Q. What makes stars twinkle?

A. Turbulent atmosphere between you and the star.

What carpenters know that most people don’t is that a sharply pointed nail will more readily split a board than will a blunt nail.

A male client writes: “Tell that Idaho lady who likes the oxymoron ‘mature man’ that there’s an even better one: ‘rational woman.”’ Those Native American warriors known as the Hurons wore armor. Of wooden slats.

In Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel “The Long Goodbye,” a character quips, “You can’t win them all.” Research suggests it was the first time the line appeared in print. But the remark was in street talk earlier.

“Communion” is another liquid word that always takes the shape of its container. A scholar, whose head contains the word only as “intimate rapport,” contends it’s the most highly desired human condition. He says, “Marriages easily survive communion without sex, but not so easily sex without communion.”

Claim is the three-banded armadillo can roll itself into a ball so evenly spherical you could bowl a strike with it.