You probably hear it all day the day before & likely see it happen on the day, itself: if you don’t wear green on St. Patrick’s day, you get pinched by your friends & family. But, have you ever actually questioned the whole St. Patrick’s Day pinching rule? Is it an ancient cultural practice passed…
It doesn’t matter if you prefer whole milk, 2%, or skim, when it comes to the plastic containers that your milk comes in all share one thing in common: they’ve got an inverted circle built into one side of the jug. If you’re a milk drinker, you’ve probably seen this circle…but do you know the…
“Brownie points” have become synonymous with currying favor with those in authority like teachers or bosses. But, where exactly did “brownie points” come from? And, what happens when you “earn” them? One of the most popular explanations is that they originated with the Brownies, a subsect of the Girl Scouts. Often too young to be…
With another round of stimulus checks going out soon, you may be thinking about hitting the road for a safe, socially-distanced vacation. But, where will you stay: a hotel, or a motel? And, what’s the difference between the two? It comes down to the etymology of the word motel, since it’s a actually 2 words…
With it being so warm now, compared to how cold it was just last week, I got to thinking about some other places that experience those temp shifts much more regularly & frequently: deserts. During the day, scorching heat can be torturous to humans. But then, after dark, the problem is reversed & you’d need…
Have you ever noticed those tiny black dots around the edge of your car’s windshield? They’re easy to miss, but they actually serve some important purposes. Firstly, there’s a black strip that wraps around your windshield, which is called a “frit” or a “frit band”. It’s basically ceramic paint that’s been cooked into the glass…
Y’know the old “Which Came First: The Chicken Or The Egg” quandary? You could ask a very similar question about “Orange”: is the fruit named for its color, or is the color named for the fruit? Well, if you’ve ever pondered this question, you can rest assured that there is a definitive answer (unlike the…
Each spring, Catholics observe Lent by skipping steak in favor of fish sticks & swapping a Big Macs for a Filet-O-Fish. But, why is that? One legend says a medieval pope with connections to Europe’s fishing business banned red meat on Fridays centuries ago, to boost his pals’ industry. While that story’s not true, Sunday…
Many people will say with pride, “Yeah, I’ve got 20/20 vision”. But, what even is that? What do those numbers mean? The overall figure is your “Visual Acuity Grade”. And the first number is always 20, because the 20 refers to the distance from which you’re supposed to be sitting or standing from…
Since they’ve been in the news a lot lately, have you ever wondered if there’s actually a difference between an attorney & a lawyer? As a general rule, the terms lawyer & attorney are pretty much interchangeable. Originally, the term “lawyer” was used generally for any person who’d been trained in the law. Some of…