Questions you've always wanted answered

[Mark James]

This is hard to describe but what do you call it when you get a bit off skin off the side of your fingernail? I've asked some friends and everyone seems to have their own colloquial name for it. I've always called it a mitch. One friend calls it a ting and his girlfriend calls it a granny. What do you call it and does anyone know what the actual medical name is for it?

I know that as the quick of the nail, and I know the little very pullable items that unexpectedly go all the way up to your elbow causing a week of agony are bloody annoying.

Quick seems to be getting a bit of consensus. Both my folks call it that anyway.

It's a hangnail isn't it?

I thought a hangnail was something else and I googled it to find out what it is but it appears that is the recognised medical name.

[Ian Volante]

This is hard to describe but what do you call it when you get a bit off skin off the side of your fingernail? I've asked some friends and everyone seems to have their own colloquial name for it. I've always called it a mitch. One friend calls it a ting and his girlfriend calls it a granny. What do you call it and does anyone know what the actual medical name is for it?

I know that as the quick of the nail, and I know the little very pullable items that unexpectedly go all the way up to your elbow causing a week of agony are bloody annoying.

Quick seems to be getting a bit of consensus. Both my folks call it that anyway.

It's a hangnail isn't it?

I thought a hangnail was something else and I googled it to find out what it is but it appears that is the recognised medical name.

Of course!

[Ian Volante]

Why isn't it possible to make roads out of stuff that doesn't develop potholes?

It is, they're just more expensive.https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/4/15544 ... sportation

That talks about steel fibres in asphalt, in the past I've read about plastics too:

https://energyindemand.com/2018/11/03/m ... -roadways/

[Gavin Chipper]

Intresting. I've always just found potholes a bit odd. It seems to me that road tarmac is the exception rather than the rule for how stuff generally wears out. Most things in the world would wear away more evenly rather than just develop random holes in it

[Ian Volante]

Intresting. I've always just found potholes a bit odd. It seems to me that road tarmac is the exception rather than the rule for how stuff generally wears out. Most things in the world would wear away more evenly rather than just develop random holes in it

A mixture of ongoing high and uneven pressure being applied, combined with porosity allowing freeze/thaw cycles.

[Marc Meakin]

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard

[Gavin Chipper]

Why is it that when a car crashes into a house (which seems happen quite a lot going by the news coverage), the wall of the house is completely destroyed and the car basically intact? It's not what I'd expect at all.

[Peter Mabey]

Why don't the Three Musketeers ever use (or even carry) their muskets?

[David Williams]

Because a musket was so big you couldn't carry it around, it was a battlefield weapon.

Under current seating arrangements, how does a Dictionary Corner guest know to say "But Susie has a longer word"?

[Mark James]

Why is the sex analogy called "the birds and the bees"? Shouldn't it be the bees and the flowers? What have the birds got to do with it?

[Gavin Chipper]

Or you could say it should be the birds and the other birds and ask what the bees have to do with it.

[Marc Meakin]

Why is the sex analogy called "the birds and the bees"? Shouldn't it be the bees and the flowers? What have the birds got to do with it?

I believe Samuel Coleridge is responbsible for the first useage in a poem in the early 1800s

[Callum Todd]

Why is the sex analogy called "the birds and the bees"? Shouldn't it be the bees and the flowers? What have the birds got to do with it?

Isn't it from kids seeing animals mating in the wild and asking an adult (typically a parent) what they're doing? This does happen. I specifically remember seeing a bee mount another bee in flight as a kid and my mum having to explain what they we was happening.

[Mark James]

I've always understood it as a response to where babies come from questions without necessarily being prompted by witnessing actual copulation and the bees pollinating flowers is supposed to be an easy to understand explanation of fertilisation with an observable example.

[Marc Meakin]

When was AD and BC first used in history?

[Fred Mumford]

When was AD and BC first used in history?

Long after 79AD, that's why I hate that twattish advert so much.

[Gavin Chipper]

I'd always assumed that they had always used BC without really knowing why and that was why they invented Jesus as an ad hoc explanation.

[Marc Meakin]

When was AD and BC first used in history?

Long after 79AD, that's why I hate that twattish advert so much.

It was the twattish advert that brought me here lol

[Mark James]

Who should be recognised as the last man to walk on the moon? Gene Cernon was the 11th person to step on to the moon and Harrison Schmidt was the 12th but Cernon got back in to the lander module after Schmidt. So Cernon was technically the last person to actually be on the moon but he had walked on it before Schmidt. I would say that Schmidt was the last person to walk on the moon and Cernon was the last person to be on the moon.

[Gavin Chipper]

From that I'd say Cernon was the last person to walk on the moon but Schmidt was the last person to walk onto the moon.

[Marc Meakin]

From that I'd say Cernon was the last person to walk on the moon but Schmidt was the last person to walk onto the moon.

Stanley Kubrick is dead now so it will be difficult to substantiate this

[Gavin Chipper]

Apparently when you leave the gas on, the smell is an artificial smell that's been added to the methane as a warning, as methane has no smell. So my question is - why is the smell "Can you smell gas?" rather than "I can fucking well smell that someone has left the gas on!"

[Graeme Cole]

Apparently when you leave the gas on, the smell is an artificial smell that's been added to the methane as a warning, as methane has no smell. So my question is - why is the smell "Can you smell gas?" rather than "I can fucking well smell that someone has left the gas on!"

"can you smell gas?" = "can you smell the gaseous mixture which includes an odorous additive and which when piped into homes as fuel is commonly known and referred to on the gas bill as 'gas'?"

[David Williams]

Before they discovered oil and gas in the North Sea, domestic gas supplies were made from coal. Coal gas, or town gas, had a distinctive smell, instantly recognisable. When they switched over to North Sea gas they put an additive in so that the smell would be the same.

[Marc Meakin]

In a similar vane electric cars have to make an artificial noise so you can hear them coming

[Gavin Chipper]

Apparently when you leave the gas on, the smell is an artificial smell that's been added to the methane as a warning, as methane has no smell. So my question is - why is the smell "Can you smell gas?" rather than "I can fucking well smell that someone has left the gas on!"

"can you smell gas?" = "can you smell the gaseous mixture which includes an odorous additive and which when piped into homes as fuel is commonly known and referred to on the gas bill as 'gas'?"

OK...

Before they discovered oil and gas in the North Sea, domestic gas supplies were made from coal. Coal gas, or town gas, had a distinctive smell, instantly recognisable. When they switched over to North Sea gas they put an additive in so that the smell would be the same.

Interesting. You'd think that they would make it stronger though anyway.

In a similar vane electric cars have to make an artificial noise so you can hear them coming

Yeah, I think I might have heard this. But apparently most of car noise is from tyres anyway. Though this might be less so at lower speeds through a town with lots of schoolchildren to run over.

[Phil Reynolds]

I would say that Schmidt was the last person to walk on the moon and Cernon was the last person to be on the moon.

Did Cernan not walk on the moon after Schmidt got back into the lander then?

[Marc Meakin]

When your mobile phone has no signal and says emergency calls only how does that work with no signal?

[Fiona T]

When your mobile phone has no signal and says emergency calls only how does that work with no signal?

It shows the signal from your network. Emergency calls will use any network.

[Mark Deeks]

How come when you get fatter, your penis doesn't get any bigger?

(My motivations for asking this question are mine and mine alone.)

[Marc Meakin]

How come when you get fatter, your penis doesn't get any bigger?

(My motivations for asking this question are mine and mine alone.)

If anything it najes it look smaller, or so I'm told .
Beat solution is loose weight or get a partner with small hands
I chose the latter

[Mark Deeks]

To be fair, if I require a partner to have both hands AND no sense of smell, I'm really narrowing my market.

[Marc Meakin]

How come when you get fatter, your penis doesn't get any bigger?

(My motivations for asking this question are mine and mine alone.)

If anything it makes it look smaller, or so I'm told .
Best solution is lose weight or get a partner with small hands
I chose the latter

[Ian Volante]

To be fair, if I require a partner to have both hands AND no sense of smell, I'm really narrowing my market.

Hang around at a Covid testing facility, preferably near a travelling circus.

[Mark Deeks]

What's with the shoes-on-telephone-lines thing?

[Paul Anderson]

Means folk are selling contraband in the area

[Mark Deeks]

If that's known, why signal it?

[Paul Anderson]

From concerned residents I imagine who don't want to explicitly call someone out, but rather alert the authorities to be on the look-out

[Ian Volante]

Means folk are selling contraband in the area

Ha, I find that hard to believe, although it does seem to be a common explanation. Seems more likely highly amusing bullying.

[Marc Meakin]

When I were a lad in the early 1970s there was a spate of bicycle tyes around lamp posts.
I was always impressed with whoever climbed up the lamp post to do it or even better, was skilled enough to throw the tyre that accurately

[Gavin Chipper]

Why don't almonds taste almondy?

[Marc Meakin]

Why don't almonds taste almondy?

They do in CSW

[Gavin Chipper]

Why don't almonds taste almondy?

They do in CSW

It's valid in Countdown too.

[Marc Meakin]

Why don't almonds taste almondy?

They do in CSW

It's valid in Countdown too.

What do they taste like, cyanide?

[Gavin Chipper]

They do in CSW

It's valid in Countdown too.

What do they taste like, cyanide?

Well, you know there's an almond flavour don't you? But if you just eat almonds, they don't taste of it. They're very plain.

[Thomas Cappleman]

It's valid in Countdown too.

What do they taste like, cyanide?

Well, you know there's an almond flavour don't you? But if you just eat almonds, they don't taste of it. They're very plain.

Apparently there's 2 different varieties - one used for eating, one for "almond flavor", with the difference being cyanide.

Source: http://foodlorists.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... lmond.html

[Marc Meakin]

Cant say ive ever eaten plain almonds

[Marc Meakin]

When does winter begin in the Northern Hemisphere.
My partner was born on the 12th December and I day she is an Autumn Baby as i thought winter starts on the shortest day but i have read elsewhere its the first.
What is right?

[Gavin Chipper]

When does winter begin in the Northern Hemisphere.
My partner was born on the 12th December and I day she is an Autumn Baby as i thought winter starts on the shortest day but i have read elsewhere its the first.
What is right?

Tradionally it starts on the shortest day, but some people use the December to February definition, including TV weather forecasters, who like to make it sound like its got more credibility by calling it "meteorological winter". See this thread.

[Fred Mumford]

My partner was born on the 12th December

In the UK at least, the 12th December is normally the date of the earliest sunset time in the whole year - the nights start getting lighter from then on.

However, the shortest day is the 21st as the mornings continue to get darker until New Year's Eve - so from about the 12th to 31st of December both the sunrise and sunset are getting later in the day.

A similar thing happens in summer, albeit for a smaller range of dates - mornings get darker from about the 18th June, but sunsets only get earlier from the 24th.

[Gavin Chipper]

What do they taste like, cyanide?

Well, you know there's an almond flavour don't you? But if you just eat almonds, they don't taste of it. They're very plain.

Apparently there's 2 different varieties - one used for eating, one for "almond flavor", with the difference being cyanide.

Source: http://foodlorists.blogspot.com/2007/11 ... lmond.html

Thanks. I probably could have looked it up.

Having said that, once my mum made some thing with chopped almonds on (normal almonds) and I did notice an almondy taste from them.

[Marc Meakin]

Why do carrots taste horrible, to me, but i like carrot cake

[Mark Deeks]

In cryptocurrency terms, what's data mining?

[Callum Todd]

In cryptocurrency terms, what's data mining?

I read an article a bit ago that touched on this, although I couldn't quote work out if it hadn't really explained what 'mining' is or if it had and I was just too stupid to understand it. It's in bullet point 6. The gist of it appears to be this:

"Bitcoin mining is the process of adding new groups of transactions (known as blocks) to the shared transaction record (known as the blockchain)."

Doesn't make things any clearer for me but maybe I'm missing some illuminating piece of knowledge.

[Gavin Chipper]

Is that what Mark was asking? There's bitcoin mining and there's data mining, which I'm not aware of any link to bitcoin.

[Callum Todd]

Oh, I thought it was the same thing. Maybe I understood it even less than I thought.

[Marc Meakin]

3 cans of Strongbow Dark fruits and i feel drunk.
Am I a lightweight?

[Adam Gillard]

Why don't people riding or leading a horse down a public street clean up their (horses') poo? Are they supposed to / are there laws about these things? Has anyone ever seen someone clean it up?

[Gavin Chipper]

Why don't people riding or leading a horse down a public street clean up their (horses') poo? Are they supposed to / are there laws about these things? Has anyone ever seen someone clean it up?

It's been long since established that horse people are not to be trusted, so it would be surprising if they bothered to clean up any poo, whether from themselves or from their horse. I've also wondered about laws, but I think maybe it's exempt because horse poo isn't quite as toxic or nasty as dog poo, and you could probably have it in a sandwich without coming to too much harm. I wouldn't try it though.

Well, it seems there's various discussion on the internet and to pick one random web page

Unlike with dogs, there is no legal requirement for horse owners to clean up their animals’ mess; however section 161 of the Highways Act 1980, makes it an offence to deposit anything whatsoever on a highway which may injure or endanger other road users.

[Marc Meakin]

Why do they sing 30 years of hurt in the three Lions song that came out in 1996.
Surely after winning the world cup there isnt any hurt until 1970 when we got knocked out