Trivia

You know that extra saddle behind the driver’s seat on a motorcycle? It’s called a “pillion.”

Was art a part of human nature from the beginning? Or did humans develop art as they themselves developed? You might toss out that pair of puzzling queries over the dinner table. Scholars still give conflicting answers but most now believe a natural element of art was intrinsic in the earliest human makeup.

Q. One legislative leader is called the “whip.” Where’d that come from?

A. “Whipper-in,” an old British term, the man among the fox hunters assigned to keep the hounds together.

Average floor size of a new American home at last report was 1,450 square feet.

Q. Isn’t the bite of the male duckbill platypus toxic?

A. Not its bite; it has no teeth. But the sharp spurs on its hind legs are. They connect to poison glands. It kicks and stabs with them. It’s the only mammal known to be venomous.