Editorial
Front Page - Friday, February 25, 2011
Brainbuster — Make your brain tingle!
Kay Bona
1. Several countries allow men many wives, but in what country is it the other way around? Nepal; Bangladesh; Burma; none of the above, women are not allowed more than one husband anywhere.
2. Which company makes Louisville Slugger Baseball bats? Hillerich and Bradsby; Hawthorn and Barrett; Rawlings; Remington.
3. What was the Bikini named after? The Roman Godess, Bikini; Australian swimmer and performer, Annette Bikinie Kellerman; The South Pacific Bikini Atolls; Key West’s Bikini Beach.
4. In which country is collecting mushrooms a major national hobby? Italy; China; Japan; Russia.
5. Where did we get the expression, “Point Blank”? From the French; From the Dutch; From the Germans; From General George W. Patton.
6. True or False: The syllables of the musical scale, do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do have a specific meaning.
7. Which company made the first pair of Cowboy jeans? Lee; Jacob Davis; Levi Strauss; Wrangler.
8. True or False: A spectator at a football game was killed by a flying model “lawnmower.”
ANSWERS
1. Nepal. Polyandry happens when prospective husbands pool their resources to afford the high cost of a dowry. It is practiced to a lesser extent in Bhutan and Tibet. 2. Hillerich and Bradsby. The 120-year history of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat began with 17-year-old John A. “Bud” Hillerich, whose father, J. F. Hillerich, owned a woodworking shop in Louisville, Ky. Legend has it that Bud slipped away from work one afternoon to watch Louisville’s major league team, the Louisville Eclipse. The team’s star, Pete Browning, mired in a hitting slump, broke his bat. Bud invited Browning over to his father’s shop to make him a new one. Bud designed a new bat from a long slab of wood, and got three hits with it the next day. In 1894, with Bud Hillerich taking over from his father, the name “Louisville Slugger” was registered with the U.S. Patent Office. 3. Invented by French engineer Louis Réard in 1946, the bikini was named after the Bikini Atolls in the South Pacific. 4. Russia. Mushrooming while on summer vacation is a very popular event in Siberia. 5. From the French. The center of a target was once a small white spot and the French word for white is blanc. The French for point means aim, so the term literally means, “aim at the center of the target.” Point blank range is a range so short you can hardly miss a bull’s-eye. 6. True. Ut-queant laxis; Re-Resonare fibris; Mi-Mira Gestorum; Fa-Famuli Tuorum; So-Solve Polluti; La-Labii Reatuam. Guido d’Arezzo invented the hexachord scale by using part of a hymn to St. John as the names of the notes, since each line of the hymn started with a higher note. Later, the seventh note was needed and taken from the last line of the hymn, Sancte Iohannes. “Do” was later substituted for “ut” because it sounded better, and “ti” was substituted for “si” for ease in singing. 7. In 1853, the California gold rush was in full swing, and everyday items were in short supply. Levi Strauss, a 24-year-old German immigrant, left New York for San Francisco with a small supply of dry goods with the intention of opening a branch of his brother’s New York dry goods business. A prospector wanted to know what Mr. Strauss was selling. When Strauss told him he had rough canvas to use for tents and wagon covers, the prospector said, “You should have brought pants,” saying he couldn’t find a pair of pants strong enough to last. From then on, the jeans were a hit. 8. True. The Electronic Eagles of the Radio Control Association of Greater New York presented the halftime show of the Jets-Patriots game in Shea stadium on December 9, 1979. The group’s air show featured radio-controlled airplanes in unusual shapes. Near the end of the show, Philip Cushman lost control of the model aircraft he was guiding, a plane shaped like a lawn-mower, and it plummeted into the crowd, striking Kevin Rourke of Lynn, Mass., who died four days later from injuries.
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