Welcome to the Dope there you esteemed new person you.
As you’ve just seen, it takes a couple hours for us to answer impossible questions. The merely very hard rarely take more than an hour. Like yours.
We’re really pretty amazing collectively.
Hang around awhile; you might like it. There’s gotta be something you’re a wizz at.
I have read that Civil War soldiers would “soap their socks” to prevent blisters.
I have read third-hand stories of World War One soldiers covering their feet and socks with cold cream before putting on their boots.
It might soften the leather on the inside of the boot. But I think the main purpose was simply to put something non-abrasive in between the foot and the boot.
Is there some German word for “lotion” or “salve” that sounds like “coleslaw”?
This is a big stretch, but …
There is a slightly out-there treatment for a skin condition that horses get on their lower legs (mud fever or scratches, we call it) that involves sauerkraut. Scratches gets bad in wet, muddy conditions and is usually some combination of fungal and bacterial infection.
Apparently applying sauerkraut to affected areas, covering it with plastic and wraps and letting them essentially steep in it for an hour or so every couple of days really does help. I’ve not tried it, but a friend has and had reasonable success.
I can see this being something a trenches soldier, way back when, might try to stave off foot rot.
Fermented sauerkraut is made by lactic acid bacteria, which create an acidic environment that is hostile to many other bacteria. There is a possibility that there is a mild anti-microbial and anti-fungal effect. Perhaps it is useful on trench foot.
However,
My soon to be 6th grader will frequently repeat without any context something they saw in a video. When questioned, instead of saying “I saw it on YouTube,” they will make something up. This being the cause, to me, is far more believable than the story above about the healing effects of acidic cabbage.
Well, aren’t we still working on the “What is 14 k of g in a f p d” riddle? It’s been about twenty years now, and I don’t think that we’ve cracked that one yet.
Context
Similarly Roman soldiers used nettle leaves.
And fermenting milk in cavalry saddles was a favorite trick of the Mongols.
Never heard to sourkraut or slaw though.
Oh hey, I know the answer to that one. It’s
Because he misquoted it. I mean probably it starts as 14 karats of gold in a , but he never came back to give us the answer, as either he was fooling with us or he got some of those last letters wrong. So, since he never gave us the answer after about a half dozen posts promising he would- there is not answer. Incidentally some googling seems to show he tried that same 'riddle" in a few other boards. And never an answer.
It is just a question to which there is no answer like “why is a raven like a writing desk?” True, Carroll came up with Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat ” but he admitted it wasnt a good answer.
This has been done to death but, it is far from clear, because no one ever says “x karats of gold”.
whatever, in any case, he was pulling our legs, there never was an answer. He either got the question wrong, or just never was going to give us an answer.
I was taught the correct answer is “because both have inky quills”.
“Because there is a B in both.”
Not understood.
Doc Ock [Shaking fists and tentacles] “I will get you for that Spiderman!!!”
I always liked the answer that goes like: “Because Poe wrote on both”.
This is the one I always heard. Possibly Sam Loyd’s response? Very Carrollian I think.
Aldous Huxley. “Because there is a B in both, and there is an N in neither.”