Thursday, July 1, 2010

Random Thought-Provoking Questions

I read these today and had to share them with you. Enjoy!


Why is "abbreviation" such a long word?


If Pinocchio said, “My nose is about to grow,” what would happen?


If hamburgers are made of beef, what would you call a burger made of ham?


Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up, like, every two hours?


If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?


How many people thought of the Post-It note before it was invented but just didn't have anything to jot it down on?


Why does "dyslexia" have to be so hard to spell?


And why does "lisp" have to have an "s" in it?


Why do "fat chance" and "slim chance" mean the same thing?


If a synchronized swimmer drowns, what does their partner do?


If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?


If quitters never win, and winners never quit, where did the phrase "Quit while you're ahead" come from?


Why doesn't Superglue stick to the inside of the tube?


Why does your nose run and your feet smell?


If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?


What level of importance must a person have, before they are considered "assassinated" instead of just "murdered"?


If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?


Why are they called "marbles" if they're made of glass?


How come you play at a recital, but recite at a play?


If a fork were made of gold would it still be considered silverware?


If chocolate comes from a cocoa bean...is it a vegetable?


Why do people pay to go up tall buildings, put money in binoculars and look at things on the ground?


Which way does a compass point in outer space?


If the plural of “tooth” is “teeth,” why isn't the plural of “booth” “beeth”?


Why is it that it’s good to score under par in golf but its bad to be "under par" in any thing else?


Why is "Charlie" short for "Charles" if they are both the same number of letters?


Why is it called a TV set when there is only one?


If our body temperature is normally 98.6 degrees, how come when it's 98 degrees outside, no one is comfortable?

questions via

(proof-read, edited and one or two added by me)

3 comments:

Leon said...

Which ones are yours? Which ones?!

Kim said...

I think chocolate should be a vegetable! Also, that pinnochio one really got me thinking; I still don't know what would happen.

Parker Williams said...

Partially these are based on knowledge I already have, while others had me just as curious and required some searching:


If a turtle doesn't have a shell, it is dead.


"The main ingredient in super glue is a chemical called cyanoacrylate. This resin uses water and air to cure, explaining the age old question of why super glue doesn't harden in the tube. You may be thinking to yourself 'there's no water on that coffee cup I just glued back together', but you're undoubtedly mistaken. Almost everything in the world has at least minute traces of water on the surface, believe it or not, and trace amounts are all cyanoacrylate needs to cure."
http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4570225_super-glue-work.html
http://www.howstuffworks.com/question695.htm


"An assassination is the targeted killing of a public figure, usually for political purposes.

Assassinations may be prompted by religious, ideological, political, or military reasons. Additionally, assassins may be motivated by financial gain, revenge, or personal public recognition.

Assassination may also refer to the government-sanctioned killing of opponents or to targeted attacks on high-profile enemy combatants."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination

"Marbles" are so called because when originally discovered/invented, most more resembled marble in the materials of which they were comprised.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbles


In regard to the compass question—number 10 on this list: http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_sp_ev.html


The TV set thing is one I'd always wondered about, too. Surprisingly so, have many others. It took me awhile before I was finally able to find an answer in this thread of conversation: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=167987
"Prior to 1935 (yes, there was TV prior to 1935), televisions were mechanical devices that were not entirely electronic. The device was made up of a 'set' of specific items, namely a small motor, a spinning disk and a neon light.
Without any of these, (i.e., the set was incomplete) the device would not work.
The term 'mechanical television' eventually gave way to the term 'television set' to describe all types of TV's, though other less popular and shorter lived names such as 'Televisor' and 'Shadowgraph' were used briefly to refer to certain models."

And here's a funny explanation, from the same thread:
"Why is it called a TV set when you only get one?
When TVs are manufactured, they leave the assembly lines as a gelatinous fluid.
They only become usable once they have set. The term 'TV set' first came about due to customer concern in the 1940s that they were buying TVs that had not set properly yet."


As for the conundrum about human body temperature normally being 98.6 degrees, yet our aversion to that being the case in outside temperature, I like to think the most obvious answer is the best: clothing.