# Questions you should know (the answers to) but don't **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 29, 2025, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148 "2025-12-29T19:43:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2025, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/61 "2025-12-31T19:40:40Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > No one ever knows this, and while I don’t expect Christians to speak Hebrew, it’d be nice if they didn’t maul the words they borrow. This happens all over the world, all the time, because humans are not machines. Words undergo various changes when borrowed, sometimes on purpose. For instance, the Turkish word for “treasure room” – _hazine_ – has become a pejorative term for “toilet” in my language (hazna). ---
**Author:** ![pirviii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pirviii/32/3233_2.png) [@pirviii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pirviii)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/62 "2026-01-01T07:15:22Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > Turkish word for “treasure room” – _hazine_ – has become a pejorative term for “toilet” in my language (hazna). Well, my father would often refer to the toilet as his throne. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/63 "2026-01-01T14:45:06Z")
A while back we went over the whole Turkish Pavilion/toilet euphemism > [@Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 2)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-2/1004785/1641): > > Tangentially related: the hole-in-the-ground type toilet, which I grew up (a long time ago) thinking of as quintessentially French, is these days referred to by the French as une toillette a la Turque (a Turkish toilet). Which the wife discovered in a queue for the toilets, where everyone (all French) was avoiding that particular cubicle. How times change. It’s a rare thing to find one these days - I almost miss them. j ---
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/64 "2026-01-01T17:33:37Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > But I didn’t know women don’t have prostates until the embarrassing age of 12. You guys talked about prostates? In the 1950s all we knew was wee-wees. I do remember when my dad left one of those sex education pamphlets lying around and me and my brother latched on the the climaxing statement (heh, heh) and would walk around repeating it, “Then the father puts his penis in the mother’s vagina” Except we pronounced “vagina” as “VAG in na” (sort of like Saginaw until the girl next door corrected us. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/65 "2026-01-01T20:59:54Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > What is the cause of the Earth’s seasons? Nothing has made me feel dumber than trying to answer the thousand questions a day my son asks, including stuff like this. I did learn it all at one point, I just didn’t retain it. The most recent one was “What is the winter solstice?” Which I answered incorrectly and then had to go back and revise my answer to him. If the earth’s tilt causes the seasons, what is the effect of the Earth being various distances from the sun throughout the year? I would think it would be colder when it’s further from the sun, no? The one question I’ve never been able to answer conceptually is what is synchronous rotation? I learned about it in college and no amount of the professor’s explanations make any sense to me. It’s been twenty years since I took astronomy and it still bothers me that I don’t understand this. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/66 "2026-01-01T21:06:34Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > If the earth’s tilt causes the seasons, what is the effect of the Earth being various distances from the sun throughout the year? I would think it would be colder when it’s further from the sun, no? Yes, the distance does have an effect. But it’s a much smaller effect than the effect of the tilt. > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > The one question I’ve never been able to answer conceptually is what is synchronous rotation? I learned about it in college and no amount of the professor’s explanations make any sense to me. It’s been twenty years since I took astronomy and it still bothers me that I don’t understand this. It basically means that the Moon always shows the same face towards the Earth (it can apply to lots of astronomical systems, but the Moon and the Earth is the one that gets discussed the most). Imagine your son standing in the middle of the room, while you walk around him. But you do so in such a way that you’re always facing him. You are rotating: Sometimes you’re facing north, sometimes you’re facing east, sometimes south, and sometimes west. But you’re rotating at the same rate that you’re going around him, so you’re always facing him. If, by contrast, you walked around him in such a way that you’re always facing north, then you wouldn’t be rotating, but sometimes your back would be to him. Or, of course, you could rotate and also sometimes turn your back, if you were rotating at some other rate. ---
**Author:** ![JWT\_Kottekoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@JWT\_Kottekoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JWT_Kottekoe)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/67 "2026-01-01T21:14:22Z")
An example of synchronous rotation is the Moon’s rotation. The Moon rotates once a month, in such a way that the same side of the Moon is always facing the Earth. This is also called tidal locking, since it is caused by the Earth’s tidal effect on the Moon. Originally, the Moon was rotating faster, but the Earth created friction to slow it down. The Earth’s gravity causes the Moon to bulge on the side directly facing the Earth and on the side directly opposite. In the past, this bulge moved around the Moon, just as the Moon causes the Earth and its ocean to bulge in a twice daily cycle (the tides). This process dissipated energy and caused the rotation of the Moon to slow down until it was synchronous with the revolution around the Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/68 "2026-01-01T21:23:31Z")
Because of libration, we can see 59% of the moon’s surface, not 50%: > **[Libration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration)** > > In lunar astronomy, libration is the cyclic variation in the apparent position of the Moon that is perceived by observers on the Earth and caused by changes between the orbital and rotational planes of the moon. It causes an observer to see slightly different hemispheres of the surface at different times. It is similar in both cause and effect to the changes in the Moon's apparent size because of changes in distance. It is caused by three mechanisms detailed below, two of which cause a relatively... ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/69 "2026-01-01T22:15:41Z")
[As illustrated here](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap030810.html). ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/70 "2026-01-01T22:37:19Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > But you do so in such a way that you’re always facing him. You are rotating: Sometimes you’re facing north, sometimes you’re facing east, sometimes south, and sometimes west. Okay! I guess I didn’t consider always facing the earth to be rotating. But I see now that if something is orbiting a fixed point, to stay facing that object it would have to turn on its axis. Yes? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/71 "2026-01-01T22:55:31Z")
Yes, exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/72 "2026-01-01T23:00:17Z")
Can’t find it anymore but I saw an interesting animation of the sun rotating around the Milky Way, while the earth makes a corkscrew trail around it, while the moon makes a corkscrew around that trail. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/73 "2026-01-01T23:00:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > > [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > > > If the earth’s tilt causes the seasons, what is the effect of the Earth being various distances from the sun throughout the year? I would think it would be colder when it’s further from the sun, no? > > Yes, the distance does have an effect. But it’s a much smaller effect than the effect of the tilt. That’s right. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Earth is actually further from the Sun in summer than in winter, so the distance actually works _against_ the tilt there. In the Southern Hemisphere, January (which is in summer) is warmer because of the closer distance. But not much. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/74 "2026-01-01T23:35:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Yes, exactly. That is much simpler than I was trying to make it in my head. Thank you and @JWT_Kottekoe for solving this decades-long mystery! ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/75 "2026-01-01T23:49:19Z")
> [@Danger\_Man](#): > > I recently learned that the capital of West Germany was Bonn and realized almost no one I know knew I was recently reminded of this (I think I probably knew before somewhere in the recesses of my trivia brain 😉 ) as that was the last time a world cup will not feature matches in the host nation’s capital city, in 1974 when West Germany hosted. DC will host no matches this year at the world cost. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2026, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/76 "2026-01-01T23:58:06Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Can’t find it anymore but… Ah, good, maybe that stupid animation has finally died. I’m still not sure why anyone went to the trouble to make that animation, without going to the much easier trouble of making it accurate. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2026, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/77 "2026-01-02T00:15:14Z")
Okay, well, congratulations. My ignorance wasn’t exactly corrected by that, but you did lodge a good insult. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/78 "2026-01-02T00:30:24Z")
My apologies. The animation showed the Earth trailing behind the Sun in its corkscrew, and the Moon likewise trailing behind the Earth. Neither of those happens. It also got the directions of motion wrong. Back when it was all over the place on the Web, it got very tiresome explaining that it was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2026, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/79 "2026-01-02T00:31:30Z")
Correction taken and apology accepted, both with thanks. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2026, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148/80 "2026-01-02T01:09:53Z")
So one thing I should know, given the amount of military history I read and watch (which is a lot), is the sizes of different military units. I really don’t. I don’t even know the hierarchy of unit sides, is a company bigger than a battalion, or vice versa? A division is the biggest, I think? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/questions-you-should-know-the-answers-to-but-dont/1026148.md?page=5)