My mom was always both flattered and annoyed at the multitude of questions I asked her when I was younger: flattered because I thought that because she was Mom, naturally she would know everything, and annoyed because there were some questions she couldn't answer. Feldman calls these difficult questions "Imponderables," and has attempted to answer them in print for the curious public. Learning the answers to these nagging questions is satisfying and enjoyable. Besides, even when I forget the answer to one of these question, it's nice to know there are other people asking things that I've always wondered myself. Incidentally, Feldman invented "Frustables." These are "FRUSTerating imponderABLES." These are questions that people have sent in that are unsolved. At the end of each book new frustables are posed, speculations are circulated for old ones. At the end of "Do Penguins have knees, he has printed numerous reader responses to the question, "Why do you so often see one shoe lying on the side of the road?" This has never been a question which intrigued me, but I was rather amused by the theories whcih were advanced to explain it. Feldman makes Imponderables interactive. His questions come from the public, and often the public helps solve them. He gives out copies of his book to people who contribute, as well as giving them credit for their question or solution. Do you have any Imponderables clanking around in your head late at night...? What sorts of questions might these imponderables be? Here are some examples from "Do Penguins Have Knees?":
Here are some more examples from "When Do Fish Sleep?":
Although I enjoyed both of the Imponderables books, "Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?" was a bit of a disappointment. This is one book not consisting of answers to Imponderables, but rather of answers to etymological questions. Except that some of the answers seem more like attempts at answers. Some research was done, some speculations are mentioned, and Feldman leaves it at that. I understand that not every word can be traced to its root, and that folk etymologies (fictional etymologies) have displaced true ones. However, since many of the words in fact *are* explained definitively, I thought that the ones which weren't were out of place and unsatisfying. Another annoying aspect of the book is that it explains the origins of phrases which I had never heard and wasn't curious about at all. It's not nearly as much fun learning the origins of something obscure when there are so many well-used phrases whose origins I don't know. I did learn a few interesting things from Feldman's etymology book, though. I am happy to say that I now know why denim is denim and jeans are jeans. (The names come from the city names Nimes, France and Genoa, Italy.) A white elephant gift was originally just that: a gift of a sacred white elephant from the emperor of Siam. (It was purportedly an honor, but was actually an intentional punishment: the white elephant could not be ridden, killed, worked, released, or sent far away, but had to be fed and cared for.) The plant name "dandelion" is a British corruption of the French name for the plant, "tooth of lion" or "dent de leon." But the British were already calling the dandelion a "lion's tooth" in English, so it seems silly that they gave it an identical French name, doesn't it? Books by David Feldman(O=own, R=read, E=enjoyed)
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