The 5 W's: What?

A collection of quirky and unusual facts about a variety of topics, including car names, mascots, pregnancy, and oxymorons.

Musical instruments in an orchestra, Pulitzer Prize categories, and events in an Olympic decathlon: this is an entertaining and enlightening diverse anthology of facts. From the longest word currently listed in any Oxford dictionary to inventions, fashions, and ketchup ice cream, all the sundries of life appear on these vivid pages . . .

What is . . .

. . . Dr. Bunting’s Sunburn Remedy? The product we know today as Noxema; when it “knocked out” a customer’s eczema, its new name was born.

. . . a Scoville unit? A measure of how hot a pepper is. By this reckoning, a habanero is ten to fifty times as hot as a chipotle pepper.

. . . fictive kinship? A relationship, like being a godparent, that has nothing to do with one’s birth or marriage, but is modeled on family relationships.

. . . Powder of Sympathy? A seventeenth-century concoction that was said to cause pain to recur if it was sprinkled on the knife that had stabbed someone.