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Stump
Me Questions Answered in June 2001
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Q.: Why
do we use "mayday" as a distress call?
- No Name Given
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A.:
Mayday is taken from the French word m'aider. The
distress call is actually venez m'aider...come help me.
Thanks to Alan Law for the help.
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Q.: Who
was the actor in the very first Batman movie?
- No Name Given
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A.:
There have been seven people who've played Batman on film:
Batman, a 15-chapter Columbia serial in
1943, was played by Lewis Wilson.
Batman and Robin,
another Columbia serial in 1949, starred Robert Lowery.
Batman
in 1966 starred Adam West. It was based on the
television series.
Batman (1989) & Batman
Returns (1992) starred Michael Keaton.
Batman Forever (1995)
starred Val Kilmer.
Batman & Robin (1997) starred
George Clooney.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993)
was based on the Batman cartoon series. Kevin Conroy
voiced the Dark Knight.
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Q.: What
Broadway play is the song Four Jews in a Room Bitching
from?
- Craig
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A.:
It comes from March of the Falsettos.
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Q.: What
famous person's real name is Percy Miller?
- No Name Given
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A.:
Master P. With a name like Percy, no wonder he goes
by an alias (sorry to all you Percy's out there).
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Q.: What
is the name of the main star destroyer in Star Wars? Where
did Lando get the Millennium Falcon? What happened to the
wookie race? Who is Princess Leia's uncle?
- No Name Given
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A.:
OK, let's take these in order. All answers come from
starwars.com, so if you're going to argue with me blame
them.
1) The star destroyer was
called Devastator. By the way, Darth Vader's
ship in The Empire Strikes Back was called Executor.
2) Lando won the Millennium
Falcon in a game of sabacc. This is the same game
Han Solo won to take the Falcon away from Lando some years
later.
3) The wookiees were enslaved
by the Empire. They were freed when the Rebellion
defeated the Empire after Return of the Jedi.
4) Princess Leia's uncle is
Uncle Owen (from the original Star Wars).
Nice trick question since Owen is also Luke's uncle.
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Q.: What
is more powerful than God, worse than the devil, and if you eat
it you will die?
- Andrew
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A.:
Amazing. This one was up only two days before two people,
Jamie Bissonnette and someone from AOL, sent me the
answer: Nothing.
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Q.: How
do you know all these questions?
My question is: How do they make nail polish?
- Jessica
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A.:
If you're looking to make it at home, you'll need pigments (for
color), resins, UV stabilizers, dispersants & plasticizers.
This is according to someone at OPI, a maker of fine nail polish
(actually, I have no idea if they're "fine" producers
or nail polish. They were nice enough to tell me what I
needed so I figured I give them the benefit of the doubt).
Incidentally, I was told that they
HIGHLY recommend that you don't try making it at home
because of the flammable solvents involved in the
process. Nice to know that you're putting flammable
substances on your fingers, huh?
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Q.: The
penis is called by the slang terms dick and cock, what was the
origin of this and why?
- Jim
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A.:
The words are actually related to each other, according to Cassell's
Dictionary of Slang. Keep in mind that I couldn't find
a second source to verify these origins.
cock - This dates back to the
early 17th century in England. It mixed the basic
image of the cock as a rooster and the cock's head seen as
a tap-like shape. This second aspect was emphasized
by its function in pouring semen. It remained in
common use until Queen Victoria's coronation, whereby it
became taboo to use it in her court.
dick - From the 19th century,
but no origins were listed. Dick has also meant
"nothing" as early as 1910, and dick around has
meant "to be sexually promiscuous, a womanizer"
since the 1940s. The dictionary also claims that
southern blacks preferred dick to cock since coming from
the south, cock also means vaginal. Whether or not
this is true I have no idea. I'm just quoting the
book.
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Q.: When
and where did people start having afros?
- Mike
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A.:
Would you believe that afros started out in
1965? Nobody really knows for sure where people started
wearing them, but most sources I've found believe it was in the
United States.
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Q.: Why
was "Ayers Rock" in Central Australia renamed "Uluru?"
- Russell
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A.:
In 1995, the name was changed from Ayers Rock-Mount Olga
National Park to Uluru-Kata Tjuta Park to acknowledge
Anangu ownership and their relationship with the
area. Pretty good, huh?
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Q.: Which
English words contain at least 3 "u"'s as the vowels
in consecutive syllables?
- No Name Given
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A.:
Originally, I thought this one may turn out to be my first
loss. Then I realized that there are a ton of words in the
English language that begin with "un." That
pretty much made your question void since I found 41 words in Webster's
New Universal Unabridged Dictionary that matched your
criteria. I stopped there since it wasn't
worth looking under every other letter in the alphabet.
For the record, only seven of those words
have their own listing (and definition) in the dictionary
(uncultured, unscrupulous, untruthful, unusual, unusuality,
usufruct, & usufructuary). The rest are offshoots of
other words.
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Q.: 1)
Who
was Tutankhamun's mother and father?
2) Where is the only
place (I think) in the world where train carriages have an
upstairs and downstairs area?
3) Which country
"invaded" Australia in James Marsden's "Tomorrow" series of novels?
- No Name Given
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A.:
1) Nobody knows for sure who Nebkheperura Tutankhanten's (that's
his real name) real parents were, but the most widely accepted
theory is that he and Smenkhkare were the sons of Akhenaten and
Kiya.
2) You're probably thinking that the
one in Melbourne, Australia is the only one. Well, it's
not. There are, among other places, similar trains in Amsterdam, central Switzerland,
Finland, and Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany.
3) None of the books in the "Tomorrow"
series tells you who the enemy is. They're only described
as a large country to the north of Australia. Thanks to
Tim at Wirrawee
for the help.
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Q.: Who
was the real person who coined the phrase, "Go west,
young man."?
- Jamie B.
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A.:
Horace Greeley first coined the phrase sometime in the
mid-1800s. By the way, the phrase is actually "Go
west, young man, go west."
Jamie has Stumped Me! The answer
is actually John Soule, editor of the Terre Haute Express,
in 1851. Greeley heard had the statement and popularized
it in the New York Tribune.
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Q.: What
does the P.T. stand for in P.T. Cruiser? My grandparents
have been wondering that since they came out.
- Mike B.
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A.:
According to Chrysler, PT stands for "Personal
Transportation."
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Q.: Who invented
carpet?
- Justin
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A.:
I hope you weren't serious about this question, because
according The History of British Carpets, there's
evidence that people were using sheep's wool and goat hair to
make rugs as far back as 6000 BC.
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Q.: How many
people did Jack the Ripper kill?
- Justin
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A.:
More for Justin. It must be his lucky day. Nobody
knows for sure how many people Jack the Ripper really killed,
but the most widely accepted number is five (Polly Nichols,
Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary
Jane Kelly). It could also be argued that the Ripper was
responsible for as few as three killings and as many as eight.
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Q.: How many years is it Since Rotherham United last beat
Chesterfield?
- Laura
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A.:
I guess you must be a Chesterfield fan because nobody would brag
about losing every game to the same team. Rotherham has
never won in the 21 matches played over a 20 year span.
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