Uncle John’s Impossible Questions & Astounding Answers (29 page)

It’s okay. Split them all you want. But be warned: Some learned types still loathe it. So if you’re carefully writing a cover letter, or you don’t want to unnecessarily anger your literature professor, it may be best to move that intrusive adverb elsewhere.

Both words were named after testicles. The ancient Greek term for that part of a man’s anatomy was
orkhis
. Greek gardeners noticed that the roots of a flowering plant they were cultivating looked like a man’s
orkhis
, so they named the plant the orchid.

The name of the round fruit,
avocado
, comes from
ahuácatl
, a word in the
Nahuatl
language of the Aztecs that also meant “testicles.” (Other words that were possibly named after that part of the male anatomy:
musk, edema
, and
cull
.)

What kind of writers are most likely to commit suicide?

What common phrase came from an astronomical goof by the ancient Egyptians?

A 2003 study poetically titled “The Cost of the Muse: Poets Die Young,” by California psychologist James Kaufman, examined the death of prominent writers all over the world. Kaufman discovered that not only do writers in general die at a younger age than those in most other professions, but among them, it is the poet who meets the earliest end. Poets live an average of 66.2 years, compared to nonfiction writers, who live 72.7 years—six and a half years fewer than the average American life span. Sadder still, similar studies have revealed that poets have an alarmingly high suicide rate compared to the general population. And it seems that the most at-risk writers are female poets. Kaufman calls this the “Sylvia Plath Effect,” named after the 20th-century, clinically depressed American poet who killed herself in 1963 at the age of 30.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

How much water can a ten-gallon hat hold?

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.”

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.

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