Trivia

Hanging on the walls in many a Peruvian dwelling are little cages wherein guinea pigs grow up. Up but not old. They’re raised for food.

Q. Where do paint makers find all those weird names for paint? Like “Innocent Dusk” and “Hint of Honey”?

A. Can’t say where. Why is clear, though. Paint is like meatloaf. Professionals mix it differently, and amateurs never mix it the same way twice. Makers want to name it something nobody can say it ain’t.

Bartenders in Italy never put ice in any drink.

Q. Isn’t Oprah Winfrey the first woman to own her own TV- and film-production studio?

A. Third. Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball did, too. But Oprah’s $20 million layout is first in size, certainly.

Q. What do you call it if something lustrous like silk or opal changes color as you shift your view of it?

A. “Chatoyant.”

A fly’s heart is symmetrical.

Once you learn any simple fact, you tend to be surprised to find that other people don’t know it. For example, countless souls have no idea how to salt peanuts without taking them out of their shells. For the countless: Soak said peanuts in a 10-percent salt brine before the roast.

Q. Where’d we get the name “George”?

A. From the Greek for “farmer.”

Q. Who was the first baseball pitcher to throw a curve ball?

A. Candy Cummings is usually credited with that distinction. In 1867.

Q. Do bats mate in flight?

A. Only if in a hurry.

Numerous restaurants in Argentina customarily serve a pair of dice - loser pays - with each meal.

Ogden Nash decreed: “Any dish that has either a taste or an appearance that can be improved by parsley is ipso facto a dish unfit for human consumption.”