Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers Read online

  Are You Sirius?

  The phrase “dog days of summer” may bring to mind an old hound dog trying to beat the August heat by lying in the shade, but that isn’t where the phrase comes from. It does have to do with dogs, though. Ancient Romans noticed that Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, rose with the sun from July to August. They thought that the hot summer weather was caused by the added heat of Sirius, known as “the dog star” because of its location in the constellation Canis Major (“Big Dog”). They were mistaken—Sirius is much too far away to heat the Earth—but the phrase “dog days” stuck.

  You’re in Good Hands

  A cartoonist named Sparky coined a popular term that has since been co-opted by insurance companies. What is it?

  Street Talk

  “Hunky-dory” is an American term meaning “things are going quite satisfactorily.” Etymologists believe it may have come from another country. Which one?

  Well Versed

  What’s significant about the sentence “Jesus wept”?

  You’re in Good Hands

  The term security blanket was coined by Charles Schulz (“Sparky” to his friends) in his comic strip Peanuts, which ran from 1950 until his death in 2000. Inspired by the blankets that his own kids dragged around the house, Schulz gave one to neurotic Linus Van Pelt, and it served as the character’s protector and weapon (against his crabby sister, Lucy). In child psychology, a security blanket is referred to as a transitional object, acting as a bridge between the infant’s total dependence on the mother, and independence; the blanket gives a sense of security when mom is not available. Since its introduction, the term became a common metaphor for anything that provides a sense of security—for instance, an insurance policy.

  Street Talk

  Dating back to the mid-19th century, the phrase may have been derived from Huncho-dori, the name of a legendary street in Yokohama, Japan, that was once known for its, ahem, friendliness to foreign soldiers.

  Well Versed

  If you ever need to memorize a Bible verse for Sunday school, consider John 11:35. Its full text consists of only two words—“Jesus wept”—making it the shortest verse in the King James Version of the Bible.

  Jump on In, Guv’ner!

  What unit of measurement is derived from the hugs of old English sailors?

  Jump on In, Pardner!

  How much water can a ten-gallon hat hold?

  Jump on In, Guv’ner!

  The fathom—a unit of measurement for the depth of water. Like many measurements, such as hands being used to measure horses, and feet to measure distance, a fathom was originally based on the human body. In this case, the measurement is based on the size of a hug, from the Old Norse word faetm, meaning “embrace.” A fathom was originally the length of a sailor’s spread arms as he prepares to give a big bear hug; the distance from fingertip to fingertip is about six feet, and so is a fathom. The verb “to fathom” comes from the same word. Dating back to 1620, it means “to penetrate to the depths of the truth, as in, to fathom someone’s motives.”

  Jump on In, Pardner!

  If you attempted to pour ten gallons of water into a ten-gallon hat, it would start overflowing after only three-quarters of a gallon. So why “ten gallon hat”? Word historians haven’t been able to determine the exact origin, but they think it may have been a misunderstanding of the Spanish galón, a term for military-style metallic braiding. The original “ten galón” hats were tall enough to hold ten decorative ribbons. Another theory: It came from a cowboy’s sarcastic comment about his buddy’s oversized hat: “Hey, Tex, what’s that thing hold—ten gallons?” Whatever the case, Old West screenwriters take note: The word only dates back to about 1925.

  Department of Redundancy Department

  What do these three things have in common: the olallieberry, a thiamine deficiency, and Garrett Morris?

  Praise the Gourd

  Zucchetto means “little gourd” in Italian. What does this have to do with Roman Catholic clerics?

  Department of Redundancy Department

  The olallieberry is a cross between the loganberry and the youngberry created by S. J. Harvey in 1937. In the Chinook language, ollalie means “berry,” so in essence, “olallieberry” means “berry berry.” That should not be confused with beriberi, a disease that results from a deficiency of thiamine. The word “beriberi” came from either an Arabic phrase bhur-bhari (“sailor’s asthma”), or a Sinhalese phrase meaning “I cannot. I cannot.” Neither berry nor disease should be confused with the 1977 Saturday Night Live catchphrase by Garrett Morris as fictional Mets infielder Chico Escuela, who said, “Baseball has been berry, berry good to me.”

  Praise the Gourd

  Medieval monks spent long, cold winters beneath the high ceilings of massive European cathedrals. (This was before central heating.) Making matters colder was the monks’ tonsure hairstyle—the hair was shaved from the top of the scalp, leaving just a fringe around the edges. Body heat escapes through a bare head, so the monks needed a small cap to cover the bald spot. Ironically, the answer came from the Jewish kippah, or yarmulke—a skullcap that the monks jokingly renamed the zucchetto because it makes the wearer’s head resemble a gourd. It’s still worn by European clergy. So the next time you see the pope, say, “What’s up, Mr. Pumpkin-head!” (On second thought, don’t.)

  Quiet Down, Please

  Which came first, books or libraries—and by how many years?

  The Star Report

  Why does meteorology refer to weather and not meteors?

  Not Joe Mama

  Are you enjoying a cup of joe right now? Bet you don’t know who the original “Joe” was. Turn the page to find out.

  Quiet Down, Please

  The library came first. Five thousand years before the first books were mass-produced in the 1200s, ancient Sumerian libraries collected clay tablets that contained a variety of information, from business transactions to theology lessons.

  The Star Report

  Blame Aristotle. He coined the term meteorology in 340 B.C. In Greek, meteora basically meant “stuff in the sky” (except for birds). So Aristotle called snow aqueous meteor; wind, aerial meteor; rainbows, luminous meteor; and lightning and shooting stars, fiery meteor. Over time, the term meteor lost all its other skyward meanings except for “shooting star.” However, the term meteorology has remained—it means the study of rain, wind, lightning, and snow.

  Not Joe Mama

  Josephus Daniels (1862–1948) was appointed Secretary of the Navy by President Woodrow Wilson in 1913. Good news: Daniels paved the way for women to join the Navy. Bad news: He abolished the officers’ wine rations from ships. From that time on, the strongest drink aboard navy vessels was coffee. Either in his honor (or with scorn), sailors later began referring to a cup of coffee is as a “cup of joe.”

  Divide and Conquer

  The mafia has thugs. So do political parties and schoolyards. But most of these folks are saints compared to the original thugs. Who were they, and what dastardly deeds did they do?

  Divide and Conquer

  We get the word thug from the Thuggees, a centuries-old criminal society in India. Originally called Thags, their name comes from the Sanskrit sthaga, meaning “deceiver.” Killing and robbing people in British Colonial India up until the 1830s, the Thuggees were about as bad as they came.

  Their modus operandi: Several Thuggees would infiltrate a band of travelers (who banded together to avoid getting robbed) and pretend to be a part of the group. After gaining their trust, the Thuggees would wait for the right time to strike, when the band was far from the safety of any settlements. Then, usually around dusk, as the travelers broke into smaller groups, each Thuggee would join one of the groups and then wait for a prearranged signal—usually some kind of animal call. When it came, the Thuggees attacked. Using belts or scarves, they simultaneously strangled the strongest member of each little group, quickly and quietly so that no one could cry out and warn the others. Fro
m there, it was a simple task to pillage the rest of the camp.

  It’s said that the Thuggees murdered by strangulation because spilling blood was against their religion. (It was quieter, too.) The murders were committed in honor of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, who was depicted with a necklace of severed human heads. During the two centuries they practiced their “craft,” the Thuggees were responsible for at least 50,000 and maybe as many as two million deaths.

  Give Them a Hand

  suortxedibma fo etisoppo eht s'tahW What’s the opposite of ambidextrous?

  Secret Messages

  What’s the only language in history that was created solely by and for women?

  Give Them a Hand

  The opposite of ambidextrous is ambisinistrous, yet another of history’s right-handed jabs at lefties. The Latin term for “right-handed” is dextera. It came to mean “skillful” and gave us the word dexterity. So in effect, ambidextrous means “right-handed on both sides.” On the other hand, the Latin sinistra (“left-handed”) began as the word for the lone pocket on a toga, which was on the left side. (Who knew togas had pockets?) The Romans, and many other early cultures, distrusted lefties because they were different. In time, the word sinister came to mean first “clumsy,” and later “evil.” If a Roman citizen was very clumsy, they were called ambisinistrous, meaning they were “left-handed on both sides.”

  Secret Messages

  The Nüshu language of China has been secretly passed down from mother to daughter for thousands of years. A written language only, Nüshu has about 2,000 characters. Until it was discovered by outsiders in the 1980s, Nüshu was the best-kept language secret in history. Women used it mainly to write letters, but also used it on quilts, fans, and other decorative artwork. To most men, it looked like nothing more than pretty symbols. Nüshu has remained isolated to Jiangyong County, in Hunan Province, and is known locally as “Dong language.” As the literacy rate in China has increased, the language has nearly died out. But some young women are now trying to preserve it.

  Net Prophets

  How did a fish become a symbol for Christianity?

  Poetry in Motion

  What common childhood poem espousing the benefits of a certain food first showed up on bathroom walls in the 1600s?

  Sleeve It or Not

  What do you call the hole in your shirt that you put your arm through?

  Net Prophets

  Early Christians co-opted the symbol of the fish for a few reasons. One, the Greek word ichthus (“fish”) can be made into a loose acronym for Iesous Christos, Theou Uios, Soter (“Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior”). In addition, the Gospels told of many fish-related Jesus stories (many of the Apostles were fishermen). During the first few centuries A.D., when the Romans persecuted the Christians (and used them as lion food), the intersecting curves of the fish symbol were printed on signs to advertise Christian meetings without the Romans finding out.

  Poetry in Motion

  Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart,

  The more you eat, the more you fart.

  The more you fart, the better you feel,

  So eat your beans at every meal!

  That’s the modern version of the poem. No one knows who made it up, but versions of this ditty were first scribbled on English privy walls in the 17th century.

  Sleeve It or Not

  Called an armsaye or armscye, this obscure word comes from Scotland. It’s most likely a corruption of “arm’s eye.”

  Dutch Treats

  What embarrassing situation has led to the recently coined Dutch word geboortenaam?

  When Bad Words Go Good

  What nice word once meant “ignorant, stupid, foolish, and malicious”?

  Dutch Treats

  The Dutch Language Union coined the word in 2008 after receiving complaints about a line on marriage forms that says meisjesnaam, or “maiden name.” When male gay couples applied for marriage certificates, that word led to an awkward moment when the one partner who would take the other’s last name had to enter his maiden name. Maiden name? He’s a guy—he has no maiden name. In its ongoing quest to rid the nation of awkward moments, the DLU introduced geboortenaam, which translates to “birth name.”

  When Bad Words Go Good

  The word nice has undergone an amazing transformation since it first appeared in English in the 1300s. Originally from the Latin nescius (“ignorant”), the French turned it into nice, meaning “stupid.” It entered English with that meaning, but over time it was softened to “foolish,” then to “wanton” or “malicious.” Over the centuries, nice took on even more meanings: “extravagant,” “elegant,” “strange,” “modest,” “thin,” and “shy.” When did nice become “nice”? Not until the mid-1800s.

  In recent years, the word has taken a step back toward its dark past, becoming a sarcastic interjection—such as, when a wayward boomerang hits you on the head and you say, “Nice throw, Crocodile Dumb-dee!”

  GAMES PEOPLE PLAY

  Time to get on your mark, tee up, and make that free throw through the goalposts in center field!

  Stop and Go

  A televised “60-minute” football game lasts about three hours. How much of that time are the players actually playing?

  Lords of the Rings

  Who created the five Olympic rings? What do they signify? And who made them famous?

  Stop and Go

  If you used a stopwatch to tally up the actual playing time during a three-hour football broadcast, it would total about 11 minutes. (Actual playing time is measured from the snap or kick of the ball, to the whistle at the end of the play.) So what fills the rest of the time? About 20 minutes are spent watching replays. Another 20 or so minutes are spent watching canned video features, cheerleaders, coaches, crowd shots, halftime, and pre- and post-game chatter. Another hour is spent watching the players stand around and huddle up, which still leaves an hour. That’s for all the commercials.

  Lords of the Rings

  The creator of the rings is Baron Pierre de Coubertin of France. Known as the father of the modern Olympics, Coubertin designed the flag in 1912; he chose five rings to represent the five continents (he counted North and South America as one continent and left off Antarctica). Though the flag has been flown in every Olympics since 1920, it became the well-known symbol it is today at the 1936 Games in Berlin, Germany. That’s because German chancellor Adolf Hitler flew the flags everywhere he could put them. Newsreels of the Games played all over the world, introducing millions of people to the five Olympic rings…and to the Nazi swastika. (Hitler is also responsible for reintroducing an ancient Olympic tradition—the ceremonial carrying of the torch.)

  Swingers

  Where can you play a round of golf two miles above sea level? (And no, “Inside a jumbo jet” is not an acceptable answer.) What about 220 feet below sea level? (And no, “Inside a submarine” is also not an acceptable answer.)

  Instant Gratification

  What popular sporting event lasts less than two minutes yet is watched by more than 16 million people?

  Swingers

  La Paz Golf Club in the Bolivian capital is the world’s highest 18-hole golf course. Elevation: 10,800 feet above sea level. There was once an even higher course in Peru—the 9-hole Tactu Golf Club in Morococha, at 14,335 feet—but it was shut down after too many golfers suffered nosebleeds and blacked out. The world’s lowest course—at 220 feet below sea level—is called Furnace Creek. If that sounds like a hot place, it is: Furnace Creek is located in Death Valley, California, where the temperature seldom drops below 90°F in the summer, even at night. Bring water.

  Instant Gratification

  The Kentucky Derby, horseracing’s most prestigious event. Every year since 1875, on the first Saturday of May, more than 100,000 bettors and spectators gather at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, to sip mint juleps and cheer on some of the world’s fastest thoroughbreds. The first televised Kentucky Derby took place in
1952. At its peak in the mid-1970s, more than 25 million people tuned in. Though not as many viewers have watched the sporting event in recent years (about 9 million fewer), it’s still an impressive feat to get 16 million sports fans to tune in to a race that is over in less time than the average commercial break.

  Cha Cha Cha

  In what sport does a ball “dance,” and under what circumstances?