Category Archives: Teach Me

IMPERATIVE [im-per-uh-tiv], adjective: absolutely necessary or required; unavoidable. The word imperative stems from the Latin word imperativus, which means “pertaining to a command”. Imperativus has its roots in the Latin words in- “in, toward” and -parare “beget, bear”. Imperative is … Continue reading →

PRESIDENT JAMES BUCHANAN I heard a conservative pundit the other day say that if Bill Clinton was the first black president (referring to a remark made by Toni Morrison in 1998) then that would make Barack Obama the first gay … Continue reading →

Turns out the world’s first joke was a fart joke dating back to 1900 BC. An ancient Sumerian (of Sumer, located in southern Mesopotamia, now Iraq) proverb goes: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did … Continue reading →

INTERNATIONAL RADIOTELEPHONY SPELLING ALPHABET Whenever I spell my last name to people over the phone, and the difficult-to-enunciate letter N comes up, I always say: “N as in Nancy.” And I’ll ask you not to make any Nancy-boy jokes, thank … Continue reading →

THE NORWEGIAN DAWN Me and my sister Amanda took the Norwegian Dawn on a 7-day cruise to Bermuda. The Norwegian Dawn was christened in Manhattan in 2002 by none other than Kim Cattrall: Because when you need to christen a … Continue reading →

Today’s Teach Me Something Tuesday is brought to you by Ξ_Heather and TwoPi from 360 – The Math Blog. A HISTORY OF CRUISES This year we celebrate the 190th anniversary of passenger ships. The company that began the era was … Continue reading →

THE NUMBER 13 In honor of this being the thirteenth edition of TMST, I thought it was fitting to give a brief history of why the number 13 is considered so freaky deaky. The number thirteen has been cursed ever … Continue reading →

LUCIFER It is believed that Lucifer was the name of Satan when he was still an angel in heaven, before being cast out by God. The word “lucifer” in Latin means “light-bringer”. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Well Lucifer … Continue reading →

VOWELS Today we’re going to talk about vowels, because really, they’re everywhere. They’re so ridiculously common that Scrabble only gives me one freaking point for them. Even the damn U! Which is like impossible to use. And if you pick … Continue reading →

PANSPERMIA Today we’re going to talk about the theory of Panspermia, because isn’t that just an awesome word? It’s made up of the words pan and sperm which mean all and seed respectively. Panspermia is the theory that there are … Continue reading →