Trivia

Could be you, too, have tossed your hands in the air as a sign of frustration. It’s said this particular gesture is common to all people on earth.

“Access to power,” opined Plato, “must be confined to those who are not in love with it.”

Student protesters in India at one time or another have included in their demands the right to cheat on exams.

Q. What’s an “unlimited direction”?

A. East or west. You can fly in either direction indefinitely without turning. A “limited direction” is north or south. You can only fly so far either way before you’re flying in the opposite direction.

Q. Why is a company “controller” sometimes called a “comptroller”?

A. Somebody around 1500 mistakenly wrote “compte,” the French word for the nobility title of count, and the error stuck. Both comptroller and controller are correct.

Cigar sales nationwide have doubled in the past four years.

Q. Should those “bi” and “semi” words be hyphenated?

A. Not unless the following syllable starts with “i.”

There were horses before there was grass.