Trivia

A knight’s page in the Robin Hood era was known as a “varlet,” and many a youth for centuries thereafter was likewise so called by well-read elders. I was. I thought it was sort of like “varmint” and didn’t much care for it.

From time to time, one in five of the U.S. hospital beds is reportedly occupied by somebody who broke a hip.

If you can think of any perennial vegetable besides rhubarb that’s served as a dessert, name it.

Not every man is aware that toilet water is stronger than cologne.

What the Chinese alchemists were looking for when they incidentally invented gunpowder - do you like irony? - was “the elixir of life.”

The muscle you use to stick out your tongue - isn’t this one ideal for “Show and Tell”? - is the “genioglossus.”

Earth’s day used to be only six hours long. Scientists say they learned that by counting growth rings in some 3-billion-year-old whatchamacallits.