Quickie Questions

... do you mean phalange? As in finger?

No, I do not.

It's a reference to Friends!

Why does the phrase blueblood refer to a wealthy person who inhereted their fortune while blue-collar refers to a working class person? Why is blue simultaniously associated with wealthy and not very wealthy people?

Well, 'blueblood' is an older term than 'blue-collar' by over a hundred years (1840s vs. 1950s). Blue blood is from a Spanish phrase that included the word 'azure', which might have had aristocratic connotations. Blue-collar came after the dissolution of a lot of monarchies and the era of rich people getting specific favors from the royals, so the blue in blue-collar came to refer to the blue of work clothes. Haven't you ever seen maintenance people wearing rough blue shirts?

The explanation is actually far more "practical". The common folk and farmers who worked, spent most of their time outside or on the fields so their skin easily got a tan. On the other hand most of aristrocratic and royal families spent their time indoors. Now our veins appear slightly blue to green and are far more visible through untanned skin, so they called themselves blue-bloods.

Those blue shirts were made sometimes of denim, but more often of an inexpensive, tough cotton fabric called "chambray", by the way. They were blue because there are several blue dyes that are very resistant to fading (indigo, woad, logwood). I've had chambray shirts that lasted for years of regular wear.

Is store-bought alfredo sauce in a jar (which just says to "heat and serve") fully cooked?

Yeah. Rule of thumb- if a packaged food item is not fully cooked, there has to be an additional warning on the box about that. Furthermore, I don't think I've ever bothered heating pasta sauce before eating it, so... yeah. You should be alright.

It doesn't actually say "fully cooked", though.

If an item has 999mg of Trans Fat, does it have to list it on the package, or is the company allowed to place 0g instead?

I believe that the USDA labeling regs round up, so under 500mg can be listed as 0g, but anything above that (like 999mg) would have to be listed as 1g.

{After checking: Well, I was half right. It's substantially more complicated than "round up", but .999mg would be listed as 1g. From the USDA guidance document:

edited 26th Sep '12 11:20:33 AM by Madrugada

@Glenn: If it says "heat and serve," it's fully cooked. Heating is just for the sake of not eating cold food. It's pasta sauce. There's nothing that needs to be cooked in there.

edited 26th Sep '12 12:13:54 PM by KrisMahai

Naga and Lamia are two similar types of monsters. I think I should use one to refer to poisonous ones and the other to refer to constructors. But I can never make up my mind. Anyone got an opinion?

edited 27th Sep '12 8:21:37 AM by HeroShepherd

Our kitchen sink is clogged

What do I do? What's that thing that spins inside the sink when you turn on the switch?

disposal?

If the garbage disposal (the thing that spins) isn't working, and the block-up is in that space, get out the trashcan, put on some gloves (or not), and manually pull the food and whatever-all-else out of the disposal. And then get the garbage disposal fixed. If you don't have a garbage disposal (not all sinks do, particularly not older ones), and the blockage is within reach, use that method, too. And then get a filter/catch to put over the drain, to catch the food and prevent another blockage.

If you can't reach the blockage, you'll probably need to call a plumber.

Shit, for a second there, I thought that was my post.

Yes, that is the avatar you gave me.

I realise.

Does anybody know why currencies are the only unit(?) that is supposed to be put in front?

I mean we have e.g. 15m, 2L, 16kB, but €10 or $20,99.

In Finland, people usually have the number first and the currency symbol after it. So it's not universal.

Or it's just that you Finnish folks are backwards.

I think it makes a lot more sense to do it that way, and if I'm talking while I write I often end up putting, say, 13£ by accident. As to why it is, though... TRADITION!

I think it makes more sense to put the unit after the number. It always bugs me when I read "$1 billion". It would make more sense to be "1 billion $" or "1 billion $s", so as to match what it actually sounds like.

Cents are placed after the number, as in "99¢".

Also, you should put a space between the number and unit. Not only does it look cleaner, but it's correct, as spaces means 'multiply'. i.e. 25 ml = twenty-five multiplied by the value of a millilitre.

Anyway, denominators of currencies are put after, but most people don't deal with them regularly enough to warrant a focus.