Q;Why are laptops so often black and desktops so often white?
ANS: It's the colour that the faceless ones have decided you should have - try buying a different colour - 'I want my desk top to be a vibrant blue ...... Sorry sir we don't do that and then the classic No-one wants that colour!
BUT I JUST ASKED FOR THAT COLOUR which only goes to show that I'm a Nobody as far as they are concerned.
You can paint your plastics any colour you want providing you get the right type of paint.(Get the wrong one and your lap top or desk top will slowly dissolve before your eyes)
Q;What is the origin of the phrase SCOT free - why not Irish free or Welsh free, for example?
ANS: In this context 'scot' has nothing to do with nationality. It derives from the old word 'scot' meaning tax, payment or reckoning. Thus to go scot-free means to go without payment or penalty.
Q;Why do we name hurricanes and name them alphabetically and why did they name them origianlly with female names only?
ANS: Experience shows that the use of short, distinctive given names in written as well as spoken communications is quicker and less subject to error than the older more cumbersome latitude-longitude identification methods.
History of Hurricane Names
Hurricanes used to named after the particular saint's day on which the hurricane occurred. Clement Wragge, an Australian meteorologist began giving women's names to tropical storms before the end of the l9th century.
In 1953, the United States
Q;Why is red wine served in a glass that is shaped differently from a white wine glass?
ANS: Red wine is supposed to be served at room temperature, while white wine should be cool. This means that the smell of red wine is much more important (cold wines don't give off much of a smell). So the glass should be big enough to leave room for the smell to build up over the wine. Many wine experts recommend serving 6 fluid ounces of red wine in a 10 fluid ounce glass. With white wine on the other hand, the glass can be just big enough to take the wine.
Q;Why is Greenland so named, when it is 99% frozen wasteland?
ANS: 1: The name means what it says, 'green land', and the cold country was so named in 982 AD by the Norse navigator Eric the Red to attract settlers. I have to say that having viewed Greenland from the air on a number of occasions I have never seen any evidence of greenery and my belief is that Eric was an early example of a 'con-man'.
ANS: 2: The name Greenland (Grønland) has its roots in this colonization and is widely attributed to Erik the Red (the Inuit call it Kalaallit Nunaat, "Our Land"), and there has been speculation on its meaning. Some have argued that the coasts in question were literally green at the time due to the medieval climate optimum; in as much as the Viking settlers practised some form of an agrarian economy. Others have suspected that the name was in part a promotional effort to lure people into settling there by making it sound more attractive. The condition of Greenland in the 10th century may have been more hospitable than today.
About 81 percent of its surface is covered by ice, known as the Greenlandic ice cap.
Q;Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?
ANS: The words 'drive' and 'park' existed long before automobiles were ever invented. These are not words created to describe the actions of your car, but rather words which already had meanings and were adapted to describe a new innovation. Since people don't park on parkways, isn't it likely that some other meaning of the word park (i.e. place of recreation) is the root of the word?
Q;Why is the cricket position called 'silly mid on' named so?
ANS: 1:It derives from the fact that the fielder is positioned so close to the batsman that he would be unable to take evasive action if the ball were to be hit very hard towards him, ie it is a potentially dangerous position to take up. This is why silly mid on is only brought in when a weaker batsman (such as myself) is facing the bowling.
ANS 2:If you have ever played cricket in this position you would understand why it is called that. In fact it is a bit of a misnomer as it should be Suicide Mid On. It is close to the batsman in direct line of the direction he is most likely to hit the ball in.
ANS 3:The name can also be applied to Mid-off, point and cover and as the previous responses said derives from the fact that they are dangerously close to the batsman.
Q;hy do we always close our eyes when we sneeze?
ANS: Sneezes are very powerful because not just the nose is involved. It is a reflex response that involves the muscles of the face, throat, and chest. You have to close your eyes when you sneeze because the muscles that close your eyes are part of the reflex response as well.
One more last tidbit of information about sneezing. Thomas Edison came up with the idea of movies from watching someone sneeze in 1888? He was looking at still sequential pictures of someone sneezing, and realized that if you viewed them quickly in a sequence, that you might be able to make a movie.
Q;How come people always say "Jesus H. Christ"? Why not Jesus Q. Christ or Jesus R. Christ or something else? Does the H really stand for something?
ANS: The H stands for Harold, as in, "Our Father, who art in heaven, Harold be thy name" (snort).
Actually, I've heard numerous explanations for the H over the years. The first is that it stands for "Holy," as in Jesus Holy Christ, a common enough blasphemy in the South, abridged to H by fast-talking Northerners. Other colorful Southern epithets include Jesus Hebe Christ and Jesus Hebrew Christ, which abbreviate the same way. The drawback of this account is that it is so boring I can barely type it without falling asleep. Luckily, the other theories are more entertaining:
ANS: (1) It stands for "Haploid." This is an old bio major joke, referring to the unique (not to say immaculate) circumstances of Christ's conception. Having no biological father, J.C. was shortchanged in the chromosome department to the tune of one half. Ingenious, I'll admit, but whimsy has no place in a serious investigation such as this.
ANS: (2) It recalls the H in the IHS logo emblazoned on much Christian paraphernalia. IHS dates from the earliest years of Christianity, being an abbreviation of "Jesus" in classical Greek characters. The Greek pronunciation is "Iesous," with the E sound being represented by the character eta, which looks like an H. When the symbol passed to Christian Romans, for whom an H was an H, the unaccountable character eventually became accepted as Jesus's middle initial.
ANS: (3) Finally, a reader makes the claim that the H derives from the taunting Latin inscription INRH that was supposedly tacked on the cross by Roman soldiers:Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Hebrei (Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Hebrews). Trouble is, the inscription is usually given as INRI: Iesus Nazarenus, Rex Iudaeorum (J.C., King of the Jews).
Q;Why do they call New York
ANS: Brewer's Dictionary of 20th century Phrase and Fable suggests that it comes from the Hispanic nickname of 'La Grande Manzana' (The big street block) because of its street pattern. The Spanish word manzana also means apple. It also could be simply from the idea that New York
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