of years ago with quotes, sayings, and quips –
sort of an afterthought for readers to muse and reflect on (after perhaps a
brain-draining column). You can come across quotes in many places, and I
keep a list of them for the C.P.S. The original sources are often unknown,
and these are attributed to our old friend Anonymous (Anon.). Here are a
few which I hope you enjoy.
* Every day is a great day; if you don’t believe it – try missing one.
Anon.
* I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please
everybody. Bill Cosby
* You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in that proportion. Anon.
* I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it left. Anon.
* Never eat more than you can lift. Miss Piggy
* As long as there are tests and exams, there will be prayer in public
schools. Anon.
Winston Churchill’s reply to a woman who chastised him for drinking:
“Yes, madam, I am drunk. But in the morning I will be sober and you
will still be ugly.”
* America is the only country where half the money is spent on food,
and the other half is spent on trying to lose weight. Anon.
* Drive carefully. It’s not only cars that can be recalled by their maker.
Anon.
* Stop repeat offenders. Don’t re-elect them. Anon.
* Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m
not sure about the former. Albert Einstein
* If brains were taxed, some people would get a rebate. Anon.
* A man needs only two tools in his workshop: WD-40 and duct tape. If
it doesn’t move and should, use WD-40. If does move and shouldn’t, use
duct tape. Anon.
* A word to the wise isn’t necessary -- it’s the stupid ones who need
the advice.
-- Bill Cosby
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): Wrinkles should merely indicate where the
smiles have been.
-- Mark Twain