Did you ever stop and wonder...

Recently - someone emailed me this, I was feeling particularly pedantic, and I have included my replies...
Benedict


Did you ever stop and wonder...

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these pink dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"

Nah, they would have seen the calves drinking, and people would have seen babies being breast fed and put 2 and 2 together.
Actually Goats and Sheep were milked long before cattle. Indeed there is evidence that Kuhbla Khan's secrets to cross the Mongolian desert was they drank their horses milk and the horses ate the grasses of the Steppes.

Who was the first person to say, "See that chicken there... I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes outta it's bum."

Again, birds eggs are seen widely in nature and very much treasured source of food for indigenous population, and IF you have had live young of your own, you would know that they do not quite come out of the bum.
However the first person to try oysters naturale... (ewwww!)

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

When I worked in my father's butchers shop when I was a kid, the freezers all had lights, but they had to be protected from the cold cos they would shatter when they turn on (indeed when coming in on Mondays the light in the walk in fridge would often shatter, and it had its own catcher, so no glass would get on the meat). So you would get this dull light from a light inside a thick plastic enclosure. Indeed a few modern freezers (big ones not small household ones) often have lights behind glass in a vacuum sealed space or use fluoros. Some new freezers have diode type lights that do not have the same sensitivity to cold/heat shock.


Why does your Obstetrician, Gynaecologist leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?

Out of courtesy, people don't like their doctors "perving" at them as they undress, actually I would prefer to watch as I get useful clinical information out of the way people move, I try to always watch people get up and walk into my room when they come in to see me. So the covering is for patient modesty, we certainly are less couth when the patient is unconscious in the operating theatre.

Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs?

Here's an excerpt from the Disney site:
Goofy was created as a human character, as opposed to Pluto, who was a pet, so he walked upright and had a speaking voice (first supplied by Colvig, and later by George Johnson, Bob Jackman, and Bill Farmer).
http://disney.go.com/vault/archives/characterstandard/goofy/goofy.html

Can blind people see their dreams? Do they dream??

This has been answered in detail several times in various journals.
I should do a quick google, but I remember a series of New Scientist articles, including "the last word" on this about 5-6 years ago. In summary, if the blind person has never seen, then other senses recruit much of the brain to assist, so they often have good hearing ability (eg recognise 2 or 3 or more songs played simultaneously, you try it - its hard) and apparently can dream in non-visual ways, one explanation I read about was tactile dreams, "seeing" the room and faces by touch...
If they have had vision - even as young as a few months, then they may well dream in images, and the older they are when they lose sight the more visual the dreams are. So if people are blind at age 80 their dreams are usually primarily visual.

If you want to see a serious treatise check this out http://psych.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/kerr_2004.html

If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests? (This one kills me!!!)

Well if you go on pattern recognition the answer is testical, which is a homophone for testicle.
If semantically correct the answer would be testing (imperfect present tense or present particible)*

And stolen from Yahoo Answers - (I really liked this one)
"quizzes are precursors to tests. Tests are the end action to tabulate what you know"


If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

Oil out of the ground which is likely derived from huge algae blooms buried millions of years ago, and may be called petroleum oil or even petroleum jelly (depending on viscosity). So if the product (type of oil) is named by origin it should be corn, vegetable, petroleum if named by function then cooking, frying and baby, respectively.

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?
from some online dictionary I forget where
Noun
morality
1 The ability to distinguish good and evil or right and wrong, right or good conduct.
2 Ethics, motivation based on ideas of right and wrong.

When it comes to things religious, I suspect the answer is yes!


Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

It was quite common for nursery rhymes to have similar tunes, their origins quite often derived from bawdy tunes and musical criers for contemporary events (like bah bah black sheep about the farmer complaining of paying taxes to their lord and to the church and only keeping a third themselves)


Stop singing and read on...

Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?

Yes, unless one is trying to construct sentences, or someone is a very bad dyslexic, then they are usually able to read basics, especially the alphabet, so as an educational tool to help with familiarity of patterns (recognition) then they may well get even more benefit.



Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he sticks his head out the window?

If you stick your face close enough to a dog even without blowing it is likely to provoke them. If the dog is very close to you (emotionally) they may even like you blowing on their face, I remember an old ex-gf who had a sooky lapdog who loved it when she blew on its face (initially to get its hair out of its eyes but then it continued on out of habit) but if you got to close while blowing snotfeatures** (it was an inbred King Charles with a really bad sinus problem, I was surprised it could breath at all) it would also snap. Indeed it was fun oscillating the distance between me and the dog to see it change moods rapidly...


Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

No, but it distracts you for some time and allows venting of frustration so helping pass the time until the elevator gets there. In fact Edward De Bono (the lateral thinker who uses the different coloured hats) had a solution to some Japanese high-rise problem with only 4 elevators and people getting impatient waiting for the lifts - and this was a common problem in the 70s with taller and taller skyscrapers having to fit more elevators in and therefore creating more dead-space... His solution was to install mirrors on the outside of the elevators so people were too busy checking out others and preening themselves to even notice the greater time for the lifts to arrive.


Do you ever wonder why you gave me your e-mail address in the first place?

That one has got me stumped


Cheers
Benedict

* I was a research scientist, I know how to write in the passive tense, I can put insomniacs to sleep.
** or snort-fiend or ... I can't remember but the bloke the ex- dumped me for had even more names... last I heard of her she married some other bloke, and had a German shepherd as best man!

PS Any Wikipediac, feel free to add this ad libitum to the 'pedia, if you feel so inclined.