Do Elephants Jump?

by David Feldman

  The more complicated action in playing a stringed instrument is done with the left hand (i.e., compressing the strings and vibrating them for vibrato). All the right hand is doing is busily sawing away from the bow, a much simpler and repetitive motion. My son caught on more quickly to much more complicated fingering than any of his classmates because he had more control over his left hand.

  In a world where the majority is right-handed and most lefties have a chip on their shoulder about being odd man out, the assumption is that all things were developed for righties. But I think this is a case in which the lefties may have had their way from the beginning, and by switching instruments around are actually making life more difficult for themselves instead of easier.

  An ingenious theory, Michele, but there’s one obvious flaw: if what you say is true, why aren’t there a disproportionately large rather than small percentage of left-handed string players?

  If lefties suffer discrimination, don’t all humans compared to our “best friends”? Dogs have, well, a dog’s life, as Jeff H. Johannsen of Sunnyvale, California, wrote in response to our foray into canine dental hygiene:

  Why don’t dogs get cavities? It hardly seems fair: We brush and floss two or three times a day and still we have to subject ourselves to sadistic Laurence Olivier [cool Marathon Man reference] impersonators while dogs eat anything that’s lying about and never get a cavity. What’s the deal?

  We consulted our family veterinarian, Dr. Irwin Fletcher, and received an answer so simple and obvious we felt more than a little embarrassed.

  Dogs, both male and female, have a gland that secretes a substance that is in many ways the chemical equivalent of fluoride. The gland is located directly below the anus. When your pet seems to be, er, polishing the family jewels, he is actually practicing good dental hygiene.

  Our guess is that at best, the dog is multitasking, but who are we to argue about licking dogs when we have biting insects to discuss? In What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway? we quoted entomologists who believe that mosquitoes bite some people more than others because they prefer the smell of some humans to others. Wei-Hwa Huang, a longtime correspondent from Mountain View, California, thinks he has narrowed down their preferences:

  Mosquitoes seem to be more attracted to distinctly human odor. Right after a shower, when you’ve washed all that dust and grime off yourself, mosquitoes are more likely to bite you because they can detect you more. Not to advocate avoiding baths, but in the past, when I’ve been with my sister, mosquitoes have tended to bite the one of us that took a shower last.

  Just what we were looking for — another excuse to give folks for not using soap and water. Please send all complaints to Wei-Hwa!

  Another olfactory issue inspired Elliot Ofsowitz of Sarasota, Florida, to write. He read our discussion of why snakes dart out their tongues in Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? We mentioned that snakes use their tongues as a tool for smelling and hearing as well as tasting. Ofsowitz focuses on the olfactory and, in particular, why snakes’ tongues are forked:

  Recent research and study on why most snakes have a forked tongue reveals that the snake’s tongue picks up odor particles in the air and brings them into its mouth where, on the roof of its mouth the odor particles are sampled — sort of like smelling, only more accurate and precise. The fork in the tongue allows a differentiation between odors on the left and the right, sort of a 3-D smelling.

  From pests to giants, another Californian, Jason Ly, wanted to add some information about why zoo elephants are often seen rocking from side to side. At the time he wrote the letter, Ly was a research assistant in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, Irvine, College of Medicine:

  This type of rocking behavior is exhibited in both animals and humans and is known as stereotypy. Stereotypy is defined as the excessive production of one type of motor act, or mental state, which necessarily results in repetition that is deemed as “abnormal” behavior. This can be seen as the rocking back-and-forth motion often displayed by the mentally retarded, repetitive hand waving or flapping, and repetitive vocal sounds.

  One probable cause of stereotypy is confinement. Some animals confined in small enclosures develop “caged stereotypies.” These behaviors usually include rocking and locomotion, such as pacing up and down one part of the enclosure. This type of behavior can be broken by providing the animal with a big enclosure. People who reside most of their lives in institutions or within the confinement of prison exhibit a number of abnormal behaviors, many of which are repetitive. Although such behaviors are abnormal in form, this is a normal response to an abnormal environment.

  Speaking of abnormal behavior, we pondered why Wayne Gretzky used to tuck in his hockey shirt. David Maxham shot us an e-mail:

  The reason he tucked in his jersey, and only on one side, was so that when he was playing, the shirt wouldn’t get in the way on the side that the stick was carried. The source of information comes from the Great One himself in his autobiography.

  Great? Well, isn’t it great that our Imponderable, “Why Are There No Purple Christmas Lights?” is moot? We received several purple Christmas light sightings. Based on this report from Robert Sherry of Mounds View, Minnesota, we have a feeling that our write-up in When Did Wild Poodles Roam the Earth? is likely to become “un-moot” sooner rather than later:

  There goes another theory shot to hell. There are purple Christmas lights, whole strings of them. More likely there were — I don’t think they’ll return next year.

  Target Stores carried strings of seventy pear lights labeled purple for this past Christmas season. Who knows if they were really purple or violet. I never saw them lit and expect very few others did, either.

  The after-Christmas sale, Target had a large quantity of purple lights available and even at 50 percent off, customers were hardly loading their carts with them. Purple lights are not without some redeeming social value — humor! I saw a couple looking at them, the husband trying to persuade the wife they were a good deal. She didn’t say a word, and gave him the look — you know the one — “Am I going to have to put you in a home already?”

  The lights didn’t appear this year. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have pink lights next year?

  Now as reluctant as we are to criticize our readers, it seems to us that some of their letters have a personal agenda. Matt Leveillee wrote to us all the way from Beijing, China:

  I would like a free copy of your book How to Win at Just About Everything, because I’m running out of snappy comebacks to stupid questions. I can’t remember ever giving up on life — giving up is for losers. So I don’t consider myself to be a loser.

  I entered a contest on Easy FM, my favorite radio station, where you have to name your three favorite music superstars. If you do this, they promise you a box of Cadbury chocolates. Well, guess what? I never got any chocolates! So I wrote back to them and asked where my chocolates were. They wrote back, promising me free Wall’s ice cream. I never got the ice cream, either! I’m mad, but I still listen to Easy FM because it’s still my favorite radio station.

  With this kind of loyalty to Easy FM, how can we not give Matt a free copy?

  We do have a few readers who are loyal to us, though! In How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch? reader and musician Craig Kirkland helped us with a musical Imponderable. How did we repay his generosity? By misidentifying his instrument:

  I was highly pleased to find a paragraph of my writing and an acknowledgment in the back, but my little nit is that I play viola, not cello! A minor detail, but I like to spread the gospel for my neglected and underappreciated instrument whenever possible, so of course I was a tad disappointed.

  I’d love to have another violist read the book, see my contribution, and feel the rising pride that a violist did something right instead of glorifying the grunting and guttural cello. Any chance that this error could be corrected?

  There sure is. But why do we get the feeling we’ll be receiving a few letters from cellists
real soon?

  We’re willing to risk the wrath of cellists, but there’s one group we don’t want to tangle with — librarians! Laura Mae Leach of Moreno Valley, California, wrote:

  I have just finished reading How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch? and have enjoyed it very much, just as I have the previous books.

  I do have one quibble. In your preface, you state: “Our job is to track down the mysteries of everyday life that you can’t answer by consulting reference books.” As a public librarian, I must mention that even the question “Do Penguins Have Knees?” can be answered from several books at any self-respecting library. Of course, your answers are quite a bit more fun to read than most reference books, but I wish you would not mislead your readers this way. Now that many librarians are trained to navigate the Internet, libraries are an even greater source of answers to life’s imponderable mysteries.

  Fair enough. Just as Imponderables are ponderable (“Imponderability” refers to that state in which you think you will never find an answer), so are some Imponderables solvable if you know where to look in the library. This has always been the toughest part of deciding what Imponderables to include in our books — many mysteries are fascinating but solvable through traditional research in a library (or might be known to experts in a field but not published in mainstream sources). For example, in this volume, “Why Do Beavers Build Dams?” seems like an easy question to answer. Every documentary we’ve seen on beavers highlights their construction of dams. So in cases like this, we consult encyclopedias and other standard reference books to see whether the “whys” are answered. In this case, they weren’t to our satisfaction. Because we were both interested in the answer to the question and clueless about its solution, we included this Imponderable. We’re sure we could have found the answers in books, but not easily through standard reference works. We love librarians, and not just because they buy our books. They help us find our experts, and we feel a kinship for anyone whose pursuit is to track down the answers to annoying questions.

  Leach concluded her letter with:

  You would make so many librarians and our customers happy if, as part of your tenth-book celebration, you would publish a union index to all ten books.

  Who loves ya’? This has long been our most requested feature and we hope the back of this volume helps you unburden your library patrons of their Imponderable afflictions.

  Well, at least one person loves us, and the feeling is reciprocated. Along with librarians, teachers are just about our favorite folks, especially this one — Larry Warmingham, now an administrator for the school district of Lancaster, Pennsylvania:

  I have spent the last ten years or so using your books in my classroom. I don’t know whether this is a common thing or not, but I wanted to let you know that it has been very helpful.

  As a former middle-school science teacher, I was always looking for new ways to engage my students. I got your Imponderables book as a gift and was intrigued. I soon had many of your books on my shelf. It then occurred to me that if I wanted to get my students to be inquisitive and to look for answers that couldn’t be found in the usual places, then I needed to ask them the right questions.

  The first question I used was, “Why is there a black spot in white bird droppings?” thinking that this would be a great start for hormonal preteens! It worked quite well. I used them once a week and gave prizes to students who were able to come up with the right answers. I worked it like the lottery. One set of prizes was divided among the correct answers. This way students were less likely to give away answers if they knew they would have to split the prizes.

  Students began to call Wendy’s to find out why they had square hamburgers, e-mail M&M to find out what the letters stood for, etc. We even got to the point of creating a “final exam” at the end of the year. It’s surprising how many students remembered the correct answers. The answers are not always in an encyclopedia, or a textbook, or a dictionary. Sometimes it’s fun to look for the answer and very rewarding to finally find it. I think it was helpful to my students to search in new places, to think outside the box, and to realize that answers can be found almost anywhere. Since I am no longer in the classroom as much, I have started to post the questions on my office door, and my colleagues stop by to give a guess to the answers each week. Just thought you’d like to know that there is more to Imponderables than just an interesting answer — but I guess you already knew.

  Isn’t it time to throw caution to the wind and develop an Imponderables curriculum, Larry? We’re available for consultation! Until you get back to us on that, we’ll just have to bide our time, hunting down Imponderables before your students put us out of a job.

  Until we meet again, may you all jump for joy. Elephants would want you to.

  Acknowledgments

  I wouldn’t have been able to write a second Imponderables book without the support of readers, so it’s hard to express the enormity of my gratitude for your contributions over ten volumes and almost twenty years. Your letters and e-mails do more than supply material for the books — they provide the energy to go on when I think of pursuing other alluring professions, like animal husbandry or envelope stuffing. I would say that I’m not worthy — but I don’t want to give you ideas.

  I’m so pleased to be back home at HarperCollins, especially with my editor, Susan Friedland, who loves to eat and laugh, two prerequisites for any cosmically attuned person. We first met sixteen years ago, when I used to loiter in her office; she finally realized it would be easier to edit me than to get rid of me. Thanks to Califia Suntree for her help.

  Muchas gracias to two collaborators who have been part of my writing career since day one: my able agent, Jim Trupin, and the illustrious illustrator, Kassie Schwan.

  For their invaluable research assistance, a big shout-out to Phil Feldman and Mark Sinclair, and a little whisper-out to Tom Rugg for his assistance on the Lone Ranger Imponderable. John Di Bartolo helped turn eleven indexes into one.

  My friends and family deserve a medal for putting up with me, but they’ll have to be content with a crummy acknowledgment. Mucho thanks to Fred, Phil, Gilda, and Michael Feldman; Michele Gallery; Larry Prussin; Jon Blees; Brian Rose; Ken Gordon; Elizabeth Frenchman; Merrill Perlman; Harvey Kleinman; Pat O’Conner; Stewart Kellerman; Michael Barson; Jeannie Behrend; Sherry Barson; Uday Ivatury; Laura Tolkow; Terry Johnson; Christal Henner; Roy Welland; Judith Dahlman; Paul Dahlman; Bonnie Gellas; James Gleick; Cynthia Crossen; Chris McCann; Judy Goulding; Karen Stoddard; Eileen O’Neill; Joanna Parker; Maggie Wittenburg; Ernie Capobianco; Liz Trupin; Nat Segaloff; Mark Landau; Joan Urban; Diane Burrowes; Virginia Stanley; Sean Dugan; Alison Pennels; Marjan Mohsenin; Dennis, Heide, and Devin Whelan; Ji Lu; Alvin, Marilyn, Audrey, and Margot Cooperman; Carol Williams; Dan Fuller; Tom O’Brien; Susan Thomas; Tom and Leslie Rugg; Stinky; Matt Weatherford; and Amy Yarger.

  Special thanks to my pals at Starbucks #839 for keeping me vertical; to John Di Bartolo, Annette Matejik, and my step-pals for keeping me ambulatory; to Jim Leff and Chowhounds for making sure I’m well fed; to PSML and Spectropop, for keeping the musical faith; to my Popular Culture Association pals, for getting academia right; to Bill and Saipin Chutima and Ali El Sayed for their artistry and friendship; and to the Housewife Writers for their frogspit.

  And then there are all the experts in fields ranging from syringes to skunks who helped answer the Imponderables in this book. The most fun part of my job is when I find the expert or experts on some field I know nothing about, and hearing them talk about the subject they are passionate about. Without their willingness to share their knowledge with us, Imponderables would not be possible. My gratitude goes to all these sources whose expertise led directly to answers in the book:

  Bob Allen, California State University, Fresno; Shirley Alvitre, Frank J. Zamboni and Company; Amurol Products Company; Robert Anderson, Idaho State University; Ron Anderson, Amana Division of Maytag Corporation; Lori Andrade, Stanley Bostitch; Cassie Arner, Univer
sity of Illinois; Mark Arnold.

  Connie Baboukis, Oxford University Press; Peggy Baker, Pilgrim Hall Museum; Gunnar Baldwin; Delia Barnard; Linda Bartoshuk, Yale University School of Medicine; William Benedict, Theatre Historical Society; Fraya Berg; Bruce Bjorkman, Traeger Grills; Deven Black; Michael Blakeslee, Music Educators National Conference; Russ Born, Just Born; Stephen Brady; Julie Bridge, Thomas More Association; L. S. Brodsky; Fred Bronson, Billboard; Harold Brooks, Mesoscale Applications Group, National Severe Storms Laboratory; Shelor Brumbeloe; Stanley M. Burstein, California State University, Los Angeles; Peter Busher, Boston University; Brian Butler, U.S. Catholic Historical Society.

  Campbell Soup Company; Lenore Campos; Bob Carrol; Bob Cate, Bowater, Inc.; John Chaneski; Amy Chezem, National Association of Chewing Gum Manufacturers; Faleem Choudhry, Pro Football Hall of Fame; John Churchill, Phi Beta Kappa Society; Peter Clare, Thurston Company; Warren Clark, Ford Gum Company; Catherine A. Clay, Florida Department of Citrus; Terry Collingham, Colonial Needle Company; Sean Collins, National Public Radio; Tom Conley, Lifoam Leisure Products; John Corbett, Clairol; Norman Cox, Franke, Gottsegen, Cox Architects; Sherri Creamer, Alive Again Bears; David Currier.

  Doug Danks, Dome Corporation of North America; Lorraine D’Antonio, Religious Research Association; Thomas Deen, Transportation Research Board; Karen Del Principe, FASNY Museum of Firefighting; Alan Detscher, Secretariat for the Liturgy; John Di Bartolo, Polytechnic University; Michael DiBiasi, Becton-Dickinson and Company; Jim Dickinson, K-Tube; Pat Donahue, Kraft Foods, Inc.; Thomas Dorman, Dorman Publishing; Chuck Doswell, University of Oklahoma; Joe Doyle; Jerry Dragoo, Museum of Southwestern Biology, University of New Mexico.