Why do Clocks run clockwise? (10 page)

Overcome by the spirit of Imponderables, Karen Graber added one of her own. Another clothing label warning that is sprouting up is the incantation: “Dry-clean only. Do not use petroleum or synthetic solvent.” As there are only two kinds of solvent (you guessed it—petroleum and synthetic), her Imponderable is: what do you do with such a garment?

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Graber’s answer: “Leave it in the store, along with anything else you know from the label is bound to cause you and your dry cleaner some sleepless nights.”

What Is the Difference Between “Flotsam” and

“Jetsam”?

Although they sound suspiciously like two of Santa’s missing reindeer, flotsam and jetsam are actually two different types of debris associated with ships. We rarely hear either term mentioned without the other close behind (and saying “jetsam” before “flotsam” is like saying “Cher” before “Sonny”). When we talk about “flotsam and jetsam” today, we are usually referring metaphorically to the unfortunate (for example, “While visiting the homeless shelter, the governor glimpsed what it is like to be the flotsam and jetsam of our society”).

At one time, however, “flotsam” and “jetsam” not only had different meanings, but carried important legal disinctions. In English common law, “flotsam” (derived from the Latin
flottare
, “to float”) referred specifically to the cargo or parts of a wrecked ship that float on the sea.

“Jetsam” (also derived from Latin—
jactare
, “to throw”) referred to goods purposely thrown overboard in order either to 60 / DAVID FELDMAN

lighten the ship or to keep the goods from perishing if the ship did go under.

Although the main distinction between the two terms was the way the goods got into the water, technically, to become jetsam, the cargo had to be dragged ashore and above the high-water line. If not, the material was considered flotsam, which included all cargo found on the shore between the high-and low-water lines.

Actually, two more terms, “lagan” and “derelict,” were also used to differentiate cargo. “Lagan” referred to any abandoned wreckage lying at the bottom of the sea; “derelict” was the abandoned ship itself.

While insurance companies today have to pay out for flotsam, jetsam, lagan,
and
derelict, the old distinctions once dictated who got the remains. Jetsam went to the owner of the boat, but flotsam went to the Crown. The personal effects of nonsurviving crewmen could become flotsam or jetsam—depending on how far the debris traveled and whether it floated.

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Why Do Doughnuts Have Holes?

The exact origins of doughnuts and their holes are shrouded in mystery and are a topic of such controversy that we have twice been caught in the middle of heated arguments among professional bakers on radio talk shows. So let us make one thing perfectly clear: we offer no conclusive proofs here, only consensus opinion.

Some form of fried cake has existed in almost every culture. “Pre-historic doughnuts”—petrified fried cakes with holes—have been found among the artifacts of a primitive Indian tribe. The Dutch settlers in America, though, are usually credited with popularizing fried cakes (without holes) in the United States, which they called

“oily cakes” or
olykoeks
. Washington Irving, writing about colonial New York, described “a dish of balls of sweetened dough friend in hog’s fat, and called dough nuts or oly

62 / DAVID FELDMAN

koeks.” Fried cakes became so popular in New York and New England that shops sprouted up that specialized in serving them with fresh-brewed coffee. In 1673, the first store-bought fried cakes were made available by Anna Joralemon in New York. Mrs. Joralemon weighed 225 pounds and was known affectionately as “the Big Doughnut.”

The gentleman usually credited with the “invention” of the doughnut hole was an unlikely candidate for the job—a sea captain named Hanson Gregory. Supposedly, Captain Gregory was at the helm of his ship, eating a fried cake one night, when stormy weather arose. Gregory, needing both hands to steer the ship, spontaneously rammed the cake over one of the spokes. Impressed with his creation, Gregory ordered the ship’s cook to make fried cakes with holes from then on.

Many other legends surround the creation of the doughnut hole.

Plymouth, Massachusetts, advances the notion that the first doughnut hole was created when, in the seventeenth century, a drunken Indian brave shot an arrow through a kitchen window, punching out a piece of dough from the center of a cake just about to be fried. Pretty lame, Plymouth.

Regardless of the origin of the holes in doughnuts, we have learned that bakers disagree about its role in the making of a quality doughnut. Certainly, good doughnuts can be made without holes.

Thomas A. Lehmann, director of bakery assistance at the American Institute of Baking, told us that yeast-raised doughnuts can be made quite easily without the hole and points to the bismarck, or jelly-filled doughnut, as a perfect example. Lehmann adds, though, that if bismarcks were fried on the surface, the same way as conventional yeast-raised doughnuts, the hole-less dough would tend to overex-pand, turning into a ball shape. That is why most bakers prefer submersion frying, which results in a more uniform and symmetrical finished product.

“Cake” doughnuts, which are chemically leavened, can also be made without holes, but many experts believe that they lose their desired consistency without them. Glenn Bacheller, direc WHY DO CLOCKS RUN CLOCKWISE? / 63

tor of product marketing for Dunkin’ Donuts, explains why the hole is important: “Heat does not penetrate the donut as readily [without the hole] and the interior of the donut tends to have a doughy texture. The only way to prevent this is to fry the donut longer, which results in the exterior of the donut being over fried.”

Why Does a Newspaper Tear Smoothly Vertically
and Raggedly Horizontally?

Newsprint is made up of many wood fibers. The fibers are placed on printers in pulp form, consisting of 80 to 90 percent water—the newsprint dries while in the machine. The printing machines are designed to line up the fibers in a horizontal position to add tear strength to the sheet vertically.

The basic purpose of lining up the fibers in one direction is simply to add stability to the sheet when the press is running. According to Ralph E. Eary, national director of production and engineering for the newspaper division of Scripps Howard, “All standard size newspapers are printed vertically on an unwound sheet of newsprint.”

A rip in one sheet endangers the whole printing process, and at best costs money and time.

In other words, the finished newspaper has a grain, just as a piece of meat or linen has a grain. (Even notice how hard it is to tear a bedsheet in one direction and how easy in another?) When you rip the newspaper vertically, you are tearing with the grain, or more accurately, between grains. The same principle is in effect when one consumes Twizzlers brand licorice. Individual pieces rip off easily if you tear between the slices; only Conan could rip off pieces horizontally.

Submitted by L. Stone, of Mamaroneck, New York. Thanks also
to: Julia Berger, of Richmond, Virginia, and Virginia E. Griffin,
of Salinas, California
.

64 / DAVID FELDMAN

Why Are The Netherlands also Called Holland and
the Low Countries? And Why Are Its People
Called Dutch?

Our pet theory was that the official name of the country was “the Netherlands,” but that “Holland” was used to make it easier for mapmakers to fit the name within the confined borders. Actually, the official name of the country is Nederland, the name native inhabitants call it—“Netherlands” is simply the closet English equivalent.

The word “nether” means below the earth’s surface. The low and marshy lands near the mouth of the estuary of the Rhine River are responsible for the name, “the Low Countries.” The German name

“Niederlande” and the French name “les Pays-Bas” are exact transla-tions.

By why “Holland”? Holland was the name of a province, not the whole country. In the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, it was by far the most important province commercially, and Hollanders displayed more devotion to their province than to the nation as a whole. Holland eventually became so dominant that, much in the same way that the Soviet Union is mislabeled “Russia,”

Holland came to represent all of the Netherlands.

Further confusing the issue is the term “Dutch,” used to describe the citizens of the Netherlands. “Dutch” is actually older than “the Netherlands.” Until the sixteenth century, inhabitants of the Netherlands called themselves Diets (which means “the people”). This word, pronounced “deets,” was corrupted in English as “Dutch.” The British continued to use the medieval name long after Netherlanders stopped using it themselves.

Americans tend to use the word “Dutch” not only to describe Netherlanders, but also Germans. Thus, while the Holland Dutch from Michigan are true descendants of Netherlanders, the Pennsylvania Dutch are actually German.

WHY DO CLOCKS RUN CLOCKWISE? / 65

(The “Dutch” in Pennsylvania Dutch almost certainly stems from a corruption of the German name for their country, Deutschland.) According to the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce: “To stop this confusing multiplicity of names the Netherlands Government has tried to use the words ‘The Netherlands’ as the name for the country and ‘Netherlander’ as the name for an inhabitant of the Netherlands.

It is easy to decree such a thing, but it takes much time to suppress a time-honoured word used in foreign countries.”

Netherlanders have to deal with confusion not only about the name of their country, but about the name of their capital. Amster-dam is the official capital, but the seat of government is at The Hague. The official name of The Hague is ’s-Gravenhage, “the count’s hedge,” except nobody calls the city’s-Gravenhage, preferring the colloquial Den Haag (the hedge).

For such a small country, the Netherlands has its share of identity problems.

Submitted by Daniel Marcus, of Watertown, Massachusetts
.

66 / DAVID FELDMAN

What Are Those Twitches and Jerks That
Occasionally Wake Us Just as We Are Falling
Asleep?

It has probably happened to you. You are nestled snugly under the covers. You aren’t quite asleep but you’re not quite awake. Just as your brain waves start to slow, and as you fantasize about owning that Mercedes Benz convertible, you are jolted awake by an unac-countable spasm, usually in a leg.

You have been a victim of what is called a “hypnic jerk,” a phenomenon explained in David Bodanis’s marvelous
The Body Book
: They occur when nerve fibers leading to the leg, in a bundle nearly as thick as a pencil, suddenly fire in unison. Each tiny nerve in the bundle produces a harsh tightening of a tiny portion of muscle fiber that is linked to it down in the leg, and when they all fire together the leg twitches as a whole.

Sleep specialists haven’t pinned down what causes hypnic jerks or why they occur only at the onset of sleep. Although some people experience them more often than others, their appearance is unpredictable, unlike myoclonic jerks, spasms that occur at regular intervals during deep sleep.

Submitted by Cathy C. Bodell, of Fullerton, California. Thanks
also to: Daniel A. Placko, Jr., of Chicago, Illinois
.

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Why Are There Twenty-one Guns in a

Twenty-one-Gun Salute?

The original intention of gun salutes was probably to assure the royalty or nation being honored that they were physically secure—that the weapons that were meant to pay tribute could also be used to kill. Before any recorded history of formal gun salutes, many cultures were known to discharge ordnance indiscriminately at festivals and holidays. Some good old-fashioned noise, be it fire-works in China or cheering at football games, has always been an accompaniment to joyous rituals.

Twenty-one-gun salutes have existed since at least the sixteenth century (the final scene from
Hamlet
mentions one), but the number of guns fired evolved gradually and inconsistently from country to country. The English were the first to codify the practice. According to a study conducted in 1890 by C. H. Davis, 68 / DAVID FELDMAN