Yahoo! Answers

It’s definitely tornado season and these high-powered storms show no signs of slowing down.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), about 1,200 tornadoes have touched down and destroyed neighborhoods across the United States this year. Some of these twisters have been rated an EF-5, the strongest possible level. Why so many terrible tornadoes?

Scientists point to several climate factors. Some say it’s because of La Niña’s exit, defined as “trade winds that cool the waters of the equatorial Pacific Ocean.” Others blame last winter’s record snowfalls and the hot conditions in the southwest. Last, it may just be a numbers game. Our population size was much lower ten years ago, so there are fewer people to spot and report tornadoes. Camera phones have come a long way!

So now we ask the community. Do you believe in the science or do you have your own theories? Tell us below.

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Hey Guys,

Is there such a thing as a product that’s too successful? Well, maybe.

Consider the Q-Tip. Everybody calls ‘em this, even if they happen to be the generic equivalent. Some might say that’s a good problem for a company to have, but in reality, it can be a real challenge.

When a brand name is so successful that it becomes synonymous with the overall product, you’ve got a problem. A blog from a marketing firm helps to explain. The site argues that in cases such as Thermos and Windex, the companies didn’t position the products as brands. Instead the products became categories.

Once that happens, the company will have a hard time convincing consumers to buy their (probably more expensive) version of “X” product, when any number of generic alternatives illicit the same reaction from consumers.

There are other examples of this phenomenon. The Frisbee, for instance. That’s actually a brand name, but people toss it around (pardon the pun) like it applies to all flying discs.

Same thing with Kleenex, Scotch tape, Xerox, Rollerblades, Tupperware, Band-aids, Hi-lighters and the granddaddy of them all — Post-It Notes. All are hugely successful, but they may have been bigger hits with a different marketing strategy.

Got more examples of name brands that are synonymous with product categories? What about companies that might have been in danger of this, but didn’t let it happen (Apple’s iPod, for instance). Please sound off in the comments below.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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**Secret Revealed**

Forget champagne this Sunday, one of the most popular car races in the world will award the winner an unusual prize: milk.

This Indianapolis 500 tradition was inspired by Louis Meyer. After winning his second Indy in 1933, he requested a glass of buttermilk. He requested another glass after his third win in 1936, but was given a bottle instead.

A photographer captured Meyer holding up three fingers, signifying his third win, and holding his glass of milk in the other hand. A dairy executive saw the photo and realized the marketing potential by promising the winner of future races a bottle of milk.

The tradition has persisted to this day, apart from 1947 to 1955 and two other exceptions when drivers declined to drink the milk. Most notably, in 1993, Emerson Fittipaldi drank orange juice instead of milk. He owned orange groves in his native Brazil and wanted to promote the citrus industry. The self promotion and break from tradition earned criticism from fans and he was booed many times after that event.

Although Meyer started the tradition with buttermilk, that’s not an official option — the winner can choose between skim, 2% or whole milk. However, the winner can buy a lot of buttermilk with the cash prize, estimated around $1.5 million.

Chad Upton is the editor-in-chief of Broken Secrets and an official Yahoo Answers contributor.

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Just when we thought Facebook couldn’t impact our lives anymore, it found another way.

An Israeli couple has named their baby Like, after the Like button on Facebook. We’ve heard some unique names in our time, but this one is a bit silly. The couple claims they thought the name sounded “modern and innovative.”

Facebook did not pay the couple, obviously, but this incident shows how large a role social media play in our lives. Next thing you know, parents will start naming their children, Facebook. Wait, that actually happened earlier this year!  A man in Egypt named his daughter Facebook to express “his joy at the achievements made by the January 25 youth.”

Now we turn to our community. What do you think of these names? What’s the most unusual name you’ve ever heard of?

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Hey Guys,

My friend’s son Zach was as bald as a cue ball for the first year of his life. Now the little maniac’s hair is coming in thick and blond. I guess that means he’s a towhead, but that raises the question: How exactly did that phrase get started? How did blond kids get that nickname?

An excellent article from the good people at Random House lays out the basics. The word “tow” in this case “is from a Germanic word meaning ‘to drag’; it’s related to tug.” Put another way, it means ‘the fiber of flax, hemp, or jute, prepared for spinning’. Those fibers, which are used to make clothes, are often “both light-colored and messy.” Hence, little kids with light-colored (and messed-up) hair are called tow-heads.

A 2003 column from Ask Yahoo! goes into a bit more detail. In colonial times, families harvested flax to make their own clothes. Once it was harvested, it went through a process “to separate the long, thin fibers from the shorter, coarser ones.” To do this, “the flax was pulled through a bed of nails or combed in a process called ‘towing.’”

The shorter fibers were called “tow.” This, in turn, “led to the term “towheads” to describe people, particularly children, whose hair resembled these strands.”

So, that’s the story of towheads. But now I have another question. Redheads can be both male and female, same as blonds. But what about folks with dark hair? Dark-haired women are called brunettes, but does that apply to men too? Or are they just “dark-haired”? Any theories? I’m all ears.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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