Zippy Facts

Although the name Taffeta has been applied and misapplied to many different fabrics during the span of the nearly six centuries during which it has been in the language, its original sense, “a plainly woven, glossy silk,” reflects its origin closely. The word has been through just about all the Romance languages on its way…

Don’t use flashlight batteries when they’re cold. They would be just as sluggish as a car battery in winter. Cold inhibits both kinds. They must be somewhere around room temperature if you are to get the intended amount of “juice” out of them. Batteries produce their electricity, streams of electrons, by a chemical reaction, and…

The oldest books known were baked clay tablets used about 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia. They were deeds to land and other business records. By 25 B.C., the Egyptians had found a better way to produce books. They used papyrus, a reed-like plant, and pasted layers of its inner bark together, making a sheet. Sheets were…

Madame Jacques Montgolfier, the wife of a French paper manufacturer, had washed one of her petticoats and hung it on a line over a small fire to dry. As her amazed husband watched, heat from the fire inflated the petticoat and caused it to rise. This led Jacques and his brother, Joseph, to begin experimenting…

The tuatara, a lizard-like reptile that lives only in New Zealand, has those three “eyes.” It belongs to a group of reptiles that once included many other creatures, but today, the tuatara is the only surviving member of that group. To understand where the tuatara’s “third” eye came from, scientists studied a small growth attached…

There are more poisonous plants on earth than you can imagine. Here’s a partial list of them. Rhubarb—the leaves are fatal. Even cooked, they’ve been known to kill. Buttercups—all of these plants can cause damage to the stomach and intestines. Oleander—the leaves and branches are extremely poisonous. They act as a heart palpitation drug and…

The Puritans were English-speaking Protestants and the grim followers of Oliver Cromwell, who had gained control of England in 1649 after a bloody civil war. They got their name from their enemies who taunted them about wanting to “purify” both the Church of England and society. They were also sometimes called “Roundheads” because they cut…

Alligators, like many other reptiles, don’t have sex chromosomes. As a result, alligator gender isn’t determined by the interaction of the parents’ genes. Instead, it is completely decided by temperature. When it’s egg-laying time, the female finds a nice large area on the bank of her swamp and digs a large hole, up to six…

When canning was invented, no one knew why food that was packed and heated inside containers remained fresh for a long time. Then, in 1860, French scientist Louis Pasteur discovered that food spoilage was due to bacteria present in all fresh food and in the air. These organisms breaks down substances in the food and…

Rain falls once in a while even in the hottest parts of the desert. The average rainfall in the Sahara Desert, the world’s largest, is from five to ten inches per year in most places. But one region of the Sahara receives just one-tenth of an inch of rain each year, and another part of…

After William Herschel proposed his theory of “island universes”, or galaxies lying far outside our own Milky Way, astronomers became curious about measuring the distance to the stars. In 1838, the German astronomer Friedrich Bessel used improved telescopes and a technique called parallax to prove that the universe was much more vast than even Herschel…

One of the greatest Cuban American success stories is that of Roberto C. Guizeta (1931-1997). Born in Havana, he was educated at Yale and became a chemical engineer for Coca-Cola in Cuba. He fled Castro’s revolution in 1960. By 1981, he had risen to become the company’s chairman and chief executive officer. He was credited…

The ten-armed squid, which is a cousin of the octopus, has an unusual way of escaping from its enemies. If the discs on its arms cannot hold onto its enemy through suction, the squid spurts out a dark fluid from its “ink sac” and sets up an underwater smoke screen. With its enemy in the…

Derived from the Latin adjective Stygius, from the Greek Stygios, all are related to the River Styx, that river in Greek mythology which separated the land of the living from Hades, the land of the dead. The name of the river is closely related to the Greek adjective stygnos, “hateful, gloomy,” and this, too, is…

Even though they both involve a disagreement, there is a dramatic difference between bickering and dickering. Bickering now means to quarrel, but the word began as bicken, Dutch for “an attack involving a misunderstanding by slashing or stabbing.” Dickering came from the Roman habit of packaging units of ten hides for bartering or haggling with…

This is a gullibility test. The Bathtub was introduced in England in 1828. The first tub in America was used by a Cincinnati resident named Thompson in 1842. After an argument among medical authorities concerning the benefits and hazards of bathing, the Bathtub was banned in Boston in 1845. Six years later, the first Bathtub…

A sloth gives birth to just one offspring per litter. The baby clings to its mother until it is old enough to take care of itself. The Maned Three-Toed Sloth is classified as endangered, and the ongoing destruction of South America’s forests may soon prove a threat to other sloth species. Sloth have a unique…

After a great deal of discussion, Great Britain, which governed British Canada until 1931, and the United States finally agreed in 1846 to make the 49th parallel the western part of their boundary. This boundary line starts in Minnesota and extends west to what is now Washington State. There was only one problem: the 49th…

The plant we know as “mandrake” was formerly known as mandragora, which is still its scientific name. Five or six hundred years ago, however, although actually of Greek source, this name was thought to be a combination of man and dragon. But at that time a dragon was commonly known as drake; so mandragora became…

Yes, it can snow in the desert, in fact, snow has fallen in almost every part of the United States at one time or another. The most snow ever reported in Phoenix, Arizona, was 1 inch (2.5 cm), an event that has happened there twice, the first time on January 20, 1933, and the second…

With tongue firmly planted in cheek, the British essayist and critic Charles Lamb (1775–1834), in “A Dissertation on Roast Pig,” tells how humans first discovered cooking or, more precisely, roasting, after “for the first seventy thousand ages” eating their meat raw by “clawing or biting it from the living animal.” The story, purportedly discovered in…

Though the names of different parts of animal anatomy, the terms may have, in part, a common explanation. That is, the dewclaw is that rudimentary inner claw, sometimes present in dogs, which hangs loosely in the skin above the other toes and which brushes, not the soil, but only against the “dew” on the grass….

In the past 50 years or so, Pennsylvania tops the list of states experiencing extensive damage from flooding, followed by California, Louisiana, Iowa, Texas, and Missouri, in that order. Floods result from a volume of water, such as a river or lake, which overflows or breaks levees. The word “flood” comes from the Old English…

There is, unfortunately, no certainty about the origin of this word. But Isaac D’Israeli (the father of the statesman, Benjamin Disraeli), in Curiosities of Literature, published in 1791, quoted a story that went the rounds of the British navy in 1700 which was then thought to explain the source. The quoted explanation ran: “There was,…

The ostrich, the largest bird in the world, does not hide its head in the sand. Although ostriches are not among the more intelligent species of animals, they are not stupid enough to hide their heads, thinking they cannot be seen. Actually, ostriches have very keen eyesight, and they constantly watch what is going on….

Although most blacks were held in slavery in the 1700s and 1800s, and despite the fact that economic opportunities were rare and risky, even for free blacks, a few free blacks owned businesses. Some, mostly in the North, owned construction companies, inns, tailor shops, or other businesses.

Two of the “fathers of the atomic bomb,” Albert Einstein and Max Planck, are also responsible for the development of elevator doors that reopen automatically if they start to close as a person steps into the car. The two men explained how light falling on some materials can change them from poor conductors of electricity…

It’s a myth that the camp followers of Union General Joseph Hooker gave us the popular euphemism for a prostitute. It’s true they were called “Hooker’s division,” or “Hooker’s reserves,” but the word predates the American Civil War as, of course, does the profession. It first appeared in 1845 as a reference to an area…

If someone speaks up out of turn or forcefully inserts their unsolicited opinion, we say he gave his “two cents’ worth.” The expression dates back to the late nineteenth century. Back then, if you wanted to write an opinion to the editor of a newspaper or complain to a member of the legislature, the cost…

On October 29, 1929, the U.S. stock market crashed. This meant that the value of stocks went way down, because everyone sold their stocks in a panic. This stock market panic was caused by many factors, including risky investments and overproduction of products. The crash resulted in the Great Depression, which spread over the United…

Aesop, back about boo B.C., is said to have told his master about a dog which went to sleep in a manger full of hay. According to the fable, the ox, for whom the manger had been filled, came up to it for his rations, whereupon the dog, roused from his slumbers, snapped at the…

Most glaciers move very slowly, usually less than a foot a day, although some have been known to move more than 50 feet a day. However, different layers of one glacier also move at different speeds. The bottom moves slowly because it is rubbing against the land, while the middle and top move more quickly…

Hwang Ho means “Yellow River” in Chinese, and we usually call the river by that name. The river deserves its name, too. Part of the Hwang Flo flows through a region of loess, or yellow earth, and this loess is carried downstream by the river in the form of silt and sand. So much of…

Scarcely known nowadays, except in stories laid in olden times, is the verb affray. Its ancient meaning was “to startle out of one’s rest,” as by a clap of thunder or other sharp noise. That is, one who was affrayed was one who was alarmed. From alarm to fright was a natural development in meaning,…

In stock market slang, a bear is a speculator who sells a stock that he does not own in the belief that before he must deliver the stock to its purchaser its price will have dropped so that he may make a profit on the transaction. A bull, on the other hand, is optimistic of…

The dictionaries say, “source unknown,” so we’ll do a little guessing. The expression “to peter out” originated in America; this much is very certain. Because it was known and used by Lincoln when he was a young man, a store in which he was a partner “petered out” when he was in his thirties, we…

Strictly speaking, infrared radiation is neither light nor heat. It’s not light because we can’t see it, and it’s not heat because it contains no substance that is capable of being hot. I like to call it “heat in transit.” We’ll see why. Infrared radiation is nothing more than a certain segment of the broad…

In 1974, a Soviet ophthalmologist named Svyatoslav Fyodorov developed a surgical procedure that has proved a speedy and sometimes very effective method for correcting nearsightedness. The basic idea is to alter the curve of the cornea, which is the window into the eye, by means of tiny surgical scars. Performed under local anesthesia, the procedure,…

Cornmeal, Cornstarch, Corn Flour, they’re all made from that incredibly versatile and internationally esteemed New World grain called corn in the United States and maize, from the Caribbean Taino Indian word rnahiz, almost everywhere else. A kernel of corn is a seed with essentially three parts. The tough, outer hull (the pericarp) is made mostly…

At the beginning of the salmons’ annual run, Northwest fishermen performed a ritual after they caught the first fish. During the ceremony, the fish was roasted and eaten, usually with a small bite given to each person in a village. The bones were then returned to the river in which the salmon was caught. Native…

Cactuses are thrifty plants that live in dry regions. They may not get much moisture where they live, but they manage to make the most of what they do get. Since the cactus’s long roots lie close to the surface of the ground, they can catch water from desert rains. And since the roots have…

Originally, the word “ballot” meant “little ball,” contracted from the Italian, ballotta. It may be easy to recall this original meaning if we remember that, formerly, the method of voting was through the use of a small ball, white or black, according as one voted affirmatively or negatively, dropped secretly into a receptacle. The method,…

Perhaps you’ve heard, health nuts remark that Twinkies, the ultimate junk food, are so loaded with chemicals they can sit on the shelf for twenty years and the consumer wouldn’t know the difference. Not so. “That’s a popular misconception we’re not too happy about,” says Patrick Farrell of Continental Baking Company, producers of the familiar…

This we do when we take something formless or not fully in readiness to meet the critical eyes of the world and put it into form or make it ready. The saying comes from the ancient belief that, to quote from the unknown translator (about 1400) of de Guilleville’s “The pylgremage of the sowle”, “Beres…

A battery is a military term for a unit of guns, mortars, or rockets grouped to facilitate better battlefield command and communication. Its use in baseball to describe a pitcher and a catcher alludes to the fact that the battery is the principle attack force for the small army of nine players on a baseball…

Everything is made of particles: atoms and molecules. But it’s not simply that some particles are lighter than others, although that’s a big part of it. It’s also that some particles are packed more tightly together than others. Lead is denser than, i.e., heavier than the same volume of, water, mostly because lead atoms are…

A kiva was an underground chamber where the Pueblo people held religious ceremonies and their men gathered to socialize. The chamber represented the underworld where they believed human beings once lived. The ladder they used to climb into the chamber symbolized the link between the real world and the underworld. To teach children about the…

The nation of Tonga consists of 150 islands spread over 100,000 square miles of ocean in the South Pacific. The total area of these islands is just 270 square miles, and Tonga’s 93,000 people live on only 45 of the islands. The English explorer James Cook discovered these islands in the eighteenth century and called…

The Second Largest City in the World in 2008 was Mumbai, India, with a population of 13.5 million people. In 1985, Mexico City ranked as the second most populous city on earth, after the Chinese city of Shanghai, and the second most populous metropolitan area, after New York. Back then, Mexico City had a population…

A group of French engineers from Napoleon’s army found the Rosetta Stone near Alexandria, Egypt. In 1799, they were getting ready to demolish an ancient wall outside Rosetta, a city near Alexandria, Egypt. They stumbled upon a carved stone which, because it had the same message in three ancient languages, ended up becoming the key…

It used to be that the federal government prohibited brewers from listing the percentage of alcohol on the labels of beers to discourage people from choosing their beverages based on alcohol content. But that’s not true anymore. In 1935, two years after the repeal of Prohibition, the Federal Alcohol Administration (FAA) Act prohibited the labeling…

“Peanut” may sound like a plant that can’t quite make up its mind where it belongs in the world of botanical classification. What’s your guess? A nut, you say? Nope, the goober is actually more a pea than a nut. The versatile, tasty morsel we call the peanut is the pod or legume, and not…

The phrase “to go scot free” means: To be free of penalty, or exempt from punishment or injury. Little Pete goes scotfree if mother thinks the costly new glass candlestick was knocked on the floor by the cat. But the expression and its extended meaning are very old. Back in the twelfth century a scot…

A dogie is what they used to call a motherless calf. Stray calves or those that have lost their mothers at too young an age are still called dogies, actually. Often the term is colloquially used to refer to all bovine in a herd. The origin of the word “dogie” is unknown, but may stem…

The infamous black mold is the fungus Aspergillus niger. The reason it seems so difficult to eradicate is that the visible black manifestation is merely the exposed structure of the fungus, which is mainly comprised of the fruiting bodies. In addition to this visible material, there is invariably an insidious network of hyphae or mycelia…

The word “Chicano” does not mean “Hispanic”. Chicano (or “Chicana,” for a female) refers only to a Mexican American, an American of Mexican descent. It is an abbreviation of the word Mexicano, Spanish for “Mexican.” It was originally an insult, a term of disdain used by non-Hispanics. But in the mid-twentieth century, Mexican Americans themselves…

In times past, the only source of vinegar generally known was wine that, on turning, became sharp and acrid to the taste. And it is precisely this that is shown by the name, for it comes from the Old French vyn egre (which led to the modern French vinaigre). Vyn, or yin, comes from the…

Most of Australia’s 140 Species of Native Snakes are Poisonous. Of the world’s top twenty-five most poisonous snakes, twenty-one of them are in Australia, including sea snakes that are two to ten times more poisonous than cobras. Sea snakes are venomous snakes that have evolved from terrestrial ancestors, and live in marine environments for most…

Don’t try to find the answer to that question in food books. With only one exception, every book in my food library, including those devoted exclusively to microwave cooking, either evades the question entirely or gives the same misleading answer. Evading the issue only reinforces the less-than-helpful notion of a magic box. But promulgating a…

Virginia made slavery legal in 1661 and passed a law the following year that stated that children born to a slave mother would also be slaves. During the 1600s, slavery based on race slowly became a way of life throughout all thirteen American colonies. By the beginning of the 1700s, new laws had been created…