The Hindu Business Line : When do people say `um' and `uh'?

The world's tallest mountain got its name Everest in a hurry. This is how: When the British did the christening in 1865, they didn't know that the Chinese already called it Qomolangma, after Tibetans' goddess, more than a century earlier. As if to affirm, http://english.people.com.cn proclaims, `No Longer Everest but Mount Qomolangma.'

On an average, since 1953, "one person has climbed Everest every three weeks and one has died on its slopes every 14 weeks," informs `the encyclopaedia of pointless information', as William Hartson calls his book What's What, from Metro (www.blake.co.uk) .

The book is from `huge files... packed full of the cherished snippets of information' that have passed Hartson's way. "Not found in the standard sources of reference," he claims. Check, therefore, if you can find the first entry `Aa', which is not only `a type of volcanic lava' but also name of rivers in France and Germany. Hartson's encyclopaedia ends with Zywocice, a place in Poland, `alphabetically the last place on earth'. B for babies. Tell me, who detects the smell of newborn babies better - men or women? Answer: Men, as per a 2001 research! They beat women "at correctly identifying from the smell whether T-shirts had been worn by babies or older children". How pointless, you may say, so let me move on to `cabbage'; the word `only occurs once in the works of Shakespeare in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

You're gnashing your teeth, I know, but please note that in July 1996, "the authorities in Queensland, Australia, published their Workplace Health and Safety Guide, which included a warning not to `place any part of one's body in the mouth of a crocodile".

D for driving. How many lorry drivers, do you think, think of sex, drink, food and a night out while they are driving? Only 7 per cent, according to a 1997 survey. Five times that number "think of their families"; and, surprisingly, "16 per cent think of nothing."

F begins with - hold your breath - `fart'. The world's first fart detector was `hohi kenshutsuki', invented in 2002, in Mitreben Laboratories, Osaka. But who needs it, you may ask, pinching your nose? "In hospitals, it is important for physicians to know if a post-operative patient has been farting," is a snatch from the book.

Pray, why? "When a patient is coming out from under total anaesthesia, farting is an indication that the digestive tract is returning to normal." Okay, when do people say `um' and `uh'? Answer is in `hesitation'. Hartson cites a 2002 research - that English speakers say `um' before a long pause and `uh' before a short one.

The dreaded `income tax' entry informs that a levy in 1404 was so unpopular that it was abolished and "also all records of it were ordered to be destroyed". You are not alone fretting about the tax, because Albert Einstein is credited with this quote: "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."

What is `the cognitive-affective state characterised by intrusive and obsessive fantasising concerning reciprocity of amorant feeling by the object of the amorance'? Answer: Love, as defined by `the First International Conference on Love and Attraction' in Cardiff in 1990. Isn't that tougher than a tax definition?

SayCheek@TheHindu.co.in

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