Trivia You Can Bring Up In Everyday Conversation

Question: Why are certain four-letter words obscene while other words that mean the same thing are not?

Answer: Gosh darn it; people do talk dirty these days. But what makes for a "dirty" word in the first place, when synonyms for the same thing are respectable?

Well, they say that it's the victors in battle who write the history of the war, and it seems that they write the dictionaries and etiquette books, as well. Those four letter words for body parts and functions are Old English, Germanic in origin and were spoken by the Anglo-Saxons. But after the Norman Conquest - 1066 and all that - the invaders from France made it clear that French, Latin-derived words for these things were refined, while the native Saxons spoke a gutter language. And in the gutter, it's stayed.

I can't, of course, cite examples. But some sports terms are four-letter words with only a single letter changed -- shot, puck, punt, pass, dart, pick and bunt, for example. Shoot, ain't that somethin'?

Source: A BROWSER'S DICTIONARY by John Ciardi

Question: How did 'Mister' get to be a title of address?

Answer: Well let's see, Mister is shorter than "hey, you," and Mr. is shorter still. And I don't know about you, but there are very few guys I feel like addressing as "your lordship."

While Mr. is common these days, it began as a term of respect, coming to us from two sources. "Master" as a title evolved into mister to match the female title, "Mistress." Mister also developed as a title to set apart skilled workers, or artisans, from the peasantry and common laborers. Here it descends from the Latin, "ministerium," which meant craft or trade. Over the centuries, as it passed through the lips of enough mumblers and fast talkers, ministerium became mister.

By the way, the French Revolution sought to eliminate all special terms of address, replacing them with "Citizen." That really went too far. No sense losing your head over it.

Source: A BROWSER'S DICTIONARY by John Ciardi

Question: Why do people who lose their temper "fly off the handle?"

Answer: Right off the bat I should identify the geographical origin of this phrase: 19th century rural America, where the handle in question was likely to be attached to a hammer, hatchet, ax or similarly sharp or heavy-headed instrument.

Tool handles were made from wood, which shrinks over long periods. The shrinking wood loosened the head of the instrument. The first good swing could send that head flying, with serious consequences for anyone standing nearby. Similarly, someone metaphorically flying off the handle is momentarily irrational and perhaps even dangerous to those near them.

It is also said that such people "lose their head," which is the same thing as saying that they fly off the handle. Of course, when that used to happen literally, anyone standing close enough could lose his head, too.

Source: WHY YOU SAY IT by Webb Garrison

Question: Why is there "snow" on the TV screen when a station goes off the air?

Answer: Because a station leaving the air lowers the temperature of the picture tube? Just kidding - I'm not that flaky.

Ordinarily a circuit in your TV's amplifier either boosts or diminishes broadcast signals, depending on the strength of the signal. But if there's no signal - as when a station goes off the air -- this amplifier circuit, called an automatic gain control, boosts to the maximum whatever it picks up. In the absence of a broadcast signal, it's picking up and amplifying random static emissions that could come from your pc, vacuum cleaner or other circuits in the TV itself - maybe even from a belch, or the dirty joke your Uncle Harry told at dinner.

Without any signal at all you would see a white screen. The electronic static shows up as moving dark dots which, blended with the white, appear to be snow.

Source: HOW DO ASTRONAUTS SCRATCH AN ITCH? by David Feldman

Question: Why do we call that suite of playing cards with the cloverleaf symbol, "clubs?"

Answer: Ok, here's the real deal:

The English adopted the symbol for this suite from French playing cards. On French cards, the symbol was clearly a cloverleaf, the French word for which was "trefles," meaning "cloverleaf." So, what did the English call it? "Clubs," naturally. In the great tradition of English eccentricity, the people of that green and pleasant land took the translation of the Spanish word for the same suite, "basto," which in English is "clubs," and applied it to the cards that clearly depicted a cloverleaf.

Don't blame the Spanish, whose cards of that suite DID use a drawing of clubs to represent it. Why combine a symbol from one country's cards and the word from another language that describes a different symbol? Need I remind you which country gave us "Alice in Wonderland?" Maybe the Queen of Hearts simply decreed that cloverleaves be clubs.

Source: WHY THINGS ARE & WHY THEY AREN'T by Joel Achenbach

Question: Why do we call a computer problem a glitch?

Answer: My favorite reference book on such matters, "Small Bytes: An Irreverent Computer Dictionary," succinctly describes a glitch as "a hitch in the glutch between input and output." I couldn't have put it better myself.

Every other word I've heard in conjunction with this unfortunate occurrence has four letters. But they can't match this one's ability to sound just like what it is: a mishap that may well ruin your day but won't spoil your life.

The word glitch is relatively new, a product of the space age and the era of advanced electronics. It comes from the German "glitschen," and via the Yiddish, "glitshen." Both mean, "to slip." We have ingeniously miniaturized electronic circuits, but it looks like the old banana peel has shrunk in proportion to them. No matter how carefully we design electronic products, such as computers, we never get out all the weirdness. They still trip us up.

Source: THE SECRET LIVES OF WORDS by Paul West

Question: What was so terrible about Ivan the Terrible?

Answer: They don't make historical names like they used to. "Charles the Fat," "Good Queen Bess," "Jack the Ripper" -- ah, those were the good old days. The closest we get to such colorful names today would be in professional wrestling _ you know, where a guy whose real name is Stanley Smith becomes something like "Slimeball Harry."

Ivan the Terrible, who lived from 1530 to 1584 and was Russia's first czar, earned his adjective. He was truly gosh awful. How about killing your own son during an argument. I mean what did the kid do, bring the car back late on a Saturday night date? Ivan was also paranoid. He suspected the nobility of plotting against him, so he had 1,000 of them killed.

Too bad he didn't survive into modern times. Had Ivan lived long enough he probably could have become Ivan the Misunderstood.

Source: BIG BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE

Question: Why do we say that if you're annoying someone you're "pestering" him or her?

Answer: We've all experienced pests at one time or another. They can get pretty onerous. I worked with a pest for years and at one time I thought he would be the death of me. In fact, the word "pest" comes from the Latin "pestis," or plague.

All of this is interesting but beside the point because pester doesn't come from pest. Instead it derives from another Latin word, "pastern," which was a device meant to hobble, or impede movement. The pastern was commonly placed on a horse's foot, allowing him to graze but also not get very far in the process.

The pastern was an annoyance for the animal, but it served its purpose. Someone who pesters another person, in the modern sense, also annoys. But the only purpose I can see to it is neurotic. Pester ME on the wrong day and it could get you worse than hobbled!

Source: WHY YOU SAY IT by Webb Garrison

Question: How did that silent "b" get into the word "debt?"

Answer: I always had my doubts about silent letters, especially when a teacher offered to help me remember them with a mnemonic. Trying to get the spelling of "debt" right made me feel particularly dumb. In that I may have had something in common with the people of thirteenth century England, who couldn't leave well enough alone.

You see the word, which came into English with the Norman Conquest two centuries earlier, was originally spelled "det." It came from the French word, "dette," meaning, well, you know. In jolly Olde England they just loped off the last "e" and totaled one of the "t's." So far, I like it.

But then the pedants got at it. They did a little research, discovered that the French word came from the Latin, "debita," and in the thirteenth century upgraded the English version. For kids learning spelling, it's been tough going ever since.

Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD AND PHRASE Origins by William and Mary Morris

Question: Why do we say that someone who has withdrawn a statement has "recanted?"

Answer: Those of us who admire the grape know the word "decant" as a fancy-shmancy way to say, "pour the wine." And I must tell you that I've said a lot of things after I've decanted that I had to recant — put them back in the bottle, so to speak.

But the meaning under intense scrutiny today has to do not with sipping but with singing. It's based on the Latin cantare, "to sing." The sense conveyed by recant is that you have sung out certain things you should not have, and now you must take them back. I've tried to picture this and I always come up with an image of someone literally eating his or her words.

By the way, I may have to eat some words I blurted out at a dinner party last night. What kind of wine do you suppose goes with "son of a $lkju*&;oiu?"

Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD AND PHRASE Origins by William and Mary Morris

Question: What do those weird movie credits, "gaffer" and "best boy" mean?

Answer: At the movies I sit through the credits right through to the copyright notice, just before the house lights go on. You, too? But until now all I knew about a gaffer was that the word means an old man. Why, then, does every film employ one? To remind the rest of the cast that they won't be young forever?

Actually, the gaffer is the head electrician, who lights the sets for the director of photography. Why do they call him a gaffer? Beats me, but I suppose its better than "wirehead," "bulbbunny," or "filamentphil."

As for the best boy, he hasn't won any popularity contest. Far from it. He's the gaffer's helper, a mere assistant, which makes him a not-quite-gaffer-grade kind of guy. If he's a she, she's called — I dunno, "Ms. best boy?"

(Source: THE STRAIGHT DOPE by Cecil Adams)

Question: Why do we call unrealistic ideas pipe dreams?

Answer: Because only drips and plumbers have them? Hardly.

To understand the origins of the expression, imagine that in the 1960s a similar phrase likened unrealistic ideas to the kind of distorted thinking engendered by using LSD. The drug was often supplied on a sugar cube, so unrealistic ideas could have been called "sugar cube fantasies."

The 19th century equivalent of LSD was the hallucinogenic drug opium, imported into Europe from Asia. It was widely used in certain literary circles in Britain. Opium was smoked in a pipe and once under the influence, people had strange visions. But they were only pipe dreams.

(Source: WHY YOU SAY IT by Webb Garrison)

Question: Is there really such a thing as being tone deaf?

Answer: It's real. The aural equivalent of being color blind, tone deafness means that everything sounds as if it's in a monotone. You can't tell one note from another. You can't appreciate your spouse singing in the shower, listen to Wayne Newton, or tell the difference between TV commercial jingles. Well at least it has SOME compensations.

In fact, although people use this expression with some frequency, the condition is relatively rare. Those who do have it have trouble not only distinguishing one note from another but also even the inflection in someone's voice. It makes communication difficult.

By the way, don't confuse it with being phone deaf. That can result from having a cell phone pressed to one ear all day while absorbing traffic sounds with the other ear. Finally you can't hear a beepin' thing.

(Source: JUST CURIOUS JEEVES by Jack Mingo and Erin Barrett)

Question: How did "beating around the bush" get to mean evasiveness?

Answer: First let there be no misunderstanding. This phrase has nothing to do with the way some critics of the recent U. S. presidential election have greeted the man who was judged to be the winner. The expression goes back hundreds of years.

When was the last time you went boar hunting? I thought so. You should know, therefore, that while shooting boars could be terribly satisfying to the noblemen who hunted them, getting too close to these sharp-toothed pigs in their own habitat was not. So the bores, uh, noblemen had young men beat the bushes to flush the boars into the open.

These young guys weren't stupid. They often evaded danger by beating near or around the bushes instead of in them, where they were supposed to be. Hence the phrase.

(Source: WHY YOU SAY IT by Webb Garrison)

Question: Why do we call those fancy pre-dinner snacks hors d'oeuvres?

Answer: If we called them "fancy pre-dinner snacks," we wouldn't get to show our savoir faire. And caterers couldn't charge as much for them. (Wouldn't it be funny if the French paraded their cosmopolitanism by calling them "fancy pre-dinner snacks?")

But if you can slather it on a cracker, spear it with a toothpick or pick it off a silver platter carried by a server dressed like a penguin, they're definitely hors d'oeuvres. The phrase comes from architecture, where "outside the work," the literal translation, meant an outbuilding. The food hors d'oeuvres, by analogy, are outside the main meal.

That's "outbuilding," by the way, not to be confused with "outhouse," although I've been to some parties where the latter would have been the appropriate culinary comparison.

(Source: DICTIONARY OF WORD AND PHRASE Origins by William and Mary Morris)

Question: Why is the flag flown at half-staff to honor someone who has died?

Answer: The Greeks and the Romans believed that the souls of the dead began their journey to the afterlife by crossing the river Styx — rowed across by a fellow named Charon. With our modern transportation, we wouldn't be caught dead making such an important trip in so tacky a manner. Yet we still honor the passing of prominent people with a custom that stems from a time when travel by boat was where it was at.

The flag at half-staff, originally unconnected to death, comes from an old naval ritual. When a ship lost a battle, the crew was obliged to fly the winner's pennant from the top of their mast. In order to make room for it, the losing captain ordered his own flag lowered halfway. By implication, this gesture of respect was also a symbol of loss. Even after this custom faded, captains might dip their flag to a passing ship as a sign of respect, like tipping one's cap. Eventually the practice was adopted to honor the dead.

(Source: EVER WONDER WHY? By Douglas B. Smith)

Question: Who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance to the U.S. flag, and when?

Answer: George Washington never pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. Nor did John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson put their hands over their hearts and recite the litany so familiar to Americans. Lincoln didn't do it either. Even President Chester A. Arthur — of course you remember him — never took the Pledge.

That's because the Pledge dates only from 1892. The words familiar to every American school child were written that year by Francis Bellamy, a staff member at Youth's Companion, a boy's magazine, as part of a Columbus Day celebration.

Now don't tell me you really thought the author was Richard Stands. You know, ". . . and to the republic, for Richard Stands . . .."

(Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam)

Question: Does the U.S. Constitution guarantee an American's right to own a gun?

Answer: Whoa! Don't point that thing at me! I know this is a controversial issue, with feelings running high on both sides. So in my tradition of fearlessly following the truth wherever it may lead, I'm going to offer a little, uh, ammunition for each side.

The Bill of Rights says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." So unless you and the other folks who hang at the pizza parlor constitute a state militia, the Constitution doesn't guarantee your right to own so much as a peashooter.

On the other hand (the one with the trigger finger), the states are sure as shootin' free to regulate or not regulate private gun ownership. So go for it -- the legislation of your choice, not your gun, that is.

(Source: DICTIONARY OF MISINFORMATION by Tom Burnam)

Question: How did they choose which presidents to carve on Mt. Rushmore?

Answer: Well it's a good thing they didn't vote on it or we might still be facing a blank mountain.

South Dakota's Mt. Rushmore is said to have been named for a lawyer who was just passing through (sounds like a presidential election, doesn't it?). In the 1920s the state's tourism board decided that it would take more than that name to fill the local hotels so it proposed to have a sculptor carve on the mountain the images of famous figures from western history, such as Kit Carson.

They hired John Borglum, who had already been engaged to carve Robert E. Lee's visage on Stone Mt. in Georgia. Borglum had a better idea for Mt. Rushmore: presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. And so it came to pass.

(Source: JUST CURIOUS, JEEVES by Jack Mingo and Erin Barrett)