Hmm: 61% of college women, but only 28% of college men, say they’re in a “steady relationship.”
• In many traditional Muslim cultures, it is extremely impolite to touch food with your left hand. Reason: Muslims eat from communal bowls using their right hand; their left hand is used to perform “unclean” tasks such as wiping themselves after going to the bathroom. Hindus have a similar custom: they use their right hand exclusively when touching themselves above the waist, and use only the left hand to touch themselves below the waist.
• What did traditional Christians believe was going to happen on Judgement Day? According to custom, God blesses the saved with his right hand—and casts sinners out of Heaven with his left.
• Other traditional mis-beliefs:
If you have a ringing in your left ear, someone is cursing you. If your right ear rings, someone is praising you.
If your left eye twitches, you’re going to see an enemy. If the right twitches, you’re going to see a friend.
If you get out of bed with your left foot first, you’re going to have a bad day.
If your left palm itches, you’re going to owe someone money. If your right palm does, you’re going to make some money.
LEFT-HANDED MISCELLANY
• Why are lefties called “southpaws”? In the late 1890s, most baseball parks were laid out with the pitcher facing west and the batter facing east (so the sun wouldn’t be in his eyes). That meant left-handed pitchers threw with the arm that faced south. So Chicago sportswriter Charles Seymour began calling them “southpaws.”
• Right-handed bias: Some Native American tribes strapped their children’s left arms to the mother’s cradleboard, which caused most infants to become predominantly right-handed. The Kaffirs of South Africa achieved similar results by burying the left hands of left-handed children in the burning desert sand.
• The next time you see a coat of arms, check to see if it has a stripe running diagonally across it. Most stripes are called bends and run from the top left to the bottom right. A stripe that runs from the bottom left to the top right, is called a “left-handed” bend or a bend sinister—and means the bearer was a bastard.
Pucker up: 41% of adults say it’s important that their partners be good kissers.
MORE STRANGE
LAWSUITS
More bizarre doings in the hails of justice, from news reports.
THE PLAINTIFF: James Hooper, a 25-year-old student at Oklahoma State University.
THE DEFENDANT: The Pizza Shuttle, a Stillwater, Oklahoma, pizza restaurant.
THE LAWSUIT: Hooper ordered an “extra cheese, pepperoni, sausage, black olive and mushroom pizza.” Instead, he said, the Pizza Shuttle delivered “a pizza with something green on it, maybe peppers.” He sued the restaurant for $7.00 in damages ($5.50 for the pizza and $1.50 for the delivery boy’s tip).
VERDICT: The court found in favor of the Pizza Shuttle—and ordered Hooper to pay $57 in court costs.
THE PLAINTIFF: Widow of Walter Hughes, who died in 1991.
THE DEFENDANTS: McVicker’s Chapel on the Hill and Kevin Robinson, Hughes’s son-in-law and former director of the Long-view, Washington, funeral home.
THE LAWSUIT: Mrs. Hughes sued the funeral home when she learned that it had buried her husband without his favorite cowboy hat.
VERDICT: She was awarded $101,000 in damages.
THE PLAINTIFF: Seven patrons of Charley Brown’s, a Concord, California, restaurant.
THE DEFENDANT: The restaurant.
THE LAWSUIT: In 1992, the restaurant hired an actor to stage a mock robbery as part of a dinner show called “The Suspect’s Dinner Theater.” The actor, dressed as a masked gunman, burst into the restaurant shouting “All you m——, hit the floor!” Dinner guests, thinking the robbery was real, cowered under their tables while the man shouted threats and fired several blank rounds from his .45-caliber pistol. (One patron, an investigator with the county district attorney’s office, fought with the gunman until restaurant employees told him the robbery was part of the show.) “When the hostess said it was all just an episode of Mystery Theater,” another diner told reporters, “I said, ‘Mystery Theater, my a—. You’re going to hear from my lawyer.’” He and six others sued the restaurant, claiming assault and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Q. What do you call the eye in the end of a lariat? A. A honda.
VERDICT: The restaurant offered to settle the case by paying $3,000 to each of the plaintiffs—and later went out of business.
THE PLAINTIFF: Andrea Pizzo, a 23-year-old former University of Maine student.
THE DEFENDANT: The University of Maine.
THE LAWSUIT: Apparently, Pizzo was attending a class in livestock management one afternoon in 1991, when a cow attacked her. (It butted her into a fence.) She sued, claiming the school “should have known that the heifer had a personality problem.”
VERDICT: Unknown.
THE PLAINTIFF: William and Tonya P., who booked a room at a Michigan Holiday Inn during their honeymoon in 1992.
THE DEFENDANT: The Holiday Inn.
THE LAWSUIT: William and Tonya claim that a hotel employee walked into their room on their wedding night while they were having sex. They filed a $10,000 lawsuit against the hotel, claiming the unannounced visit ruined their sex life. Holiday Inn does not dispute the charge but says they should have hung up a “Do Not Disturb” sign.
VERDICT: Unknown.
THE PLAINTIFF: John M., a 50-year-old Philadelphia teacher.
THE DEFENDANT: His wife, Maryann K., a 46-year-old receptionist.
THE LAWSUIT: One day after her divorce from John became final, Ms. K. turned in a lottery ticket that was about to expire and won $10.2 million. Her lawyer claims that “Lady Luck” led her to find the ticket and turn it in two weeks before it expired—but Mr. M. thinks she deliberately waited until after the divorce was finalized to turn it in. He sued to get his share.
VERDICT: Pending.
Q. What’s the most-played song in history? A. Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.”
BLOTTO, LOOPED, FRIED
Most people know what sloshed, loaded and looped mean: being drunk, of course. But there are plenty of other words that mean the same thing. Here’s a list of America’s favorites that appear in I Hear America Talking.
(The words are followed by the years they came into use.)
Stiff (1737)
Fuzzy (1770)
Half Shaved (1818)
Bent (1833)
Slewed (1834)
Stinking (1837)
Screwed (1838)
Lushy (1840)
Pixilated (1850)
Swizzled (1850)
Whipped (1851)
Tanglefooted (1860)
Spiffed (1860)
Frazzled (1870)
Squiffy (1874)
Boiled (1886)
Paralyzed (1888)
Pickled (1890)
Woozy (1897)
Pifflicated (1900)
Ginned (1900)
Ossified (1901)
Petrified (1903)
Tanked (1905)
Blotto (1905)
Shellacked (1905)
Jingled (1908)
Piped (1912)
Plastered (1912)
Gassed (1915)
Hooted (1915)
Have a Snoot Full (1918)
Jugged (1919)
Canned (1920)
Juiced (1920)
Fried (1920)
Buried (1920)
Potted (1922)
Dead to the World (1926)
Crocked (1927)
Busted (1928)
Rum-dum (1931)
Bombed (1940)
Feeling No Pain (1940)
Swacked (1941)
Sloshed (1950)
Boxed (1950)
Clobbered (1951)
Crashed (1950s)
Zonked (1950s)
Language barrier: 1 in 7 Americans doesn’t speak English a
t home.
HELLMAN’S LAWS
Wisdom from Lillian Hellman, one of America’s greatest playwrights.
“Nothing, of course, begins at the time you think it did.”
“Nobody can argue any longer about the rights of women. It’s like arguing about the rights of earthquakes.”
“I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.”
“Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.”
“Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.”
“I cannot, and will not, cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions.”
“God forgives those who invent what they need.”
“People change...and forget to tell each other.”
“Fashions in sin change.”
“The convictions of Hollywood and television are made of boiled money.”
“There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it, like in the Bible with the locusts. And [there are] other people who stand around and watch them eat it.”
“It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour: what once worked must always work.”
“It doesn’t pay well to fight for what we believe in.”
“Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them with justice?”
“Callous greed grows pious very fast.”
“We are a people who do not want to keep much of the past in our heads. It is considered unhealthy in America to remember mistakes, neurotic to think about them, psychotic to dwell upon them.”
“If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talk about writing...or themselves.”
Older and wiser: The average Ph.D. candidate spends seven years on their dissertation.
AUNT LENNA’S
PUZZLES
More conversations with my favorite aunt. Answers are on page 664.
MONEY MINDED
My Aunt Lenna is a little unreliable when it comes to money. So I wasn’t surprised when she came to me and asked, “Nephew, why are 1993 dollar bills worth more than 1992 dollar bills?”
“Aunt Lenna, don’t be silly, they—”
“Tut, tut, Nephew. Think before you answer.”
What’s the answer to her question?
TRAIN OF THOUGHT
Aunt Lenna and I went down to the train station to pick up a friend. On the way, she came up with a little puzzle for me.
“Let’s say that two sets of train tracks run right alongside one another...until they get to a narrow tunnel. Both tracks won’t fit, so they merge into one track for the whole length of the tunnel... then go back to being parallel tracks. One morning a train goes into the tunnel from the east end...and another goes into the tunnel from the west end. They’re traveling as fast as they can go, in opposite directions, but they don’t crash. Can you tell me why not?”
“Really, Aunt Lenna. I know I’m not the brightest guy in the world, but even I can figure this one out.”
What’s the story?
GREETINGS
“What have you got there, Aunt Lenna?”
“Oh, it’s just the card I’m sending this year.”
“Let’s see.” I looked at the card. It read:
ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
“Very cute, Aunt Lenna.”
What did it say?
Food fact: If you’re an average American, you eat 20.8 pounds of candy every year.
THE BLACK STONES
Aunt Lenna had a puzzle for me:
“Once there was a beautiful woman whose family owed money to an evil moneylender. ‘I’ll give you a chance to rid yourself of the debt,’ the evil guy told her. ‘How?’ ‘I’ll put two stones in this bag,’ he said—‘one white, one black. You reach in and take one. If you pick the white one, your debt is wiped out. If you pick the black one, you marry me.’”
“I suppose he laughed maniacally at that point.”
“Why, yes, how did you know? Where was I? Oh, yes—the girl agreed, and watched as the man put two stones in the bag. But she realized he had put two black stones in, and there was no chance of picking a white stone. How could she win the bet?”
How did she win?
QUICK CUT
Aunt Lenna loves to bake. One day she was busy rolling out dough for cookies when she turned to me and said, “Nephew, I’ve got a little puzzle for you. How is it possible to cut a square of dough into eight equal parts...with just three straight cuts with a knife?”
I thought for a minute. “It’s not.”
“Oh yes it is. Think about it awhile.”
How can it be done?
TIME TO GO
Aunt Lenna was reminiscing. “When I was a teenager, there was a boy who kept coming around, asking me to the movies and such. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but finally one day, I had to do something. So I asked him if he’d heard about the nine O’s. He said no, so I drew nine O’s, like this: O O O O O O O O O.
Then I added five vertical lines to the Os...and he got the message and stopped bothering me.”
What did Aunt Lenna do with the lines?
Thirty-two percent of people who join health clubs do so between January and March.
Q & A:
ASK THE EXPERTS
More random questions...and answers from America’s trivia experts.
VISIONARIES
Q: Can animals see in color?
A: “Apes and some monkeys [see] the full spectrum of color, as may some fish and birds. But most mammals see color only as shades of grey.” (From The Book of Answers, by Barbara Berliner)
YOURS, MINE, AND HOURS
Q: Why are there 24 hours in a day?
A: “To the ancients, 12 was a mystical number. It could be evenly divided by 2, 3, 4, and 6 (that’s one of the reasons we still use dozens today). Twenty-four hours is made up of two 12s—12 hours before noon, and 12 hours after.” (From Know It All!, by Ed Zotti)
GR-R-R
Q: Why does your stomach rumble when you’re hungry?
A: “Every 75-115 minutes, your stomach’s muscles contract. When no food is present, their rhythm is a wave-like stretching and contracting that molds the air, mostly digestive gases, in the stomach cavity. No one understands exactly why this makes the tummy-rumble noise, but it surely does.” (From Why Can’t You Tickle Yourself? by Ingrid Johnson)
FAR A-FIELDS
Q: Did W. C. Fields actually say, “Anyone who hates dogs and children can’t be all bad?”
A: Nope, it was Leo Rosten. See page 369 for more info.
GOLD DISC
Q: What was the first gold record?
A: Glenn Miller got it for “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” The first certified million-selling album was the soundtrack from Oklahoma.
Lobbyist’s leverage: The average freshman U.S. senator enters office $266,073 in debt.
ROCKIN’ ROBIN
Q: Why do birds sing?
A: No, it’s not because they’re happy. “The vast majority of bird songs are produced by males and break down to two kinds: first, a call from male to male, proclaiming territory and warning other males away, and second, a call to females, advertising the singer’s maleness...if he’s not already committed.” (From Do Elephants Swim?, compiled by Robert M. Jones)
OVER THE HUMP
Q: How long can a camel go without water?
A: “A camel can go for 17 days without drinking any water.... There is a secret to this: The camel carries a great deal of fat in its hump and has the ability to manufacture water out of this hump by oxidation. This is not to say that the camel doesn’t get thirsty. When it gets the chance to drink after a long drought, it can suck down 25 gallons of water.” (From Science Trivia, by Charles Cazeau)
BOXED RAISINS
Q: Why don’t the raisins in Raisin Bran fall to the bottom of the box?
A: “Raisins are added to boxes only after more than half of the cere
al has already been packed. The cereal thus has a chance to settle and condense. During average shipping conditions, boxes get jostled a bit...so the raisins actually sift and become evenly distributed throughout the box.” (From Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise, and Other Imponderables, by David Feldman)
CHOCOLATE
Q: Who brought chocolate from the New World to Europe?
A: When the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortés wrote to Emperor Charles V of Spain from the New World, he described a “divine drink...which builds up resistance and fights fatigue.” Cortés was speaking of chocolatl, a drink the Aztecs brewed from the native cacao bean, which was valued so highly that it was used as currency. He brought some home to Spain and it became popular instantly.
Ants stretch—and possibly even yawn—after resting.
OTHER
PRESIDENTIAL FIRSTS
We all know the first president (Washington), the first president to serve more than two terms (FDR), and so on. But who was the first to get stuck in a bathtub? Here’s another BRI list of presidential firsts, with thanks to Bruce Fowler’s book One of a Kind.
THE PRESIDENT: Grover Cleveland (1885-89; 1893-97)
NOTABLE FIRST: First president to have hanged a man.
BACKGROUND: From 1871 to 1873, he was sheriff of Erie County, New York. When two men were sentenced to death there, Cleveland put the hoods over their heads, tightened the noose, and sprung the trap door himself. He explained later that he couldn’t ask his deputies to do it just because he didn’t want to. The experience affected him so deeply that he didn’t run for reelection.
THE PRESIDENT: James Garfield (1881)
NOTABLE FIRST: First president who could write in two languages at once.
BACKGROUND: Garfield was ambidextrous; he could write in Greek with one hand while writing in Latin with the other.
THE PRESIDENT: William Howard Taft (1909-1913)
NOTABLE FIRST: First president entrapped by a White House plumbing fixture.
BACKGROUND: Taft weighed in at between 300 and 350 lbs. while he was president. He was so big that one morning he got stuck in the White House tub—and had to call his aides to help him get out. Taft subsequently ordered a tub large enough to hold four men. He never got stuck again.
Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader Page 44