I have many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.
shakes fist at garygnu
I had my Major-General reference typed up, and you ninja’d me. grumble…blasted people coming to my desk with work questions when I’m trying to post a joke on the Dope…
The way I tell it, she has fraternal twins, one of each sex, while the other two have a daughter and a son separately, so she is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
Without reading, a hypotenuse is the side of a right-angle triangle opposite the right angle.
How’d I do?
The side of a* triángulo rectángulo* (a triangle with a 90º angle, I don’t know what’s the proper adjective in English) that’s opposite the 90º angle, which is that triangle’s longest side, and whose square is the sum of the squares of the other two sides (which I also don’t know what are they called in English, but the Spanish word is used as an insult meaning “uncultured”).
backs up through the thread, seeing if she can learn a couple new words without cracking open the dictionary
ETA: now I’m wondering whether English has left triangles 
In my geometry class, the sides of a triangle that are not the hypotenuse were always referred to as the legs. (Although usually the three sides were all labeled A,B and C.)
I wonder how would thread go if you asked what’s the plural of cathetus 
The hypotenuse is the side of a right triangle opposite the right angle-I think.
I have no idea what a cathetus is, but I will guess catheti (similar to cactus, cacti)
We call a 90° angle a “right angle” in English, although I don’t know why. I always had the vague idea it was because this sort of angle was more “correct” than other angles.
If one if the legs measures 3 and another measures 4, then the hypotenuse is the one that measures 5.
The opposite of a hypertenuse, of course.
If she weighs as much as the combined weight of the other two squaws, then the squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.
What if she weighs the same as a duck?
It’s one of those old fashined, water-triggered gallows like what they hung Tom Horn with.
Vhy a duck? Vhy-a no chicken?
And you’d be right 
Without reading any of the thread, my first thought was: *The side of a right triangle opposite the right angle. *
The longest leg of a right triangle
The “right” actually comes from the same root as the “rect” in “rectángulo,” namely, the Latin rectus, meaning “straight, right.” So, “triángulo rectángulo,” if you broke it down, would be like “right-angled triangle” almost like the English “right triangle.”
Of course, a “straight angle” is 180 degrees, while a right angle is 90 degrees, so I’m not entirely sure why a 90 degree angle would take the Latin root for “straight.”