by Curt Kovener
When I was in college (way back in that other millennium) there was an above average intelligent class member who would raise her hand to ask a question prefaced with “How’s Come Is it…” followed by her question.
Professor Hart, a patient educator, who after a number of such questions over a period of days, stopped her mid-sentence after her usual preface with “Karen, there is an easier and more efficient way. Rather than ask me ‘How’s Come Is It’ just ask ‘Why’.”
His literary correction has stuck with me these past nearly 50 years. So here are a number of questions usually involving ‘Why’ I have gathered over the decades.
•Why is the third hand on the watch called the second hand?
•If a word is misspelled in a dictionary, how would we ever know?
•And if Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?
•Why do we say something is out of whack? Is anything ever in whack?
•Why do ‘tug’ boats push their barges?
•Why do we sing ‘Take me out to the ball game’, when we are already there?
•Why are they called ‘grandstands’ when they’re made for sitting?
•Why is it called ‘after dark’, when it is really after light?
•Doesn’t ‘expecting the unexpected’ make the unexpected expected?
•Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?
•Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same?
•Why is phonics not spelled the way it sounds?
•If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it?
•If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?
•If you’re cross-eyed and have dyslexia, can you read all right?
•Why do we put suits in a garment bag and put garments in a suitcase?
•Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?
•Why do they call it a TV set when you only get one?
•Why is bra singular and panties plural?
•If I only have one of them, why are they called a pair of pants?