Imponderables Read online

  The Greeks later adapted the Phoenician language to their needs. They took sixteen characters from the Phoenicians, all consonants. It was up to the Phoenician reader to decide where the vowels belonged in a given word. A headline of a Phoeni-cian critic's review of this book, for example, might have read like this:

  “MPNDRBLS, PRTTY GD BK”

  Every spoken language has vowels and consonants, but a remarkable number of ancient written languages did not include vowels in their alphabet. Technically, a consonant, according to Webster's New World Dictionary, is a sound produced “by stopping and releasing the air stream (e.g., [our] p, t, k, b, d, g) or stopping it at one point while it escapes at another (m, n, l, r), or forcing it through a loosely closed or very narrow passage (f, v, s, z).” Consonants are formed by the vocal chords with the assistance of the tongue, teeth, or lips. A vowel, on the other hand, is formed simply by the motion of the vocal chords, with no obstruction by the other speech organs. The lack of vowels in the Phoenician alphabet is about all that keeps it from being a modern language.

  The Greeks

  The Greeks were scavengers, taking their favorite elements from the Semitic and Phoenician languages and synthesizing their own. Around the ninth century B.C., the Greeks added five vowels to what were essentially the Phoenician consonants, and these are the five vowels that English speakers can recognize, not only because the names of each vowel start with the five letters that are our vowels, but also because the names of all but the “o” vowel have become household words themselves: alpha, epsilon, upsilon, iota, and omikron. Alpha became the first letter in the Greek language.

  Sharp-eyed readers might ask how, if the Phoenicians didn't have vowels, their aleph metamorphosed into the Greeks' alpha. Actually, the alpha was taken from the Hebrew language rather than Phoenician, and its similarity to Phoenician is because aleph also means “ox” in Hebrew. The first letters of the Hebrew alphabet are alph, beth, gemel, dalth, which mean “ox,”“house,”“camel,” and “door,” respectively. The Greek equivalents are alpha, beta, gamma, and delta.

  The driving element in adaptation of written languages is whether the old language can express the sounds already verbally expressed in the adoptive country. The Greeks needed letters to express vowel sounds that already existed in their spoken language. The Phoenician alphabet did not have them, and although the Hebrew language did have vowel sounds, they were used erratically and sporadically. But the Hebrews did have some consonants that used sounds the Greeks did not have. This was the case with the first letter of the alphabet. In Hebrew, the aleph was a soft breathy sound that had no phonic equivalent in the Greek language. The Greeks took such “useless” consonants from the Hebrews and converted them to vowels in the Greek languages. Thus, the Greek vowels were Hebrew in origin and the consonants Phoenician.

  By adding a few consonants of their own, the Greeks ended up with a 24-letter alphabet. They had no equivalent of our c or v, and some of their letters stood for sounds different from their modern equivalents. Their p, for example, sounded like our r. Still, their alphabetical order is roughly the same as ours today, with several notable exceptions, including the fact that their z was the sixth, rather than the last, letter of their alphabet.

  The Romans

  The Romans were once ruled by the Etruscans, who used the Greek alphabet. Before their decline, Romans adopted the Greek alphabet and then began to make changes. The Romans established the current alphabetical order used by English-speaking countries, but their alphabet contained only 23 letters. J, u, and w, were introduced well after the birth of Christ.

  The letter j was originally used as a variant of the vowel i. Until the seventeenth century, Caesar's name would have been spelled Iulius. The w was expressed in Anglo-Saxon by the notation uu or u until about A.D. 900. The u itself was used as a variant of the letter v. It wasn't until the eighteenth century that the letter u was used exclusively as a vowel.

  Why did the Romans rearrange the order of the Greek alphabet? There were various reasons for the changes, perhaps none as interesting as why z got dumped at the end of the alphabet. At first, the Romans dropped the Greeks' sixth letter altogether, figuring it was unnecessary. When Rome conquered Greece in the first century B.C., the Romans decided they needed the letter back again, primarily in order to transliterate Greek words into Latin. By this time, however, the Romans had formalized their alphabet, and the z, having lost its rightful place in line, got sent to the back of the bus. Other Romance languages haven't seen the need to reassert z's original position.

  Clearly, the placement of letters in the alphabet was essentially an arbitrary one. It would make more sense, probably, to have all of the vowels lumped together separately at the beginning or end of the order. Learning alphabetical order doesn't matter much in helping to master English. Would we read or spell any less effectively if we learned the alphabet in reverse order? Yet the Ugarit tablets indicate that the alphabet was taught in alphabetical order, and linguists have found in most cultures that lists of alphabets invariably were written in the same order, despite the fact that unlike numerical order, the order of letters has no intrinsic meaning.

  It is the utter serendipity of our abetical order that makes the explanation to this Imponderable so disarming. Would anyone guess that a comes before b because, for an ancient Semitic culture, “ox” came before “house?”

  Why does unsweetened canned grapefruit taste sweeter than fresh grapefruit?

  Paranoid types suspect food packagers of sneaking sugar into cans and jars of this most austere of fruits. Canned grapefruit simply tastes sweeter than fresh.

  Paranoids, relax. The only reason canned grapefruit is sweeter (or unsweetened grapefruit juice is so palatable) is because the fruits are picked from the trees later than those you would find at the produce section of your grocery store. Obviously, if fruits are picked while they are at their peak of flavor, they would be spoiled by the time many consumers had the chance to buy them. Supermarkets avoid this problem by selling grapefruit before it has reached maturity. Spoilage is the bane of produce marketers—after all, what can a grocery store do with overripe bananas but dump them in a box, sell them for 25 percent of the regular price, and hope that someone wants to make banana bread?—so canners have an advantage over their fresh fruit competitors. Canners are able to process the fruits immediately after they are picked.

  A few canned grapefruit suppliers sweeten their grapefruit by including the juices of other fruits, but this tinkering isn't necessary. Fresh grapefruit, eaten at the peak of ripeness, belies its image as bitter and astringent.

  How can cats see in the dark?

  They can't. No animal possesses the ability to give light. Stick a cat in a dark cave and it will not be able to tell the difference between a stalactite and a stalagmite. Cats are no more able to see in total darkness than humans.

  What cats are able to do is to reflect very faint light rays. When they appear to glow in the dark, cats' eyes are reflecting what little natural or artificial light is available in a seemingly dark environment.

  The structure that allows cats to reflect light is called the tapetum lucidum, an iridescent layer of cells around the optic nerve. The tapetum lucidum is part of the membrane between the cat's retina and the outer covering of the pupils. When light is cast upon the tapetum lucidum, it is reflected back as if the cat's eyes were mirrors. All cats, including jungle varieties like lions, jaguars, and tigers, have the capability of reflecting light rays even though they cannot see in complete darkness.

  Cats are fundamentally nocturnal animals. Even though they cannot see in total darkness, cats' physiology is designed for them to see much better at night than their bumbling owners. Cats' eyes are positioned more forward on their heads than ours, allowing them a wide field of vision, especially since each eye is capable of overlapping the other's sight. With this binocular vision, cats have two chances to spot a scampering mouse. Cats' pupils are very sensitive to ultraviolet ligh
t, enabling them to see things humans cannot. The visual purple in the epithelial rods of their retina allows cats to catch ultraviolet rays.

  Less well known is the fact that by comparison to humans, cats are veritable Mr. Magoos during the day. Their slit pupils, which make them look so ominous in Stephen King movies, protect their retinas from the sun. The slits are composed of two hoods that function as curtains, which can be drawn to let in the sun or pulled together to block the sun out. When pulled together, as they often are during the day, a cat's vision is extremely narrow.

  So cats' vision is highly overrated. They can't see well in bright sun, not at all in complete darkness. They can outsee humans only in moderate or dark light—like in a house, where they spend all of their time.

  How do they get white wine from black grapes?

  Most people are surprised when they learn that white wine is often made from black grapes. How can this be? First of all, black grapes aren't exactly the color of 8-balls. Although some black grapes are bluish black, many are really deep red. But this merely begs the question and adds a new one: How do they get white wine out of deep-red grapes?

  The answer is simple, and you can demonstrate it to yourself. Go into your refrigerator and pull out the darkest grape you find. Or if you are so inclined, run without delay to your friendly produce merchant and purchase a few of his or her darkest grapes. Place a grape between your thumb and forefinger. Crush it. After wiping the gook off your shirt, look at the liquid that came out. Pretty puny stuff, huh?

  Almost any grape juice will be a white or yellowish color. The only reason your red wine is so deep and vivid is that the color is derived not from the juice of the grape but from the fruit's fermented skin. Without the skin, a white wine can be made from just about any color grape. Even champagne is made partly from black grapes.

  Why does full service at most gas stations cost much more in proportion to self-service than it did when first introduced? Why does the price differential between self-service and full service vary between the various grades of gasoline at the same service station?

  The answer to this Imponderable can't be understood without realizing the enormous changes that have swept gasoline marketing in the last twenty years. The oil crises (famine and glut) have deterred domestic oil companies from spending money on new drilling. The trend toward streamlining operations continues unabated.

  The major oil companies have stopped building new stations. In 1974, the average major oil company constructed only 8 new service stations in the entire country and deactivated 295. In 1982, the large oil companies constructed an average of 9 new stations and deactivated 98.

  The largest selling item at most service stations—unleaded gasoline—wasn't even available twenty years ago. One of the previous best-selling gasolines—leaded premium—is unavailable at most service stations outside of the West Coast.

  The configuration of most gas stations has changed radically in the last twenty years. While most stations offered only full service two decades ago, only about 25 percent of today's gas stations provide full service exclusively. More than a third offer a split-island choice, and self-service-only stations and self-service convenience stores comprise about another third of all gasoline sales in the United States. As recently as ten years ago, almost half of all service stations were full service only.

  There are many reasons for these radical changes, and all of them contribute to why the prices at the pump often seem irrational. Here are four of the most important factors in explaining the changing economic picture at the service station.

  Legal

  A federal law, the Petroleum Marketing Practices Act, dictates that the large oil companies can set only the wholesale price of gasoline. Mobil or Shell acts as a distributor of gasoline, but the service station dealers retain total autonomy as price-setters. The wholesale prices of the major oil companies may vary considerably, depending upon the costs of transporting gas to that location and upon the local supply-and-demand situation.

  Dealers' Costs

  The cost of gasoline to the dealer is called the rack price. This is the wholesale price to the dealer if he or she picks up the gasoline and transports it back to the station. The distributors will deliver the gasoline for a price, which can be substantial considering that the average service station possesses three underground tanks that hold a total of approximately 25,000 gallons of gasoline.

  At the time of this writing, the wholesale price for gasoline is not out of proportion to the retail one. Two different oil companies estimated that their average wholesale rack prices were 73 cents for regular leaded, 75 cents for unleaded, and 80 cents for super unleaded. Regular leaded will almost always cost less than unleaded, and unleaded, of course, will always cost less than premium leaded.

  The biggest variable in service station costs is labor. Even all self-service stations must hire cashiers. Service bays will increase revenue (there are a lot of bucks in mechanical work) but will also greatly increase inventory costs and space requirements. And unlike the guy who pumps gas, mechanics cannot be found who will work for minimum wage. If the owner can find gas jockeys for minimum wage and can charge enough extra for full service, more profits can be realized. But splitting service bays can mean long lines and impatient customers when the self-service island is clogged and the full-service island is empty. And worse, full-service customers are less than thrilled when employees are busy waiting on other full-service customers and they eye folks getting in and out at the self-service pumps before they even get to the pumps. If the station converts to all self-service, loyal customers might leave in droves to search for full-service establishments. So although it is easy to estimate the costs and economies of self-service vs. full service, it is harder to prejudge its impact on the volume of customers and the retention of their loyalty (e.g., “If we convert to self-service, will our old customers simply flock to the service station with the best prices?”).

  Conservation

  Not only are there fewer gas stations than there were ten years ago, there is less gas being sold, despite the increase in the number of cars on the road. From 1975-1982, the total consumption of motor gasoline went down by over 10 percent.

  Almost every major accessory that gasoline stations used to sell has been improved in performance and reliability in the last ten years. We have gone from a V8 society to a 6-cylinder one. Newer cars need changes of oil much less often. Tires and batteries last longer.

  For the service station, there is only one redeeming statistic in our nation's successful oil conservation drive—because of the attrition in service stations, more gallons of gasoline are now sold per terminal than ten years ago. And more gasoline per service station.

  Today's service stations are clearly leaner and meaner than they once were. They were forced into focusing on gasoline rather than accessories and repairs because of the threat of…

  Competition

  Until the mid-seventies, conventional service stations sold about one-third of the nation's tires, batteries, and accessories. This share plummeted suddenly in the mid-seventies, and although the drop has leveled off and the dollar value of these sales is more than that of ten years ago, service stations have permanently lost market share and seem not to want to fight to reclaim it. Sales of motor oil, particularly, have sprung a leak, as supermarkets, drug stores, discount stores, and other retailers went after the market aggressively. Specialized tire stores effectively launched advertising blitzes focusing on “name-brand” tires, hitting service stations on their vulnerable spot (most customers don't trust a gas station tire as much as a “household name” like Goodyear or Firestone). The one area in which service stations seem to be holding their own is in batteries, lubrication, and exhaust-system replacement, areas where do-it-yourselfers might fear to tread.

  More dangerous competition than the specialty and discount stores are convenience stores, since they threaten service stations' sales of their most important product—gasoline. Sou
thland's Seven-Eleven stores, for example, must be reckoned with as a major force in gasoline marketing. There are now over 50,000 convenience stores in the United States and about half of them sell gasoline. In 1982, according to the American Petroleum Institute, the average convenience store had 5 hoses and pumped over 38,000 gallons per month.

  Convenience-store owners find gas sales synergistic. Gas patrons, on the way to pay their bills, make impulse food purchases. Others, out for a six-pack, figure they might as well kill two birds with one stone, and gas up. In almost every way, the convenience store has a cost advantage over the conventional service station. The construction of a convenience store costs one-half that of service stations, and gas pumps are usually located in areas of the parking lot that were previously not utilized. The salary of store managers at convenience stores is much lower than that of gas station dealers.

  Pricing Strategy for Conventional Service Stations

  Conventional service stations are pulled in two directions. On the one hand, since an increasing percentage of their volume lies in gasoline sales, they must be assured that their profit margin on gas is high. On the other hand, faced with the low-balling price competition of convenience stores, which are invariably self-service, the ultra-low-price strategy of some major oil companies (such as Arco, which has reduced prices by eliminating credit cards) and less expensive independent service stations (“generic” gas), service stations must compete in price to survive. Twenty years ago, customers were not so price-sensitive, largely because the service station was not viewed solely as a gas dispenser, but also as a one-stop automobile clinic, where it paid to establish rapport with the people who maintained and fixed cars. Now, when all gas stations provide essentially the same products and cannot offer service as a distinguishing benefit, price becomes the only significant difference among service stations for many consumers.