1. True or False? Clear (Scotch) tape was originally invented to cover small cuts and scrapes before the Band-Aid was invented. False. Richard Drew invented the tape to help butchers, grocers and the like seal their food more effectively. It provided an aesthetically pleasing and moisture proof sealing method to keep food safe in cellophane. Richard Drew had also invented what we now call masking tape a little earlier for the original purpose of helping car painters make a clean, crisp line when painting a car two different colors.
2. True or False? The very first Post It note was used as a way to keep assembly line instructions handy at a candy factory. False. The original inventor of the adhesive part of the Post-It, a scientist by the name of Spencer Silver, was trying to make an extra strong adhesive when he accidentally created an extra weak one. He kept his invention, however, in case it eventually came in handy. Three years later, a colleague of Silver's, Arthur Fry, was singing in his church choir and used small pieces of paper to mark his place in the hymnal but they constantly fell out of the book. So, he tried Silver's weak adhesive in conjunction with his small pieces of paper and it worked effectively. It held well but pulled away easily, not damaging the pages of the hymnal. Thus, the idea was born!
3. True or False? A person who studies the teeth is called a scatologist. False. The correct answer is odontologist. The prefix "odonto-" refers to the teeth. Since teeth are part of the skull, they may also be studied by crainologists. Crainologists are the studiers of the skull.
4. True or False? An olive tree can live up to one hundred years. False. An olive tree can live up to two thousand years. Some of the oldest olive trees in the world can be found, appropriately, on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Israel. These trees are reputed to be two thousand years old. A botanist from Bar Ilan University in Israel describes a three thousand year old olive tree near Beer Sheva, but declines to give the exact location of the tree due to fear of what a curious public will do to it. According to the Wikipedia article on olives, a tree on the Greek island of Crete has been proved to be two thousand years old by tree ring analysis.
5. True or False? A yegg is a safe cracker or robber. True.
vegg \YEG\ noun: safecracker; also : robber
Example sentence:
"[Her] attorney does admit that his client had developed 'platonic' relationships with two cons, a couple of yeggs named Ollie and Marvin, but only to gather information." ( Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 6, 2002)
Did you know?
"Safecracker" first appeared in print in English around 1825, but English speakers evidently felt that they needed a more colorful word for this rather colorful profession. No one is quite sure where "yegg" came from. It first appeared in the New York Evening Post on June 23, 1903, in an article about "the prompt breaking up of the organized gangs of professional beggars and yeggs." By 1905, it had acquired the variant "yeggmen," which was printed in the New York Times in reference to unsavory characters captured in the Bowery District. "Yegg" has always been, and continues to be, less common than "safecracker," but it still turns up once in a while.
