Date to dread: 2011

Why we should dread it: The Solar System may enter a Photon Belt. Despite a prediction in 1997 that earth would enter the strange energy phenomenon known as a Photon Belt not coming true, experts predict it may still happen in 2011, leading to aliens landing, the world ending or, at best, widespread electrical failure.

Likelihood it will happen: 2/10 – it didn’t happen in 1997, so we’re not holding our breath.

Date to dread: 23 December 2012

Why we should dread it: According to the ancient Mayan calendar, the world is divided into 13 baktuns, or cycles. A baktun lasts for 144,000 days and if the Mayans are right, the last day of the final cycle will come at the end of 2012. Still, at least we’d get to watch the Olympics.

Likelihood it will happen: 6/10 – the Mayans were sharp cookies and, of the apocalypses doing the rounds, this one is causing the biggest buzz.

Date to dread: 2014

Why we should dread it: Pope Leo IX, speaking in 1514, didn’t have to worry about the end of the world because it was a long time away – 500 years to be precise. But if he was right, his prediction would mean lights out on earth in 2014.

Likelihood it will happen: 2/10 – Leo was most likely just reassuring his flock rather than coming over all Mystic Meg.

Date to dread: 13 November, 2026

Why we should dread it: In 1960, Science magazine gave this as the date when the world’s population would reach infinity – with disastrous consequences.

Likelihood it will happen: 1/10 – while there’s no denying the population is a little out of control, it looks highly unlikely it’ll to get so out of hand by 2026 that the Earth couldn’t cope.

Date to dread: 26 October 2028

Why we should dread it: The Asteroid 1997 XF11 is predicted to sail dangerously close to the Earth on this day, potentially creating an Armageddon scenario. Luckily by ‘close’ we mean 951,000 km.

Why we should dread it: For all the Evangelical types who thought the year 2000 was going to mean curtains, 2033 is looking like the next disastrous date as it is believed to be the 2000th year after Christ’s death.

Likelihood it will happen: 2/10 – at least 2000 had a nice round number ring to it – this one seems to be clutching at straws.

Date to dread: 2035

Why we should dread it: One group of doom mongerers called the Raelians, who study a UFO religion, believe if they can establish an embassy in Jerusalem by 2035, an alien race called the Elohim will fall to earth, bringing with it a New Age.

Likelihood it will happen: 1/10 – if aliens capable of changing the world are hamstrung by the lack of a buffet reception they’re not worth rolling out the red carpet for.

Date to dread: 2280

Why we should dread it: Some maths whizzes claim the Koran contains a code which helps pinpoint the precise time when we’ll all breathe our last breath. Using computers to decode clues hidden in the book, they’ve come up with 2280 as d-day.

Likelihood it will happen: 2/10 – looking for hidden codes is nothing new, and this has the hallmarks of another scare-story born out of mathematicians with too much time on their hands.

Date to dread: 3797

Why we should dread it: One word – Nostradamus. The French astrologer’s predictions have a worldwide army of followers who believe he’s predicted world wars and other global disasters. This is his suggestion for the end of the world.

Likelihood it will happen: 7/10 – Nostradamus is certainly the prediction daddy so it’d be silly to dismiss this one out of hand. However, the fact that none of us will still be here then, kind of makes you worry a bit less.

Date to dread: 1,000,000 AD

Why we should dread it: As our Outlook calendars don’t quite take us up this far there’s not a lot of point stressing about this date, but huge Gamma Ray star bursts occur about every one million years. The radiation caused by one of these will have a devastating effect on the Earth’s oxygen supply.

Likelihood it will happen:  9/10 – Unless oxygen’s no longer essential, life on Earth won’t stand a chance.

• Pinocchio is Italian for "pine eyes."
• The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
• The word "toast," meaning a proposal of health, originated in Rome, where an actual bit of spiced, burned bread was dropped into wine to improve the drink's flavor, absorb its sediment, and thus make it more healthful.
• The word "bookkeeper" is the only word in the English language with three back-to-back double letter combinations.
• There is a town in Sweden called "A" and a town in France called "Y."
• What is called a "French kiss" in England and America is known as an "English kiss" in France.
• The dot on top of the letter "i" is called a "tittle." "Tittle" is Latin for something very small.
• The shortest verse in the Bible consists of two words: "Jesus wept." (John 11:35)
• The letter "o" is the oldest letter. It has not changed in shape since its adoption in the Phoenician alphabet, circa 1,300 B.C.
• The letter "b" took its present form from a symbol used in Egyptian hieroglyphics to represent a house.
• When used by an ornithologist, the word "lore" refers to the space between a bird's eye and its bill.
• The longest English word consisting entirely of consonants (and not including"y" as a vowel) is the word "crwth" which is from the fourteenth century and means crowd.
• The most common name in the world is Muhammed.
• The most common street name in the U.S. is Second Street.
• Henry Ford experimented with soy. Many of the meals served in his home consisted of his soy creations.
• The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise," derived its title from the enthusiasm of the men of Marseilles, France, who sang it when they marched into Paris at the outset of the French Revolution. Rouget de l'Isle, its composer, was an artillery officer. According to his account, he fell asleep at a harpsichord and dreamt the words and the music. Upon waking, he remembered the entire piece from his dream and immediately wrote it down.
• A law passed in Nebraska in 1912 really set down some hard rules of the road. Drivers in the country at night were required to stop every 150 yards, send up a skyrocket, then wait eight minutes for the road to clear before proceeding cautiously, all the while blowing their horn and shooting off flares.
• Crocodiles and alligators are surprisingly fast on land. Although they are rapid, they are not agile; so if you ever find yourself chased by one, run in a zigzag line. You'll lose him or her every time.
• In 1500 B.C. in Egypt a shaved head was considered the ultimate in feminine beauty. Egyptian women removed every hair from their heads with special gold tweezers and polished their scalps to a high sheen with buffing cloths.
• In ancient China and certain parts of India, mouse meat was considered a great delicacy.
• In ancient Greece, where the mouse was sacred to Apollo, mice were sometimes devoured by temple priests.
• In 1400 B.C. it was the fashion among rich Egyptian women to place a large cone of scented grease on top of their heads and keep it there all day. As the day wore on, the grease melted and dripped down over their bodies, covering their skin with an oily, glistening sheen and bathing their clothes in fragrance.
• In the United States, a pound of potato chips cost two hundred times more than a pound of potatoes.

• To win a gold disc, an album needs to sell 100,000 copies in Britain, and 500,000 in the United States.
• Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.
• The CD was developed by Philips and Sony in 1980.
• o About one-third of recorded CDs are pirated.
• Ireland has won the most Eurovision song contests (7 times).
• Annie Lennox holds the record for the most Brit awards (8).
• The first pop video was Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, released in 197
• The British, the highest per capita spenders on music, buy 7.2% of the world music market.
• The harmonica is the world's best-selling music instrument.
• The last note of a keyboard is C.
• DVD discs are the same diameter (120mm) and thickness (1.2mm) as a Compact Disc but a DVD can store 13 times or more data.

1. "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." — Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.
2. "We will never make a 32 bit operating system." — Bill Gates
3. "Lee DeForest has said in many newspapers and over his signature that it would be possible to transmit the human voice across the Atlantic before many years. Based on these absurd and deliberately misleading statements, the misguided public … has been persuaded to purchase stock in his company …" — a U.S. District Attorney, prosecuting American inventor Lee DeForest for selling stock fraudulently through the mail for his Radio Telephone Company in 1913.
4. "There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States." — T. Craven, FCC Commissioner, in 1961 (the first commercial communications satellite went into service in 1965).
5. "To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth – all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." — Lee DeForest, American radio pioneer and inventor of the vacuum tube, in 1926
6. "A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth’s atmosphere." — New York Times, 1936.
7. "Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical (sic) and insignificant, if not utterly impossible." – Simon Newcomb; The Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk 18 months later.
8. "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." — Lord Kelvin, British mathematician and physicist, president of the British Royal Society, 1895.
9. "There will never be a bigger plane built." — A Boeing engineer, after the first flight of the 247, a twin engine plane that holds ten people
10. "Nuclear-powered vacuum cleaners will probably be a reality in 10 years." -– Alex Lewyt, president of vacuum cleaner company Lewyt Corp., in the New York Times in 1955.
11. "This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives." — Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy during World War II, advising President Truman on the atomic bomb, 1945.[6] Leahy admitted the error five years later in his memoirs
12. "The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine." — Ernest Rutherford, shortly after splitting the atom for the first time.
13. "There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." — Albert Einstein, 1932
14. "The cinema is little more than a fad. It’s canned drama. What audiences really want to see is flesh and blood on the stage." -– Charlie Chaplin, actor, producer, director, and studio founder, 1916
15. "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad." — The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford’s lawyer, Horace Rackham, not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903
16. "The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys." — Sir William Preece, Chief Engineer, British Post Office, 1878.
17. "This ‘telephone’ has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." — A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).
18. "The world potential market for copying machines is 5000 at most." — IBM, to the eventual founders of Xerox, saying the photocopier had no market large enough to justify production, 1959.
19. "I must confess that my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocating its crew and floundering at sea." — HG Wells, British novelist, in 1901.
20. "X-rays will prove to be a hoax." — Lord Kelvin, President of the Royal Society, 1883.
21. "The idea that cavalry will be replaced by these iron coaches is absurd. It is little short of treasonous." — Comment of Aide-de-camp to Field Marshal Haig, at tank demonstration, 1916.
22. "How, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." — Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton’s steamboat, 1800s.
23. "Fooling around with alternating current is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever." — Thomas Edison, American inventor, 1889 (Edison often ridiculed the arguments of competitor George Westinghouse for AC power).
24. "Home Taping Is Killing Music" — A 1980s campaign by the BPI, claiming that people recording music off the radio onto cassette would destroy the music industry.
25. "Television won’t last. It’s a flash in the pan." — Mary Somerville, pioneer of radio educational broadcasts, 1948.
26. "[Television] won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." — Darryl Zanuck, movie producer, 20th Century Fox, 1946.
27. "When the Paris Exhibition [of 1878] closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it." – Oxford professor Erasmus Wilson
28. "Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’ … As you may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed." — Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830(?).
29. "Rail travel at high speed is not possible because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." — Dr Dionysys Larder (1793-1859), professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy, University College London.
30. "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to no one in particular?" — Associates of David Sarnoff responding to the latter’s call for investment in the radio in 1921.

"How about a charitable contribution for all the time I donate to the church?" Nope, again. "The wedding gift for the boss's daughter as an employee business expense?" Come on! On the other hand, over the years your fellow taxpayers have beaten the IRS in court on payments for many crazy things that most of us wouldn't even dream of claiming.

• Pet food: A couple who owned a junkyard was allowed to write off the cost of cat food they set out to attract wild cats. The feral felines did more than just eat; they also took care of snakes and rats on the property, making the place safer for customers. When the case reached the Tax Court, IRS lawyers conceded that the cost was deductible.
   
• Moving the family pet: If you are changing jobs and meet a couple of tests, you can deduct your moving expenses — including the cost of moving your dog, cat or other pet from your old residence to your new home. Your pet — be it a Pekingese or a python — is treated the same as your other personal effects.
   
• A trip to Bermuda: This island is more than just a scenic place to visit: It's a great place to schedule a tax write-off. Business conventions held in Bermuda are deductible without having to show that there was a special reason for the meeting to be held there. That's a sweet perk. Other countries in the Caribbean region qualify, too, including Barbados, Costa Rica, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Meetings held in Canada, Mexico and all U.S. possessions also receive this favorable tax treatment. Attend a convention in Paris, Rome or Beijing, though, and there's no deduction unless you can show it made as much sense to travel abroad as to head to Pittsburgh.
   
• Body oil: A pro bodybuilder used body oil to make his muscles glisten in the lights during his competitions. The Tax Court ruled that he could deduct the cost of the oil as a business expense. Lest it be seen as a softie, though, the Court nixed deductions for buffalo meat and special vitamin supplements to enhance strength and muscle development.
   
• A private airplane: Rather than drive five to seven hours to check on their rental condo or be tied to the only daily commercial flight available, a couple bought their own plane. The Tax Court allowed them to deduct their condo-related trips on the aircraft, including the cost of fuel and depreciation for the portion of time used for business-related purposes, even though these costs increased their overall rental loss.
   
• Babysitting fees: Fees paid to a sitter to enable a mother to get out of the house and do volunteer work for a charity are deductible as charitable contributions, even though the money didn't go directly to the charity, according to the Tax Court. The Court expressly rejected a contrary IRS revenue ruling.
   
• Breast augmentation: In an effort to get more tips, a stripper with the stage name "Chesty Love" decided to get breast implants to make her a size 56FF. A female Tax Court judge allowed Chesty to write off the cost of her operation, equating her new assets to a stage prop. Alas, the operation proved to be a problem for Chesty. She later tripped and ruptured one of her implants.
   
• Landscaping: Sole proprietors who regularly meet clients in a home office can deduct part of the costs of landscaping the property. The deductible portion is based on the percentage of the home that is used for business, according to the Tax Court. The Court also allowed a deduction for part of the costs of lawn care and driveway repairs.
   
• Free beer: In a novel promotion, a gas station owner gave his customers free beer in lieu of trading stamps. Proving that sometimes beer and gasoline do mix, the Tax Court allowed the write-off as a business expense.
   
• Swimming pool: A taxpayer with emphysema put in a pool after his doctor told him to develop an exercise regimen. He swam in it twice a day and improved his breathing capacity. Turns out he swam in the pool more than his family did.  The Tax Court allowed him to deduct the cost of the pool (to the extent the cost exceeded its added value to the property) as a medical expense because its primary purpose was for medical care. Also, the cost of heating the pool, pool chemicals and a proportionate part of insuring the pool area were treated as medical expenses.

• Sneezing may be a symptom of pregnancy. Expectant mothers often sneeze for no apparent reason.
• Snoop Dogg's real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr.
• The typical pine cone is female.
• The first World Wide Web search engine was called Wandex.
• According to a recent study, 87% of women use scissors as their first throw when playing "Rock, Scissors, Paper."
• "Anhedonia" is an inability to experience pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.
• Ancient Greeks believed wearing amethysts would help keep a person from becoming drunk.
• The original Scrabble game didn't have a board. It was played with tiles only.
• Alfred Hitchcock had a morbid fear of eggs (ovaphobia).
• The risk of having an auto accident is about four times higher for drivers using cell phones (whether handheld or hands-free).
• The U.S. has the highest dog population in the world. France has the second highest.
• In a typical restaurant, customers get 27 cents worth of food for each dollar they spend.
• In casinos, $50 bills are known as "frogs" and are considered by many to be bad luck.
• During the ice age, there were six-foot tall "mammoth penguins."
• Bubbles in champagne were seen by early wine makers as a highly undesirable defect, one that should be prevented.
• "Typhlobasia" is the practice of closing one's eyes when kissing.
• Just less than one quarter of the people in the world are vegetarians.
• William Howard Taft was the first golfer to become President.
• It is tradition in countries such as Venezuela and Peru to wear yellow underwear on New Year's Day for good luck throughout the coming year.

A few years after I was born, my Dad met a stranger who was new to our small Michigan town. From the beginning, Dad was fascinated with this enchanting newcomer and soon invited him to live with our family. The stranger was quickly accepted and was around from then on.

As I grew up, I never question ed his place in my family. In my young mind, he had a special niche. My parents were complementary instructors: Mom taught me good from evil, and Dad taught me to obey. But the stranger...he was our storyteller. He would keep us spellbound for hours on end with Adventures, mysteries and comedies.

If I wanted to know anything about politics, history or science, he always knew the answers about the past, understood the present and even seemed able to predict the future! He took my family to the first major league ball game. He made me laugh, and he made me cry. The stranger never stopped Talking, but Dad didn't seem to mind.

Sometimes, Mom would get up quietly while the rest of us were shushing each other to listen to what he had to say, and she would go to the kitchen for peace and quiet. (I wonder now if she ever prayed for the stranger to leave.) Dad ruled our household with certain moral convictions, but the stranger never felt obligated to honor them. Profanity, for example, was not allowed in our home... Not from us, our friends or any visitors. Our longtime visitor, however, got away with four-letter words that burned my ears and made my dad squirm and my mother blush. My Dad didn't permit the liberal use of alcohol, but the stranger encouraged us to try it on a regular basis. He made cigarettes look cool, cigars manly and pipes distinguished. He talked freely (much too freely!) about sex. His comments were sometimes blatant, sometimes suggestive, and generally embarrassing.

I now know that my early concepts about relationships were influenced strongly by the stranger. Time after time, he opposed the values of my parents, yet he was seldom rebuked... And NEVER asked to leave.

More than fifty years have passed since the stranger moved in with our family. He has blended right in and is not nearly as fascinating as he was at first. Still, if you could walk into my parents' den today, you would still find him sitting over in his corner, waiting for someone to listen to him talk and watch him draw his pictures.

His name?.... .. .

We just call him 'TV.'

... as he stepped onto the moon and left earthlings puzzled over the difference between "man" and "mankind." In 1980, Jimmy Carter, accepting his party’s nomination, paid homage to a former vice president he called Hubert Horatio Hornblower. A year later, Diana Spencer reversed the first two names of her betrothed in her wedding vows, and thus, as Prince Charles Philip supposedly later joked, actually married his father. On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the Flubber Hall of Fame when he administered the presidential oath of office apparently without notes. Instead of having Barack Obama "solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States," Chief Justice Roberts had him "solemnly swear that I will execute the office of president to the United States faithfully." When Mr. Obama paused after "execute," the chief justice prompted him to continue with "faithfully the office of president of the United States." (To ensure that the president was properly sworn in, the chief justice re-administered the oath Wednesday evening.)

How could a famous stickler for grammar have bungled that 35-word passage, among the best-known words in the Constitution? Conspiracy theorists and connoisseurs of Freudian slips have surmised that it was unconscious retaliation for Senator Obama’s vote against the chief justice’s confirmation in 2005. But a simpler explanation is that the wayward adverb in the passage is blowback from Chief Justice Roberts’s habit of grammatical niggling.

Language pedants hew to an oral tradition of shibboleths that have no basis in logic or style, that have been defied by great writers for centuries, and that have been disavowed by every thoughtful usage manual. Nonetheless, they refuse to go away, perpetuated by the Gotcha! Gang and meekly obeyed by insecure writers.

Among these fetishes is the prohibition against "split verbs," in which an adverb comes between an infinitive marker like "to," or an auxiliary like "will," and the main verb of the sentence. According to this superstition, Captain Kirk made a grammatical error when he declared that the five-year mission of the starship Enterprise was "to boldly go where no man has gone before"; it should have been "to go boldly." Likewise, Dolly Parton should not have declared that "I will always love you" but "I always will love you" or "I will love you always."

Any speaker who has not been brainwashed by the split-verb myth can sense that these corrections go against the rhythm and logic of English phrasing. The myth originated centuries ago in a thick-witted analogy to Latin, in which it is impossible to split an infinitive because it consists of a single word, like dicere, "to say." But in English, infinitives like "to go" and future-tense forms like "will go" are two words, not one, and there is not the slightest reason to interdict adverbs from the position between them.

Though the ungrammaticality of split verbs is an urban legend, it found its way into The Texas Law Review Manual on Style, which is the arbiter of usage for many law review journals. James Lindgren, a critic of the manual, has found that many lawyers have "internalized the bogus rule so that they actually believe that a split verb should be avoided," adding, "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers has succeeded so well that many can no longer distinguish alien speech from native speech."

In his legal opinions, Chief Justice Roberts has altered quotations to conform to his notions of grammaticality, as when he excised the "ain’t" from Bob Dylan’s line "When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose." On Tuesday his inner copy editor overrode any instincts toward strict constructionism and unilaterally amended the Constitution by moving the adverb "faithfully" away from the verb.

President Obama, whose attention to language is obvious in his speeches and writings, smiled at the chief justice’s hypercorrection, then gamely repeated it. Let’s hope that during the next four years he will always challenge dogma and boldly lead the nation in new directions.

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard and the chairman of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary.

• Scientists say the higher your I.Q. The more you dream.
• The largest cell in the human body is the female egg.
• The smallest is the male sperm.
• You use 200 muscles to take one step.
• The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man.
• Your big toes have two bones each while the rest have three.
• A pair of human feet contain 250,000 sweat glands.
• A full bladder is roughly the size of a soft ball.
• The acid in your stomach is strong enough to dissolve razor blades.
• The human brain cell can hold 5 times as much information as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
• It takes the food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.
• The average human dream lasts 2-3 seconds.
• Men without hair on their chests are more likely to get cirrhosis of the liver than men with hair.
• At the moment of conception, you spent about half an hour as a single cell.
• There is about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
• Your body gives off enough heat in 30 minutes to bring half a gallon of water to a boil.
• The enamel in your teeth is the hardest substance in your body.
• Your teeth start developing (in your gums) 6 months before you are born.
• When you are looking at someone you love, your pupils dilate, they do the same when you are looking at someone you hate.
• Blondes have more hair than dark-haired people.

Someone in MI-5 (Military intelligence-internal) got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads, and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatsoever. At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by the government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort. By pure coincidence, Waddington was also the U. K. Licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly.

As it happened, 'games and pastimes' was a category of item qualified for insertion into 'CARE packages', dispatched by the International Red Cross, to prisoners of war. Under the strictest of secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were located (Red Cross packages were delivered to prisoners in accordance with that same regional system). When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece.

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:

1. A playing token, containing a small magnetic compass
2. A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together
3. Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian, and French currency, hidden within the piles of Monopoly money!

British and American air-crews were advised, before taking off on their first mission, how to identify a 'rigged' Monopoly set ----- by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square! Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, an estimated one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets.

Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely, since the British Government might want to use this highly successful ruse in still another, future war.

The story wasn't de-classified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honoured in a public ceremony.

Anyway, it's always nice when you can play that 'Get Out of Jail Free' card!

A: Long ago, dishes and cookware in Europe were made of a dense orange clay called 'pygg'. When people saved coins in jars made of this clay, the jars became known as 'pygg banks.' When an English potter misunderstood the word, he made a bank that resembled a pig. And it caught on.

Q: Did you ever wonder why dimes, quarters and half dollars have notches, while pennies and nickels do not?

A: The US Mint began putting notches on the edges of coins containing gold and silver to discourage holders from shaving off small quantities of the precious metals Dimes, quarters and half dollars are notched because they used to contain silver. Pennies and nickels aren't notched because the metals they contain are not valuable enough to shave..

Q: Why do men's clothes have buttons on the right while women's clothes have buttons on the left?

A: When buttons were invented, they were very expensive and worn primarily by the rich. Because wealthy women were dressed by maids, dressmakers put the buttons on the maid's right. Since most people are right-handed, it is easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left. And that's where women's buttons have remained since.

Q: Why do X's at the end of a letter signify kisses?

A: In the Middle Ages, when many people were unable to read or write, documents were often signed using an X. Kissing the X represented an oath to fulfill obligations specified in the document. The X and the kiss eventually became synonymous.

Q: Why is shifting responsibility to someone else called 'passing the buck'?

A: In card games, it was once customary to pass an item, called a buck, from player to player to indicate whose turn it was to deal. If a player did not wish to assume the responsibility, he would 'pass the buck' to the next player.

Q: Why do people clink their glasses before drinking a toast?

A: It used to be common for someone to try to kill an enemy by offering him a poisoned drink. To prove to a guest that a drink was safe, it became customary for a guest to pour a small amount of his drink into the glass of the host. Both men would drink it simultaneously. When a guest trusted his host, he would then just touch or clink the host's glass with his own.

Q: Why are people in the public eye said to be 'in the limelight'?

A: Invented in 1825, limelight was used in lighthouses and stage lighting by burning a cylinder of lime which produced a brilliant light. In the theatre, performers on stage 'in the limelight' were seen by the audience to be the center of attention.

Q: Why do ships and aircraft in trouble use 'mayday' as their call for help?

A: This comes from the French word m'aidez -meaning 'help me' -- and is pronounced 'mayday,'

Q: Why is someone who is feeling great 'on cloud nine'?

A: Types of clouds are numbered according to the altitudes they attain, with nine being the highest cloud If someone is said to be on cloud nine, that person is floating well above worldly cares..

Q: Why are zero scores in tennis called 'love'?

A: In France , where tennis first became popular, a big, round zero on scoreboard looked like an egg and was called 'l'oeuf,' which is French for 'egg.' When tennis was introduced in the US , Americans pronounced it 'love.'

Q: In golf, where did the term 'Caddie' come from?

A: When Mary, later Queen of Scots, went to France as a young girl (for education & survival), Louis, King of France, learned that she loved the Scot game 'golf.' So he had the first golf course outside of Scotland built for her enjoyment. To make sure she was properly chaperoned (and guarded) while she played, Louis hired cadets from a military school to accompany her. Mary liked this a lot and when she returned to Scotland (not a very good idea in the long run), she took the practice with her. In French, the word cadet is pronounced 'ca-day' and the Scots changed it into 'caddie.'

At the Arch Street Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia, one of the most unusual veterans' ceremonies unfolds at first light every Nov. 10 at what has to be one of the most obscure of tourist sites.

A handful of U.S. Marines and Marine Reserve Officers' Training Corps cadets from the nearby University of Pennsylvania assemble before an unmarked marble slab rising out of the grass, according to Navy Lt. Cmdr. Andrew J. McNiven. In silence, as they have for nearly 20 years, the young Marines place a wreath before the stone, salute and walk off as quietly as they came.

"Samuel Nicholas is buried here," explained Helen J. File, for 28 years the facilities director at the world's largest Quaker meeting house. "He was the Quaker who organized the Marines."

Nicholas was a wealthy Quaker when president Alexander Hamilton of the Continental Congress commissioned him on Nov. 28 in 1775 as the first Marine officer and, by extension, the first commandant of the Marines, said his great-great-great-great-granddaughter Diana Spies Pope, a medical researcher at a in state.

The problem then was that his desire to support independence from England conflicted with the Quaker "peace testimony" against all wars, File said. "They threw Nicholas out when he went to lead the Marines," she said. And when the college ROTC Marines in 1991 asked for permission to hold public ceremonies on Nov. 10, which the corps regards as its founding day, the Quakers refused because there "were strong feelings" against soldiers on the grounds, File said. "So I told [the Marines] to come early and do it quietly," she said, acknowledging that her husband, John, was a 20-year Marine, and both were concerned that there is no recognition of Nicholas in Philadelphia, no statue or guided tours of his home site just around the corner from Independence Hall.

"What's the harm in letting the youngsters come, as long as they're quiet and don't bring guns?" she asked. "When Nicholas died, the Quakers took him back and buried him here. So the truth is that he built the Marines, even if that makes people uncomfortable."

The Samuel Nicholas "stone" lies unmarked in the grass near the far northeastern gate across from the Betsy Ross House.

Even more surprising, and of greater relevance to most bridge players, is that other research has shown that you do not have to start when you're an adolescent to train your hippo - it can be prodded into activity at any age, given the right stimuli. The more complex the stimulus, the greater the challenge, the quicker the rewards are achieved. Many examples are given, from taking up crosswords to learning a new language - and that one is a beaut. Bridge, above all things, is the learning of a new, multi-faceted language, and proof of it's efficacy is the observation that eventually all bridge players die of many ailments, but rarely of demetia-related illness.

And here's another fact: you don't have to be clever to see the benefits. Bridge is not just for intellectuals, but for pretty well anyone who is prepared to make the effort, take the time, and train their hippo to be a good defender against the Alzheimer enemy.

So, if you have never thought of bridge as anything more than an old fuddy-duddy game, think again. There's clubs all over, most have courses at which you can learn a socially orineted, inexpensive yet challenging mental exercise, where you continually improve your performance, and where your hippo will trumpet victory. Well, your memory will improve, anyway.

And for long-term players: your memory has to be good - so remember the time you started learning, and treat newcomers with kindness and encouragement. They too want a happy hippo.

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did 'they' use that gauge then? Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads? Imperial Rome built the first long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads? Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels.

Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

And bureaucracies live forever. So the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's arse came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory at Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a horse's arse ... and you thought being a HORSE'S ARSE wasn't important!

So we were amazed, and hugely intrigued, by a revelatory piece that appeared recently on the ever-fascinating website Mental Floss. The article, entitled "World War II Weapon: Monopoly With Real Money", recounts the following amazing story:

Starting in 1941, increasing numbers of British airmen found themselves as the involuntary guests of the Third Reich, and the Crown was casting about for ways and means to facilitate their escape. Now obviously, one of the most helpful aids to that end is a useful, accurate map, one showing not only where-stuff-was, but also showing the locations of "safe houses" a POW on-the-lam could go to for food and shelter.

Paper maps had real drawbacks: they make a lot of noise when you open and fold them, they wear-out rapidly, and if they get wet, they turn into mush. Someone i n the MI-5 branch (one hopes it was the youthful incarnation of "Q"!), got the idea of printing escape maps on silk. It's durable, can be scrunched-up into tiny wads and unfolded as many times as needed, and makes no noise whatever.

At that time, there was only one manufacturer in Great Britain that had perfected the technology of printing on silk, and that was John Waddington, Ltd. When approached by HM Government, the firm was only too happy to do its bit for the war effort.

By pure coincidence, Waddington's was also the U.K. licensee for the popular American board game, Monopoly. As it happened, " games and pastimes" was a category of item qualified for insertion into "CARE packages" dispatched by the International Red Cross to prisoners of war of all belligerents.

Under strictest secrecy, in a securely guarded and inaccessible old workshop on the grounds of Waddington's, a group of sworn-to-secrecy employees began mass-producing escape maps, keyed to each region of Germany or Italy where Allied POW camps were located (Red Cross packages were delivered to prisoners in accordance with that same regional system). When processed, these maps could be folded into such tiny dots that they would actually fit inside a Monopoly playing piece

As long as they were at it, the clever workmen at Waddington's also managed to add:

A playing token containing a small magnetic compass A two-part metal file that could easily be screwed together Useful amounts of genuine high-denomination German, Italian and French currency hidden within the piles of Monopoly money! British and American air crews were advised, before taking off on their first missions, on how to identify a "rigged" Monopoly set - by means of a tiny red dot, one cleverly rigged to look like an ordinary printing glitch, located in the corner of the Free Parking square! Of the estimated 35,000 Allied POWS who successfully escaped, perhaps one-third were aided in their flight by the rigged Monopoly sets. Everyone who did so was sworn to secrecy indefinitely - HM Government might wan t to use this highly successful ruse in another, future war.

The story wasn't declassified until 2007, when the surviving craftsmen from Waddington's, as well as the firm itself, were finally honored in a public ceremony.

At any rate, it's always nice when you can play that "Get Out of Jail Free" card!