Trivia

Q. Who invented the dishwashing machine?

A. Usually credited with that creation was a woman of means named Josephine Cochrane of Shelbyville, Ill. In 1886. Her servants broke too many pieces of her fine china, she said. So she devised a contraption to do the dishes with more care. Refinements followed.

The name of winter’s big star “Betelgeuse” traces back to Arabic syllables that mean “armpit of the white-belted sheep.”

Wrote Ogden Nash: “A cow is of the bovine ilk / One end is moo, the other, milk.”