WHAT DO YOU KNOW?

Here are two questions that were heavily debated Saturday night while watching the Pistons game:

1. How many oceans are there?

2. What is a fiddle?

The good news is that with my new Blackberry Pearl phone I could look up the answers on the internet. Thank god. The answers to those questions are below.








further below.












further.











here.

1. There are five oceans. Everyone agreed, but then when we tried to name them, we could only name four. Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Arctic. Ten college graduates could not name the fifth ocean. My brother, a geography professor, could not name the fifth ocean. And here's why: Up until 2000 there were only four recognized oceans. Then the International Hydrographic Organization established the Southern Ocean, and determined its limits. Those limits include all water below 60 degrees south, and some of it, like the Arctic Ocean, is frozen. I do not officially recognize the Southern Ocean.

2. A fiddle is a violin; a violin is a fiddle. There are no differentiating features period--despite my confidence to the contrary. The only reason you'd call one instrument a violin and the other a fiddle is the approach. Someone who plays fiddle tunes, a fiddler, will address their violin as a fiddle. I'm not sure where the term "fit as a fiddle" comes from.