Do Elephants Jump? Read online

  Do

  Elephants

  Jump?

  An Imponderables® Book

  David Feldman

  Illustrated by Kassie Schwan

  For James Gleick

  Contents

  Preface

  Why Was He Called the Lone Ranger When Tonto Was Always Hanging Around?

  When Does a Bill Become a Beak on a Bird?

  What Does “Legitimate” Theater Mean? Where Can You Find “Illegitimate” Theater?

  Why Do Pianos Have 88 Keys?

  Why Do Rice Cakes Hold Together?

  Why Doesn’t the Water in Fire Hydrants Freeze During the Winter?

  Why Do So Many Bars Feature Televisions with the Sound Turned off?

  Why Do So Many Taverns Put Mirrors in Back of the Liquor Bottles Behind the Bar?

  Why Does the Pope Change His Name upon Assuming His Office?

  Do Identical Twins Have Identical Fingerprints? Identical DNA?

  Why Does Monopoly Have Such Unusual Playing Tokens?

  What Are Those Black Specks on Corn Chips, Tortillas, and Tortilla Chips? And Why Are the Specks on Nacho Cheese Tortilla Chips Less Dark?

  Why Do We Say “P.U.” When Something Smells Awful?

  Do Elephants Jump?

  What Is the Purpose of the Recessed Notch on the Bottom of Most Round Shampoo Bottles? Why Are There Two Notches on Some?

  Why Do Police Officers Hold Flashlights with an Overhand Grip?

  Why Are Newspapers So Effective in Cleaning Windows?

  Why Do We Fly Flags at Half-Mast to Honor the Dead?

  Where Is the Donkey in Donkey Kong?

  Why Don’t the Silver Fillings in Our Mouth Rust?

  Why Do Beavers Build Dams?

  How Do They Keep Staples in Their Packages Clumped Together?

  Why Did Pilgrims’ Hats Have Buckles?

  Who Are All Those People on the Sidelines During American Football Games?

  Why Do Crickets Chirp at Night? What Are They Up to During the Day? And Why Does It Seem That Crickets Chirp More in the Summer?

  How Do They Put the Hole in the Needle of a Syringe?

  Why Do FM Frequencies End in Odd Tenths?

  Why Do Streets and Sidewalks Sometimes Glitter?

  Why Do Thimbles Have Holes?

  How Do Birds Know Where to Peck for Worms?

  What Letters Does Campbell’s Include in Alphabet Soup in Countries That Don’t Use Our Alphabet (e.g., Greece, Israel, Egypt)?

  Who Decides Where the Boundary Line Is Between Oceans? If You’re on the Ocean, How Do You Know Where That Line Is?

  Why Do Priests Wear Black?

  Since Priests Wear Black, Why Does the Pope Wear White?

  Why Does the Pope Wear a White Skullcap, and When Did This Custom Begin? How Does He Keep It Fastened? And Why at Other Times Does He Wear a Double-Pointed Hat?

  Why Is There No Light in the Freezer Compartment?

  Why Don’t Most Ovens and Refrigerators Have Thermometers?

  Do Skunks Think Skunks Stink?

  Why Do Ice Trays Function Better When Put in Their Designated Area in the Freezer? Or Do They?

  Why Are Fraternities and Sororities and Most Secret Societies Named with Greek Letters?

  Why Are Charcoal Barbecues Usually Round and Gas Grills Usually Rectangular?

  Why Do We Rub Our Eyes When We’re Tired?

  Were Roman Chariots as Wobbly and Flimsy as Depicted in Movies? If So, How Could They Be Used Effectively in Wartime?

  Why Are New CDs Released on Tuesdays? Why Aren’t New Books Released on a Particular Day?

  Why Are Loons Singled Out as Lunatics?

  Why Are the Notre Dame Sports Teams Called “the Fighting Irish” When the School Was Founded by French Catholics?

  Why Did Bars Used to Put Sawdust on the Floor? Why Don’t They Anymore?

  Why Do Toads Have Warts?

  Why Does Patting on the Back Induce Burping in Babies?

  Why Are Thin-Cut Green Beans Called “French Style”?

  Why Do Older People Tend to Snore More Than Younger People?

  Why Do Many Whiplash Victims Feel OK the Day of the Accident and Much Worse Days Later?

  Why Do White Styrofoam Picnic Coolers Have Blue Specks in Them?

  Do Fish Really Bite More When It Is Raining?

  Why Are We Instructed to “Remove Card Quickly” When We Swipe Our Credit Cards at the Gas Pump or Grocery Store?

  Some Credit Card Reading Machines Ask You to Dip the Card and Pull It Out Rather Than Swipe. Does the Reader Pick Up the Data on the Way In or the Way Out?

  Why Are Flour Tortillas Larger Than Corn Tortillas?

  Why Do Our Noses Run in Cold Weather?

  Why Do Bulls in Cartoons Have Nose Rings? And Why Don’t Cows Have Them?

  Why Is Salt Sold in Round Containers?

  Why Is There a Two-Minute Warning in American Football?

  Why Does the Japanese Flag Sometimes Have Red Beams Radiating from the Sun?

  Why Do We “See Stars” When We Bump Our Head?

  How Is the Maximum Occupancy for a Public Room Determined?

  Why Do Teddy Bears Frown?

  Why Are the Sprinkles Put on Ice Cream and Doughnuts Also Called Jimmies?

  Why Do We Draw a Bead on a Target?

  Why Do Many Dictionaries Say That the Days of the Week Are Pronounced “Fri-DEE,” “Sun-DEE,” etc.?

  Why Do the Speed Controls on Fans Go from “Off” to “High” to “Low”? Wouldn’t It Make More Sense for Them to Go from “Off” to “Low” to “High”?

  Why Are Public Radio Stations Clustered on the Low End of the FM Dial in the United States?

  Why Do Pregnant Women Get Strange Food Cravings? And Why Do They Suddenly Start Hating Foods They Used to Love Before They Were Pregnant?

  Why Can’t We Buy Fresh Baby Corn in Markets?

  Why Are the Strips of Staples Designed for Office Staplers Too Long for the Space in the Stapler, Leaving Little Clumps to Clutter Drawers?

  Why Do Most Staplers Have a Setting to Bend Staples Outward?

  Why Was Charles Schulz’s Comic Strip Called Peanuts?

  What Happens to Sandbags After Flooding Is Over?

  Why Do Rinks Use Hot Water to Resurface the Ice?

  How Did Fire Helmets Get Their Distinctive Shape?

  Why Is Peanut Butter Sticky?

  Why Are the Uniforms of Professional Japanese Baseball Players Printed in English Letters and Arabic Numbers?

  Why Does Caucasian Babies’ and Children’s Hair Get Darker as They Age?

  Why Does the Treble Clef on Sheet Music Have Two Dots Next to It? What’s the Purpose of the Fussy Look of All the Clefs? And How Did Musicians Share Compositions Before There Was Sheet Music?

  Why Can’t You See Stars in the Background in Photos or Live Shots of Astronauts in Space?

  What Are Those Wigwams Doing off to the Side of Interstate Highways?

  Why Don’t Women Faint as Much as They Used To?

  Why Don’t Tornadoes Ever Seem to Hit Big Buildings or Big Cities?

  Why Do Only Kids Seem to Get Head Lice?

  Why Are Wells Round?

  Why Are Some People Double-Jointed?

  Why Do You Sometimes Find Ice in the Urinals in Men’s Bathrooms?

  Why Do Auto Batteries Lose Their Charge When Left on a Concrete Floor?

  Why Does Gum Get Hard When You Drink Water While Chewing?

  Why Is There a Dot on Billiards and Pool Cue Balls?

  Why Are Some Parts of Our Bodies More Ticklish Than Others?

  If All Time Zones Converge at the North and South Poles, How Do They Tell Time There?

  How Do You Tell Directions at the North and South Poles?

  W
hy Does Orange Juice Taste So Awful After You’ve Brushed Your Teeth?

  Who Was Casper the Friendly Ghost Before He Died?

  Letters

  Acknowledgments

  Searchable Terms

  Master Index of Imponderability

  Help!

  About the Author

  Credits

  Also by David Feldman

  Cover

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Preface

  Now we know how exterminators feel.

  Almost twenty years ago, we took it as our mission to help eradicate annoying pests from our world. But despite our nine previous books, Imponderables still spring from dark corners like cockroaches in a crumb-filled kitchen.

  Imponderables are the little mysteries of life that drive us nuts until we find the solution — mysteries that other reference books won’t tackle. Just as exterminators’ wallets are fattened by the indomitable spirit of vermin and the phobias of big humans about little creatures, so we are lucky to have found a career stamping out pests one at a time. We may snuff out one Imponderable, but for every mystery vanquished, it seems as if another appears. In 1986, we figure out why some pistachios are dyed red. In 2004, we discover why orange juice tastes so awful after you brush your teeth.

  Since our first book, the biggest change at Imponderables Central is the increasing reliance on the Internet. We now receive many more Imponderables submissions by e-mail than snail mail, and of course the World Wide Web is available for research. An exterminator might utilize space-age chemicals but still has to get on his hands and knees to spray the crack under the floorboard. Likewise, we find that we can’t rely on the expertise of random Web Sites. We use the Web, but mostly as a place to find the same caliber of experts that we’ve always relied upon to answer even the most elusive Imponderable.

  To celebrate our tenth Imponderables® book, and because it’s been several years since the last volume, we’re devoting more space to answering your Imponderables (every single one of our Imponderables in this book came from a reader, and the first person to ask each of the published questions wins a free, autographed copy) and to your letters, even if most of them are taking us to task for perceived malpractice. And, responding to countless requests, we have included a master index to all ten Imponderables® books and Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?

  Since the last book, there have been two developments we think you’d like to know about. One is that Malarky®, a game based on the Imponderables® books, is available across North America. And www.imponderables.com is now the cyberspace outpost of all things Imponderable. It includes news and information about what’s happening at Imponderables Central, a blog written by Dave Feldman, and absolutely no banners or pop-up ads.

  One thing hasn’t changed since the first book, Imponderables. Your involvement is crucial to the fun. The last few pages of the book will let you know how to get in touch with us. But just remember: We vanquish Imponderability, not creepy six-legged things. Imponderables: Let’s get ready to rumble!

  Why Was He Called the Lone Ranger When Tonto Was Always Hanging Around?

  The classic western features a lone hero entering a new town and facing a villain who threatens the peacefulness of a dusty burg. The Lone Ranger, on the other hand, came with a rather important backup, Tonto. Leaving aside questions of political correctness or racism, calling the masked man the Lone Ranger is a little like calling Simon and Garfunkel a Paul Simon solo act.

  Before we get to the “Lone” part of the equation, our hero actually was a ranger, in fact, a Texas Ranger. The Lone Ranger started as a radio show, first broadcast out of Detroit in 1933, created by George Trendle, and written by Fran Striker. The first episode established that circa 1850, the Lone Ranger was one of six Texas Rangers who were trying to tame the vicious Cavendish Gang. Unfortunately, the bad guys ambushed the Rangers, and all of the Lone Ranger’s comrades were killed. The Lone Ranger himself was left for dead. Among the vanquished was the Lone Ranger’s older brother, Dan.

  So for a few moments, long enough to give him his name, the Lone Ranger really was by himself. He was the lone surviving Ranger, even if he happened to be unconscious at the time. Tonto stumbled upon the fallen hero and, while nursing him back to health, noticed that the Ranger was wearing a necklace that Tonto had given him as a child. Many moons before, the Lone Ranger (who in subsequent retellings of the story we learn was named John Reid) saved Tonto’s life! Tonto had bestowed the necklace on his blood brother as a gift.

  When Reid regained his bearings, the two vowed to wreak revenge upon the Cavendish Gang and to continue “making the West a decent place to live.” Reid and Tonto dug six graves at the ambush site to make everyone believe that Reid had perished with the others, and to hide his identity, the Lone Ranger donned a black mask, made from the vest his brother was wearing at the massacre. Like Jimmy Olsen with Superman, Tonto was the only human privy to the Lone Ranger’s secret.

  Not that the Lone Ranger didn’t solicit help from others. It isn’t easy being a Ranger, let alone a lone one, without a horse. As was his wont, Reid stumbled onto good luck. He and Tonto saved a brave stallion from being gored by a buffalo, and nursed him back to health (the first episode of The Lone Ranger featured almost as much medical aid as fighting). Although they released the horse when it regained its health, the stallion followed them and, of course, that horse was Silver, soon to be another faithful companion to L.R.

  And would a lonely lone Ranger really have his own, personal munitions supplier? John Reid did. The Lone Ranger and Tonto met a man who the Cavendish Gang tried to frame for the Texas Ranger murders. Sure of his innocence, the Lone Ranger put him in the silver mine that he and his slain brother owned, and turned it into a “silver bullet” factory.

  Eventually, during the run of the radio show, which lasted from 1933 to 1954, the duo vanquished the Cavendish Gang, but the Lone Ranger and Tonto knew when they found a good gig. They decided to keep the Lone Ranger’s true identity secret, to keep those silver bullets flowing, and best of all, to bounce into television in 1949 for a nine-year run on ABC and decades more in syndication.

  The Lone Ranger was also featured in movie serials, feature movies, and comic books, and the hero’s origins mutated slightly or weren’t mentioned at all. But the radio show actually reran the premiere episode periodically, so listeners in the 1930s probably weren’t as baffled about why a law enforcer with a faithful companion, a full-time munitions supplier, and a horse was called “Lone.”

  Submitted by James Telfer IV of New York, New York.

  When Does a Bill Become a Beak on a Bird?

  There’s no ceremony when proud parents beam as their warbler’s bill graduates into beakdom. In fact, there’s no difference at all between a bill and a beak. They are one and the same.

  The relative size of birds’ bills varies enormously from species to species, and bills are much more instrumental to a bird than our proboscis, to which it is sometimes compared by the avian ignorant. The beak of a bird is a bony organ that surrounds the mouth and is essential to birds’ ability to eat food in the wild — depending upon the bird, the bill can serve as a chef’s knife, fork, food processor, or serving plate. For example, the hard, conical bill of a sparrow is designed to crush seeds, while hawks’ bills are hooked to facilitate tearing the flesh of their prey, and hummingbirds have long, thin bills to probe delicate flowers for nectar.