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Welcome to the Greenwood.Net Curiosity Corner
Short Questions, with Sort Answers
Aug 31, 2010
Here are a few short questions I hope you find interesting.
Q. What's the largest member of the cat family?
A. As all the “Lion King” fans know, the lion gets the title "king of the beasts." Perhaps true, but not in size. This honor is claimed by a cousin — the tiger. Male lions range up to 8 feet in length (excluding tail), stand about 3 feet high (at the shoulders) and weigh up to 500 pounds. The Siberian tiger (an endangered species) can beat the lion's measurements by as much as a foot in length, a few inches in height and maybe 100 pounds in weight — a real big one!
Q. What is the root of all evil?
A. A lot of people might say money, but money in itself is OK. If you are quoting St. Paul, it's the "love" of money. (Timothy I 6:10. For the love of money is the root of all evil …)
Q. What's the northernmost state of the original 48?
A. With Alaska ruled out, many people might be inclined to say Maine, but that's wrong. According to latitude, Minnesota takes the honor of being farthest up there in the North Country. In the northwest part of the state is an area called the Northwest Angle, which was ceded to the U.S. by Great Britain in 1818. It is separated from the rest of the country by the Lake of the Woods and lies over 100 miles farther north of Maine’s northernmost point. My map shows that most of the land in Minnesota’s Northwest Angle is included in the Red Lake Indian Reservation.
Q. What is a bellweather?
A. You may have heard this term associated with the 30-year Treasury bond — the bellweather bond, meaning that it is a standard, or leading indicator, bond. Some might think that the term refers to a weather change, but this is how the word is commonly misspelled. Its correct spelling is bell"wether," not bell“weather.” A bellwether is a wether that wears a bell. (How's that for simplicity.) A wether is a castrated sheep, which leads the flock and is belled so the flock can be located by sound.
Q. What does SOS stand for?
A. SOS is the distress call used by ships at sea. It is popular to think that this is an acronym for "Save Our Ship," but not so. The call letters SOS were adapted in 1908 because they are easy to transmit in Morse code. The letter S is three dots or "dits," and the letter O is three dashes or "dahs." This makes SOS dit-dit-dit, dah-dah-dah, dit-dit-dit. This avoided confusion with an older three-letter CQD distress call, which is dah-dit-dah-dit, dah-dah-dit-dah, dah-dit-dit. You got dat?
I know you're wondering. How about the "Mayday" distress call that pilots use? It comes from a French word meaning "help me."
C.P.S. (Curious Postscript): I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body. ~Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward
Curious about something? Send your questions to Dr. Jerry D. Wilson, College of Science and Mathematics, Lander University, Greenwood, SC, 29649, or for e-mail, www.curiosity-corner.net. Selected questions will appear in the Curiosity Corner. © JDW
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