The Volokh Conspiracy, Extra
Saturday, October 04, 2003
Here's a puzzle -- find three letters out of which you can make the most three-letter words, using each letter exactly once. Out of A, B, and C, for instance, you can only make one (CAB). The words must follow the Scrabble rules; they must be writable in all lower case (i.e., initialisms, like ABC, place names, and abbreviations that must be followed by a period or must include an apostrophe don't qualify). Naturally, the maximum number of words you can make out of three letters is six.
The best answer I've found is T, A, and E -- EAT, ATE, TEA, ETA (the name of a Greek letter), and TAE ("to" in Scottish dialect, but a legit Scrabble word).
Monday, August 11, 2003
Which European countries have English names that have virtually nothing to do with their local names? Albania (Shqiperia), Finland (Suomi), Germany (Deutschland), Greece (Ellas), and Hungary (Magyarorszag).
Tuesday, July 01, 2003
From which points on Earth can you go 10 miles south, 10 miles west, 10 miles north, and arrive at the place from which you started?
- The obvious answer is the North Pole.
- But where else? Well, a bit north of the South Pole, there's a parallel that's exactly 10 miles long. If you then go the parallel that's exactly 10 miles north of that parallel, all the points on that parallel will qualify as answers to my question.
- But wait, there's more! The same is true of a parallel that's 10 miles north of the 5-mile-long parallel around the South Pole, 10 miles north of the 3 1/3-mile-long parallel, 10 miles north of the 2 1/2-mile-long parallel, and so on. Any parallel that's 10 miles north of a parallel around the South Pole that's 10/n miles long, where n is an integer qualifies.
Tuesday, April 22, 2003
MILITARY SPENDING VS. EDUCATION SPENDING: Each year, we spend roughly twice as much on education as on the military. In 2000-01, total spending on education (both private and public) was $700 billion, of which 80% was on public education; at 3% inflation per year, the fiscal year 2003 spending should be over $750 billion. The Defense Department spending for 2003 was a titch over $350 billion. (State National Guard spending is negligible compared to this.)
Naturally, total federal spending on education is considerably less, only $60 billion in 2003; but that's simply because the lion's share of the spending is by states and local school boards, followed by spending by individual parents and students. One way or another, through private spending, state and local taxes, and federal taxes, twice as much of our nation's wealth is spent on education as on the military.
(By the way, I don't mean to be a grouch, but if you're inclined to e-mail me to suggest that these numbers are off because they fail to take into account spending category X or zone of overlap Y, please (1) figure out just how much money X and Y actually involve, and (2) make sure that they make a material difference. No need to point out that some $100 million military expenditure is actually folded into the budget of the Department of Framastats; the analysis is the same whether the total is "a titch over $350 billion" or "a titch over $350.1 billion." These numbers are all estimates in any event, since utterly precise information can't be had here -- but I think they're pretty sound estimates at the level of accuracy that's needed for this question. My apologies for bringing this up, but I thought I'd try to nip some of the objections in the bud.)
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
BURRO AND BURROW: One is an ass, and the other is a hole in the ground. Can't you tell one from the other?
UPDATE: Reader Phil Snyder passes along another point: "Burro -- An ass. Burrow -- A hole in the ground. Bureau -- A organization of people who don't know the difference between the first two."
Tuesday, February 04, 2003
VACCINATE, CANARY, AUSPICIOUS, ASININE: The roots of all these words refer to animals:
- Vaccinate comes from vaccinia, the cowpox microbe, and vaccinia itself comes from the Latin root for cow.
- Canary comes from the Canary Islands, which were named that way because they were inhabited by many dogs.
- Auspicious comes from the Latin term for bird, since it meant well-omened, and the Romans were big on divination by observing birds.
- Asinine comes from the Latin word for donkey (or ass).
