Yahoo! Answers

Hey Guys,

I recently finished reading “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” by Agatha Christie. Among the many suspects under investigation for the titular crime is, of course, the butler. And as I plowed through the book, I got to wondering about a mystery of my own — how did the phrase, “The butler did it” get started?

According to the blog The Straight Dope, most experts give the credit to author Mary Roberts Rinhart. Her mysteries, which often starred ahead-of-her time heroine Hilda Adams, were among the most popular of their day. And in one of those books, “The Door,” which she published in 1930, the butler does indeed commit the crime. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

But, while the cliché quickly entered the lexicon and remains to this day, it’s worth noting that few stories actually involve the butler committing the crime. Again, according to the Straight Dope, part of that can be attributed to very influential 1928 essay entitled “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories” by S.S. Van Dine.

Dine’s eleventh rule reads like so: “A servant must not be chosen by the author as the culprit. This is begging a noble question. It is a too easy solution. The culprit must be a decidedly worth-while person–one that wouldn’t ordinarily come under suspicion.” While the sentiment is a rather prejudiced against working people, I do see his point. The reader wants the killer to be someone who will experience an epic fall when he or she is caught. That’s why, in old school (or “golden age”) detective novels, the murderer is often the wealthiest person in the room.

“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” is often called Christie’s masterpiece (and I recommend it highly). What are some of your favorite detective novels? Do you like your detectives to be elegant and all-knowing like Sherlock Holmes or do you want to see them a little more hard boiled like Sam Spade? What makes for a satisfying mystery?

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Welcome to Answers on the Streets: Episode 17!

Well, we made it! Sad to say, this is the final Answers on the Streets video and question. Thanks to all who participated. We certainly had fun! Be sure to tune in next week, when we feature all the winning answers.

Now on to our last question. We’ve all made mistakes. Big ones! Have you ever put your foot in your mouth? Not literally, of course, but have you ever asked a woman if she was pregnant and she wasn’t? Watch the funny responses below.

Think you have a better answer? We definitely know our community has great ideas. Give us a shout and tell us what you think. Just click the question below to submit your response.

Question: What if you ask a woman if she’s pregnant and she’s not?

Episode 16 Winner

Congrats to Jenny for the best answer to Episode 16’s question: How do you know when you’re in love?

You know you are in love when every time you start to think about the one you love, butterflies start flying in your stomach.

You know you are in love when you find yourself shopping with that person and you feel like everything is right in the world.

You know you are in love when you can’t stop touching that person.

You know you are in love when you feel miserable when you are away from that person.

You know you are in love when you start planning a future in your head.

You know you are in love when you can’t stop smiling every time you see that person.

I could go on with more examples. For me, being in love is wonderful and yet painful. The man I love doesn’t know that I love him. He is my friend and for now that is all he wants because he is about to be deployed. Because I love him I am going to wait. Love is worth any pain and wait.

When you find yourself ignoring your own feelings and focusing on how someone else is feeling, you’re in love. I find myself now looking at maps, tracing the distance between where he is and where I am. I now pray each and every night for him to come back safely to me.

Thanks again for all who participated.

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Hey Guys,

Commuting is the pits. The carpool lane (aka the HOV lane) can make it a bit less painful, but what if you don’t have another body in the car? Do you actually need one? A lot of folks on Yahoo! Answers wonder if pregnant women can legally ride in the carpool lane. The answer? Sure, but there has to be another person in the car, too.

It’s not hard to imagine how this might come up. Pregnant women “eating for two” is a common expression. Some might say they’re also driving with a little passenger. But the law says otherwise. According to the Virginia Department of Transportation, a pregnant woman counts as one person. It’s a different story once the little miracle is born. “Babies of any age… count as a person” in the world of high occupancy vehicles.

Rules of the road vary state to state, but, near as I can tell, this one is in effect across the board. California has a similar law, as do Washington and Arizona.

One woman tried to test this law back in 2006 and lost the case. Candace Wilkinson of Phoenix claimed that her fetus should meet the second person requirement for carpools. The judge didn’t agree and the woman was forced to pay the fine.

Bottom line — the carpool lane is nice, but don’t use it unless you have another person in the car with you. Buns in the oven do not count.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Many of you show a lot of interest in the content that appears in the “Best of Answers” module and often ask how this is selected and what decisions go into what we choose to highlight. Today, we’d like to tell you more about this prominent module on the Yahoo! Answers homepage. Follow us behind the scenes!

Firstly, the module called “Best of Answers” actually features a number of different types of content; so let’s start with an overview of each of these types:

Best of Answers

The purpose of the “Best of Answers” module is to highlight the most interesting questions posted by you, the community. We can use this to feature either open or resolved questions.  Of course, if we choose a resolved question then we include the first few lines of the best answer too.

For this module we really look for content that’s unique or unusual.  The kind of content that makes us go “Whoa, I always wondered that!”

Special Feature

The Special Feature template is used to highlight questions that are being promoted by our team.  Examples include Celebrity questions or official questions asked with our Team account (i.e. Safer Internet Day).

Featured Sponsor

As you’d expect from the name, these feature questions asked by one of our Sponsors or Knowledge Partners.

Featured Content

We use this space to surface posts from our blog or to our pages on Facebook or Twitter.

How can you make it onto the Best of Answers?

We check the site every day for interesting questions, but that’s not the only way we select what we feature. In fact, we encourage you to submit any content you think deserves to appear on the Yahoo! Answers homepage. Have you found an interesting or quirky question? Have you provided a fantastic answer and helped someone out? Send it to y_answrs_favorites@yahoo.com and it might be selected to appear on the Yahoo! Answers homepage!

To increase chances of being featured:

- The question, resolved or closed, should be of general interest, and ideally something that is not widely known

- The answer should not be easily found on the internet

- Try finding questions showing unique or experience-based knowledge

- Ensure that an avatar or a personal image is used

- Make sure the content is clear and well expressed

- And last but not least, the content needs to abide by our Community Guidelines and the Terms of Service.

We hope this overview will give you a better understanding of how we choose content to as the `Best of Answers`.

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Welcome to Answers on the Streets: Episode 16!

Just ONE more episode to go!! Valentine’s Day is over so we wanted to ask this question: How do you know when you’re in love? Do you start sweating? Do you get super nervous? Are you clumsy? Watch below and then tell us how you know you’ve fallen in love?

Think you have a better answer? We definitely know our community has great ideas. Give us a shout and tell us what you think. Just click the question below to submit your response.

Question: How do you know when you’re in love?

Episode 15 Winner

Congrats to Saya Elizabeth for the best answer to Episode 15’s question: How do you cover up a fart in public?

Well you have a number of options. I’ll list the top 10:

Option 1:

Blame it on the person nearest to you. This works best when blaming small children because they’re not as credible.

Option 2:

Blame it on the seating. “Geeeez these leather seats SURE are NOISY” (wink, wink). Just hope that you’re not a) sitting on a wooden or metal chair or b) standing up.

Option 3:

Slowly sidestep out of the “zone” that you farted in.

Option 4:

Pretend that the person who smelled or heard it is crazy. “I didn’t fart. You’re hallucinating.”

Option 5:

The classic “whoever smelt it dealt it” line. We’re all really 7-years-old in our hearts anyway….

Option 6:

Come up with a freak explanation for why the noise occurred. “It was a sonic boom!”

Option 7:

Blame it on an animal. “It was the dog” is classic. You can get creative with it, though. “It was that passing squirrel” will work just as well. Would the guy standing next to you REALLY know how squirrel flatulence works? No, I think not.

Option 8:

Confuse the person next to you by coming up with random excuses as to who did it. (also see “blame it on somebody else.”) ie: “It was the letter E” or “Francis Scott Key did it.”

Option 9:

Pretend to be so utterly disgusted that nobody will suspect it’s you. “Oh dear LORD. Do you guys smell that? That is so DISGUSTING. Why? WHY WOULD SOMEBODY DO THAT?”

Option 10:

Let it out as slowly and quietly as you can while disguising it with other noises. I won’t get too into it, but this is why you should always carry an air horn and one of those wooden whistles that mimic the sound of a choo-choo train.

Get Featured

You could be the next winner and get 200 EXTRA POINTS and get recognized on our Answers Blog. If you win, we’ll feature your answer in our next Answers on the Street blog.

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