Conference thebay::joyoflex

    
    
    	Why do they call it "rush hour" if no one's moving?

    
    
    	Why are those things called "speed bumps" if you have to
    	slow down to go over them?

    Re: .0
    
    > Why is there an expiration date on a pack of sour cream?
    
    Leave one in your refrigerator for a couple of months.  Then open
    it up and tell me if you think it is still edible.
    
    Re: .1, .2
    
    > "rush hour" & "speed bumps"
    
    See Note 149 - Oxymoron!!  [No, I'm not slinging an epithet. That's
    the title of the Note.]
    

    Re .2:
    
    You don't have to slow down to go over most speed bumps.  They are
    designed improperly, so that many cars can go over them quite well at
    high speeds.  The bumps are so short that the bulk of the car is not
    affected much while the shock absorbers absorb the shock.  I recently
    saw a note about proper design for speed bumps (they should be much,
    much wider) so that slow speeds are comfortable and high speeds are
    uncomfortable, but I don't recall where it is. 
    
    
    				-- edp

    Why do you park in a "driveway", and drive on a "parkway"?
    
    -Kurt*

    Why do hotdogs come ten to a pack but hotdog rolls come only with
    eight in a pack?
    
    -Kurt*
    

        re .-1
        
        For hungry cooks...
        

        Re: .6 -- only the cheap grades of hot dogs (the ones designed
        to be fed to small children, who don't know any better) come
        packed 10 to the pack.  Quality hot dogs come 8 in a pack.
        
        Tom

    An English girl I was dating asked me why I ask for the "check"
    in a Restaurant, since it's really a bill.

    Why is the bandage package that contains special bandages for injuries
    to fingertips, knuckles and joints call the *handy*man assortment?
    

    Why is it, that when make firewood, first you chop the tree down,
    and then you chop it up?
    

    That's old fashioned!  Now you SAW the tree down, then SAW it up.

    not at all!  someone else cuts it DOWN, then you split it UP????

    I think we've sawed on this one enough. I can't hack it anymore.
    It's time to cut out. I'm going to split.
    
    -bs

      Why is it that noses run but feet smell?
      
      Dave C.

Noses run in my family...

	@V@

    Re: .16
    
    For the benefit of your associates, please keep your shoes on!

    Along the same lines, why do you sit DOWN all day, but sit UP all
    night?
    

    Assuming anyone really wanted answers, I'm told there is a general
    trend in English to use the positive of two poles of measurement
    whenever it must use one in an adjective.  Thus a midget is three
    feet TALL, not three feet SHORT.  This explains some, but not all,
    of the curiosities listed in hte previous notes.  (Or if it doesn't
    explain them, at least it fits them into a general pattern.)
    
    I hope some of you are now gruntled.
    
    Earl Wajenberg

... how long ago did it cost two dollarcents to enter a topic or a reply?

    Why is it, when playing volleyball...
    
    If you say "Heads up!", everyone ducks and
    if you say "Duck!", everyone looks UP to see why?

    Actually, I haven't wondered a lot about this, but I think it's
    interesting that in the army, the command to discharge a gun is "Fire!"
    but in the navy it's "Shoot!"  Think about wooden warships...

    G'day,
    
    
    ... and inteh air force its
    
    
    
    
    
    dacka-dacka-dacka-dacka
    
    
    ;-)
    
    derek
    
    
    
    

    
    In the early days, didn't Navy gunners (and Marines?) get to say "fire
    in the hole!" after lighting the priming charge? So the Navy's "shoot"
    terminology could have been an attempt to reduce confusion.
    
    Or is that what you say after dropping a grenade into a pillbox or
    tunnel or something?
    
    JP
    

    "Fire in the hole!" is what miners shout when they are about to ignite
    a dynamite charge in a shaft mine.
    
    The idea in the navy, as I suggested, was that the word "fire" was
    reserved for a conflagration on a wooden warship - they were especially
    likely if the ship was engaging an enemy fortress that had a furnace
    for heating shot, but they'd also happen if the carpenter's paints or
    hot pitch got away from him or of the cook's fire got out of control. 
    (All fires were doused before going into battle except for one tiny
    glass-enclosed candle in the magazine, so the gunner could see to sew
    up the bags as he loaded charges.)

    Oh, how nice, the powder monkey gets a candle.
    

    A variation of "fire" vs. "shoot" -- I used to work in television. 
    When a director wanted a camera to stop a zoom, pan, or dolly, he/she'd
    say "woof"-- never "stop."  "Stop" meant "stop everything."