Infrequently Answered Question #22: Why do people call that ugly, gray tape "duck tape"? They aren't taping up ducks with it. Shouldn't it rightly be called "duct tape"?
A: Actually, no. This tape is not intended to be used on duct work, and really shouldn't be. It's rightly called duck tape because it's supposed to be waterproof. You know, sheds water like off a duck's back. I believe it was developed for the military around World War II. That's where the name comes from.
Proper duct tape is a silvery, metallic and quite different. Why duck tape is such an ugly gray I couldn't say. Maybe it's camouflage, battleship gray. So the enemy, and maybe the crew, couldn't tell the ship was held together with tape.
Infrequently Answered Question #21: Why is a carrot more orange than an orange?
A: You can blame or credit the Dutch for that. Carrots were originally purple-ish. Wild carrots still are. Then Dutch farmers turned carrots orange by selective breeding, cross-pollination or whatever the method is called. They did this to celebrate the House of Orange, the royal family of Holland. You might suppose they could have more easily just used pumpkins which are already orange, but this happened before they knew about pumpkins which are a New World gourd that didn't exist in Holland. Oh, and oranges don't grow their either.
Now then, I suppose you'd also like to know why lemons are not yellows, limes are not greens, but oranges are oranges. This I can't answer.
Infrequently Answered Question #20: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
A: That depends on the size and strength of the woodchuck and what species of wood the woodchuck would chuck. Also, what the heck chucking wood would entail exactly. Like tossing a caber as Scotsmen would do in Highland games or what. While a big, burly MacGregor would chuck wood this way I would suspect a woodchuck wouldn't or couldn't.
On the other hand, how many pecks of wood would Woody Woodpecker pecker if Woody Woodpecker would pecker pecks of wood?
Infrequently Answered Question #19: What's the most under-rated thing ever?
A: I'd have to say dirt. People hate it. They don't want it in the house, on their clothes or in their food. Something next to worthless is called dirt cheap. Someone next to worthless is considered lower than the dirt beneath your feet. Being a rat is bad enough, being a dirty rat is worse.
Where would we be without dirt? Farmers couldn't farm without it. Your yard would be nothing but rocks and astroturf. After all, grass doesn't grow on trees. Dirt makes the world go round, in fact dirt makes the world. We should all drink a toast to dirt. Here's mud in your eye.
Infrequently Answered Question #18: Why do fools fall in love?
A: Because they're fools, obviously. Then again, non-fools also fall in love, too. So I guess both fools and non-fools fall in love because they're people. Which I imagine means it's all genetic. Would this make foolishness genetic? I couldn't say. But foolishness seems all all too human.
As a follow-up why not ask who put the wham in the whamma lamma bing-bang. This has puzzled philosophers for ages. Or at least has puzzled songwriters since the 50s. Another question might be whatever happened to the whamma lamma bing-bang since you don't hear about it much any more. Or is that a foolish question?
Infrequently Answered Question #17: I often hear the disclaimer "your results may vary." What exactly does that mean?
A: It means whatever it is they're selling you may or may not work. Which is a guarantee that amounts to a tautology, a statement which means both everything and nothing. So, either something is or it is not. Duh. Is there a third option?
This reminds me of another equally meaningless popular phrase, "it is what it is." That goes without saying, though people say it anyway.
Infrequently Answered Question #16: Why are people so willing to believe in outlandish conspiracy theories?
A: It's because they're all 100% true! The most shocking and successfully hushed up conspiracy of all time: A bigfoot alien from Atlantis assassinated Julius Caesar from the grassy knoll with a Masonic square and dividers delivered by telekenesis.
But really, the problem is in disproving conspiracy theories because any evidence to the contrary will simply be dismissed by true believers as part and parcel of a cover-up. And so reinforces the belief in the conspiracy. You just can't win.
Infrequently Answered Question #15: Why don't more comedies win best picture Oscars? Why is it always long, boring epics? And what's so great about 'Citizen Kane' anyway?
A: I imagine it's because entertainment value in art is undervalued. It's much easier to be somber, dull, leaden and be thought a serious thinker than to joke around and be thought a wit, or half-wit as may be the case. Like they say, dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
If one of the classical goals of art is uplifting the human spirit, then some comedian cracking wise uplifts my spirits more than a preachy scold waxing interminably about man's inhumanity to man. The rest of life is too darn serious, why drag it into our leisure time as well? So what if art isn't always profound and deep. Is all of life that very profound and deep? Just try to enjoy it, you'll live longer. Or at least you'll want to.
As for 'Citizen Kane', it's a mystery to me. It puts me to sleep.
Infrequently Answered Question #14: Why do they put flowery patterns on mattresses when they'll just be covered with sheets anyway?
A: That's a good, if rather trivial question. Which is to say I have no idea what the answer is. Perhaps mattress manufacturers get a discount for buying up fabrics that otherwise don't sell.
But here's a bit of trivia to distract you from the fact that I can't answer the question. When Raymond Lowey and company designed the seat fabric for Greyhound busses, they studied what things were often spilt on the seats. Among them were mustard, vomit and baby poopie. So they designed a fabric that wouldn't show the stains from those things. In other words, so the seat would look clean when it wasn't. Does that make you feel better riding the bus?
Infrequently Answered Question #13: Are race car drivers and golfers really athletes?
A: Sure, why not. Still, the drivers and the golfers do the skilled bits, but the car and the caddies do the heavy lifting. Lifting heavy things is also a sport and weightlifters are athletes while cars and caddies aren't. In Scotland they throw poles and weights around, which is the Highland Games. These are played by big, burly, red-bearded men in kilts. The Scots also invented golf for the un-big, un-burly, un-red-bearded among us who prefer wearing pants. By the way, the Indy car champion is a Scot, with the very un-Scottish name Dario Franchitti. The golf champion is un-Scottish, Eldrick "Tiger" Woods.
Did I convincingly answer the original question? Not really, but who cares.
Infrequently Answered Question #12:They say there's more than one way to skin a cat. Is there much demand for skinned cats? How many ways are there to skin them?
A: What with the anti-fur crowd and Peta these days, demand for skinned cats is at an all-time low. Which should mean a lot more cats, and there are. But only house cats as big cats, wild cats are sadly on the decline. Some house cats are skinned after they die and stuffed in the practice of taxidermy. The real question, to me anyway, is not so much how this is accomplished, but why.
Infrequently Answered Question #11: How come we say "Earth is part of THE solar system"? What about the planets orbiting other stars? Aren't they also solar systems? Aren't we terribly egocentric saying that?
A: Your question is mildly amusing, but wrong. Sure, other stars have planets orbiting them. Where you go off the beam is forgetting our star, our sun, is Sol. No other star goes by that name. Planets orbiting other stars are a planetary system just like ours, but only ours is the SOLar system. Just like no other planet is THE Earth. So, it's THE one and only solar system.
Now we do somewhat incorrectly call it THE moon as other planets have moons, too. But this is a holdover from the days before people knew there were any other moons besides THE moon. Maybe THE moon should have a proper name. Like Luna.
As to humans being egocentric... compared to what? We don't know of any other intelligent beings for comparison. If there are beings on those other planets, I'm sure they have their own name for their planetary system. They needn't defer to what we call it, and we don't have to do the reverse. After all, we saw it first. Probably.
If you still think "the solar system" is too egocentric, call it the Sunal system. You'll sound properly humble, and properly foolish as well.