Yahoo! Answers

Happy New Year!

Last year we asked you, “What was your favorite question in 2011?” And we got some great, quirky questions from our community. Thank you to everyone who participated and shared. Take a look at a few of the favorites or you can still tell us your favorite in the comments below.

What cartoon defines your childhood?

Is there a limit to human imagination?

If you were to put just 5 items into a paper bag that represented you, what would you pick?

Would anyone enjoy gefilte fish flavored ice cream?

Who brightens your day?

What is your future wedding song?

What is your weakness?

Are you stronger in knowledge or imagination?

If you could give one piece of advice to a 21-year-old, what would it be?

Have you ever fallen in love with someone you never expected to love?

How do I propose to my chicken?

If the world was really ending, what would you do for your last day on earth?

Could free will just be an illusion?

How can I make myself into a human peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

Thanks for reading,

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Hey Guys,

Anyone who tosses a crumpled up piece of paper at the garbage can and misses is likely to hear a familiar expression from watchers: “Close but no cigar,” they’ll shout. How did this expression originate?

Like a lot of old timey phrases, nobody is 100% sure about how this one became so popular. However, most idiom experts agree that it likely originated at county fairs and the like during the mid-1900s.

According to The Phrase Finder, “fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there’s no definitive evidence to prove that.”

The site writes that “Close, but no cigar” appeared in print form for the first time in 1935 as a line of dialogue in “Annie Oakley” starring the great Barbara Stanwyck in the title role.

The site, Take Our Word For It gets a little more specific with its theory. “It is widely assumed that it arose in carnivals, where the prize for ringing a bell with a sledge hammer was often a cigar. If you got close to ringing the bell but didn’t actually hit it, you might be told, ‘close but no cigar.’”

Got any favorite phrases with mysterious origins? Leave a comment below!

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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**Secret Revealed**

My friend Todd told me about this secret many years ago. He has rebuilt more cars in his suburban home garage than anyone I know.

I met Todd at my first part time job, we used to work early weekend mornings during high school. I was too young to have a driver’s license, so my dedicated parents would always drive me.

That was before remote starters, so I would usually start the car a few minutes before leaving. Actually, that’s not true — my Dad was usually the one starting the car a few minutes before I was ready to leave, which was about 10 minutes after I told him I would be ready to leave.

It didn’t make much difference to the car — it was still cold for at least half the trip. On the rare occasion that I started the car, I would turn the heater to its hottest setting and turn the fan to full blast. That’s actually the slowest way to warm the car, so lets talk more about the fastest way.

The trick is very counter-intuitive, so I want to briefly explain how the car heater works for this secret to make sense.

The item pictured above is a heater core. Most cars have one of these inside the dashboard. Hot liquid passes through the fins, which are there to create a lot of surface area so that air passing through can pickup as much heat as possible before it comes out the air vents. It works just like the radiators in many older homes in that sense.

The liquid is heated by excess engine heat, so if the engine is cold then you won’t get any hot air from your air vents. Your engine has a cooling system which is designed to draw heat away from the engine so it does not overheat. The heater works in a similar way, removing heat from the engine and using it to heat the air being blown into the passenger compartment. So, when you turn on your heater, you are essentially cooling the engine by transferring some of its heat to the inside of the car.

To heat the engine faster, you want to stop that heat loss. It’s similar to heating your oven, you don’t leave the door open because you’ll lose all of the heat.

You want to turn the heater off by moving the temperature control all the way to cold. Also, turn the fan off to ensure it is not blowing air across the heater core which transfers heat away from it. This will trap the heat in the engine cooling system (reducing its ability to cool the engine) and therefore heat the engine more quickly. It traps the heat in, just like closing the oven door.

If your car has an automatic climate control system that allows you to dial in the temperature then there is no need to worry about these suggestions to make them heat the car faster, most of these cars do it automatically. If your car has automatic climate control, it’s normal that the fan doesn’t blow when you first start the cold car. The vehicle engineers already know this secret and have programmed it into the car. The fan does not run until there is adequate engine heat to warm the air (unless you want to warm the car more slowly and manually activate the fan).

This knowledge is helpful to all drivers, even if you never plan to drive in cold weather. If your engine is overheating in hot weather, set the climate control to hot, turn the fan on full blast and roll down all the windows. This will dissipate engine heat through the heater core and help cool the engine.

Thanks to Todd M for sharing this secret many years ago.

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

Sources: 2CarPros, How Stuff Works

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Hey Guys,

The other day, I spotted a scofflaw jog across the street without using a crosswalk. As I stood there, twiddling my thumbs waiting for the light to change, I got to wondering about the expression “jaywalking.” How did that term get its start?

Back in early 20th century the term “jay” was slang for country bumpkin or hick. To put it another way, a type of person who didn’t have any experience in the big, scary city. Back then, many people were seeing cities for the first time and didn’t know the rules of the road. As a consequence, they wandered out into streets and risked being hit by cars. People called these folks “jaywalkers.” It was not a term of endearment.

The Straight Dope pins down the origin to Boston. A 1927 issue of Harpers wrote, “the Bostonian … has reduced ‘a pedestrian who crosses streets in disregard of traffic signals’ to the compact ‘jaywalking.’”

These days, folks who jaywalk risk more than being honked at by angry drivers. Hefty fines ($191 in Los Angeles, for example) can result. Or, if they’re having a really bad day, a trip to the hospital.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Hey Guys,

With holiday parties fast approaching, many may be wondering just how late “fashionably late” really is. Here’s the scoop.

First off, it depends on the event. If you’re going to a wedding, a funeral, or a business meeting, you never want to be late. But for holiday parties, most etiquette experts believe that guests should arrive within a half hour of the appointed time.

Miss Manners writes that the window is actually about 20 minutes. She also writes that she doesn’t really get why anybody wants to be late to a party. “You get to talk to the hosts, you don’t have to forage for food and drink, and you have an excuse for being the first to leave.”

Ask Men argues that it’s far worse to show up early than it is late. “It’s common knowledge that being fashionably late will contribute in garnering you attention. But thirty minutes late should represent a barrier you don’t want to cross. There’s a reason the host asked you to come over at a specific time and complying shows that you are a courteous individual. Never be early.”

Indeed, that seems to be the big tradeoff. If you come to a party on the late side, you might appear to be kind of cool. But you might also run the risk of there being no more food or drinks.

What are your thoughts on when to show for holiday parties? Right on time? A little bit late? Or way late? Please leave a comment below.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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