User:JackofOz/Ref Desk Questions

2004

Date	Topic	Desk
17 Aug 04	Why "the" dictionary? (* see 19 Feb 09)	Undiff
15 Oct 04	The American National Anthem before 1931	Undiff

2005

Date	Topic	Desk
12 Jan 05	Why are roadways at night time always wet in the movies?	Undiff
16 Jan 05	Dates of events on other worlds	Undiff
10 Jul 05	Jesus H Christ	Undiff
15 Oct 05	Movies that haunt me	Humanities
	Origin of "heads up"	Language
16 Oct 05	What ever became of Graeme Faulkner ...	Humanities
18 Oct 05	Famous married couples born on the same day	Miscellaneous
26 Oct 05	George Abbott - oldest already-famous person in history (?)	Miscellaneous
29 Oct 05	Tchaikovsky's favourite painting "Melancholy" / German chess movie	Humanities
	(* see 26 Mar 07)
9 Nov 05	Overseas vs. offshore	Language
14 Nov 05	Loopwords	Language
16 Nov 05	Killers' full names	Miscellaneous
19 Nov 05	Birth order database	Humanities
20 Nov 05	Using Wikipedia as a source	Miscellaneous
22 Nov 05	Eponym of Rue St Jacques, Paris	Miscellaneous
2 Dec 05	Asian politician who disappeared in Sydney early 1960s (* see 12 May 08)	Miscellaneous
15 Dec 05	Christmas Greetings	Miscellaneous
26 Dec 05	Musical works by Genre by Key	Humanities

2006

Date	Topic	Desk
2 Jan 06	Argentina, Lebanon and Ukraine	Language
3 Jan 06	Jewish terminology	Humanities
8 Jan 06	Film credits on posters	Humanities
22 Jan 06	Tennis jargon	Miscellaneous
27 Jan 06	The greatest furphy of all time	Language
14 Feb 06	Happy Valentines Day	Miscellaneous
	First human on TV	Science
16 Feb 06	Actors/actresses who were never nominated for an Oscar	Humanities
17 Feb 06	Ants	Science
21 Feb 06	Weekend newspapers	Miscellaneous
7 Mar 06	Seven Different Films for the 7 Major Oscars	Humanities
23 Mar 06	Impact on Rotation	Science
5 Apr 06	Montreal Olympics	Humanities
20 Apr 06	Signing off on	Language
8 May 06	Mutually Exclusive National/Flag Colours	Miscellaneous
23 May 06	Sentence Challenge	Language
15 Jun 06	Elizabeth Fretwell	Humanities
28 Jun 06	Isn't it	Language
5 Jul 06	There's no two ways about it	Language
	Names for numbers	Language
13 Jul 06	Surnames based on body parts	Language
14 Jul 06	Past tenses	Language
	Free-for-all	Miscellaneous
17 Jul 06	Felipe, Phillipines and Filipinos	Language
18 Jul 06	Longest winning streak against a different opponent every time	Miscellaneous
21 Jul 06	Author as a verb	Language
24 Jul 06	Urination Arrangements	Miscellaneous
1 Aug 06	Bond, James Bond	Language
4 Aug 06	Initial Stress in Czech and Hungarian	Language
9 Aug 06	Asian verbosity	Language
	Unidentified Boston man	Miscellaneous
16 Aug 06	Ugly words	Language
2 Oct 06	Words with two x's	Language
12 Oct 06	Specacity	Language
17 Oct 06	The History of a Coin	Mathematics
24 Oct 06	La plus que lente	Language
30 Oct 06	Verbs of elimination	Language
2 Nov 06	Strange plurals	Language
9 Nov 06	The Autumn Leaves	Humanities
30 Nov 06	Environmental Effects of Tobacco	Science
11 Dec 06	J in 4th position	Language

2007

Date	Topic	Desk
12 Jan 07	Yellow School Buses	Miscellaneous
29 Jan 07	Former Greats	Language
6 Feb 07	Double Degeneration, or "The Snitzel Syndrome"	Language
16 Feb 07	I'm like	Language
19 Feb 07	Suspicious/Suspect	Language
27 Feb 07	Irritating TV news cliché	Miscellaneous
4 Mar 07	Stone	Language
12 Mar 07	In Store	Language
23 Mar 07	U'Brien	Language
26 Mar 07	Tchaikovsky's favourite painting "Melancholy" (2)	Humanities
28 Mar 07	Probability of choosing a 7-letter word from 7 random Scrabble letters	Mathematics
1 Apr 07	Pronunciation of "consummate"	Language
3 Apr 07	Tree stumps in dams	Science
7 Apr 07	Latin usage in the House of Lords Minutes	Humanities
23 Apr 07	Mental images of unseen people	Miscellaneous
15 May 07	Allegedly and similar adverbs	Language
25 Jun 07	Triple s in geographical names	Language
4 Jul 07	Czech Stress on first syllable	Language
5 Jul 07	British Monarch missing presumed dead	Humanities
21 Aug 07	List of countries by highest point above sea level	Miscellaneous
3 Sep 07	Commonwealth Star - Australian National Flag	Mathematics
14 Sep 07	Violin and Clarinet duos	Humanities
24 Sep 07	Spick-and-span (& spick and span; & spick)	Language
30 Sep 07	(In)transitive verbs	Language
1 Oct 07	Looking for a solution	Language
12 Oct 07	Your	Language
5 Nov 07	Foreskin and health	Miscellaneous
8 Nov 07	Victor Hugo and Anthelme Brillat-Savarin	Humanities
11 Nov 07	Date of Maxim Gorky's death	Humanities
4 Dec 07	I would rather you answer this question correctly	Language
5 Dec 07	Tom Driberg	Humanities
7 Dec 07	Jesus as a given name	Humanities
10 Dec 07	Sweet biscuits (= cookies) and savoury crackers	Science

2008

Date	Topic	Desk
7 Jan 08	Arch (arch) and arch (ark)	Language
9 Jan 08	V-words associated with anger	Language
12 Jan 08	Meaning of "Jailed"	Humanities
19 Jan 08	Box office smash	Entertainment
22 Jan 08	Bang/dead to rights	Language
1 Feb 08	"The" before expressions including personal names	Language
9 Feb 08	Centre of gravity of a country and capital cities	Mathematics
20 Feb 08	Advertisements with self-comparisons	Miscellaneous
22 Feb 08	Curious, suspicious and trying (* see 27 May 11, 14 Aug 12, 7 Jul 23)	Language
25 Feb 08	Three nuns	Language
6 Mar 08	Authors "writing as"	Language
11 Mar 08	Margarine, Margaret and soft/hard g	Language
12 Mar 08	Asking the impossible	Language
16 Mar 08	Is Uruguay unique?	Language
19 Mar 08	Attribution of movie quotes	Language
26 Mar 08	Doing blood work	Language
27 Mar 08	Actors crossing themselves	Entertainment
6 Apr 08	"Can not" vs. "cannot" in the 1860s	Language
7 Apr 08	James Watt’s date of death	Humanities
14 Apr 08	"Mispronounced" eponyms	Language
17 Apr 08	Producers of TV shows	Entertainment
30 Apr 08	Not a problem	Language
9 May 08	Classifications of persons	Language
12 May 08	South-East Asian politician who went missing in Sydney in the 1960s (* see 2 Dec 05)	Miscellaneous
20 May 08	One Note, Themes and Variations	Entertainment
9 Jun 08	The core rules of English	Language
14 Jun 08	Mary Faulkner	Humanities
19 Jun 08	Velpeau's Law	Miscellaneous
24 Jun 08	Time was	Language
27 Jun 08	Wimbledon sexism	Entertainment
30 Jun 08	Members of a small group with the same birthday	Miscellaneous
2 Jul 08	Birthday coincidences	Mathematics
7 Jul 08	Translations of book titles	Language
21 Jul 08	James Barton	Entertainment
23 Jul 08	Genealogical relationships	Humanities
26 Jul 08	Police breaking down doors	Miscellaneous
27 Jul 08	Hyphenated homographs	Language
12 Aug 08	A-side and B-side of albums	Entertainment
19 Aug 08	Weighted Olympic ranking	Entertainment
28 Aug 08	Whoever vs. whomever	Language
1 Sep 08	The national anthem played at the cinema and at concerts	Entertainment
9 Sep 08	Reconstructed literary and musical works	Humanities
14 Sep 08	Plural of prima ballerina/assoluta	Language
18 Sep 08	How quickly does Google recognise new words?	Miscellaneous
21 Sep 08	What's this called	Language
24 Sep 08	Strips of the world	Miscellaneous
26 Sep 08	U.S. Constitutional over-punctuation	Language
27 Sep 08	Samuel L. Gompers' middle name	Humanities
2 Oct 08	Geographic jigsaw	Miscellaneous
	Titular character	Language
	Logic problem: Working out Wendy's birthdate	Mathematics
5 Oct 08	Plural of "man’s man"	Language
8 Oct 08	Sharks and sarcoidosis	Language
27 Oct 08	Adding extra letters to words	Language
28 Oct 08	That'll teach you to ...	Language
6 Nov 08	Ant and ent words (mainly adjectives)	Language
	Lunch horn	Language
12 Nov 08	Full moon on birthdays	Science
19 Nov 08	TV adverts with mimed voices	Miscellaneous
24 Nov 08	Factory cash backs	Miscellaneous
1 Dec 08	Tousch	Humanities
2 Dec 08	Widow/widower	Language
8 Dec 08	Film music released before the film was released	Entertainment
	-ographer	Language
	Give, seen, came and done as past tense variants	Language
13 Dec 08	Living geniuses	Miscellaneous
15 Dec 08	Use of "the" at the delicatessen	Language
19 Dec 08	If I don't see you beforehand ...	Language
30 Dec 08	Waiting for the water to turn hot	Science

2009

Date	Topic	Desk
4 Jan 09	Inconsistent pluralisation, and inconsistent spelling generally	Language
7 Jan 09	"Job" as a euphemism for faeces	Language
16 Jan 09	Opposites of "must"	Language
19 Jan 09	Knights and peers who die before gazettal	Miscellaneous
29 Jan 09	Unhyphenated prefixes	Language
1 Feb 09	Extra-terrestrial Babel	Miscellaneous
2 Feb 09	Remarrying	Language
8 Feb 09	Avoidance of "an"	Language
9 Feb 09	Use of of	Language
13 Feb 09	Words with exactly one rhyme	Language
19 Feb 09	The dictionary (* see 17 Aug 04)	Language
20 Feb 09	My, my	Language
23 Feb 09	Nail-bitten hands in movies	Entertainment
26 Feb 09	The Garden of Death	Humanities
28 Feb 09	Words that have travelled a long way	Language
10 Mar 09	The Panizza musical dynasty	Humanities
22 Mar 09	Notable people who predeceased both their parents	Miscellaneous
25 Mar 09	"There's" followed by a plural word (* see 3 Jul 16)	Language
7 Apr 09	Plural of the noun "gas"	Language
9 Apr 09	The Easter/Christmas road toll and the media	Miscellaneous
14 Apr 09	Letters of a word rearranged to make two words	Language
15 Apr 09	Cooking apples	Miscellaneous
25 Apr 09	Dying of "aspiration"	Language
29 Apr 09	Incomparable crack	Language
2 May 09	Mac and Mc surnames	Language
6 May 09	Stirring vs. jiggling	Science
	Birds tapping on windows	Science
11 May 09	Name of a grammatical structure	Language
	Abbreviation of "I have not"	Language
17 May 09	Mixed numbers	Language
22 May 09	National Diet Library	Miscellaneous
28 May 09	Really obvious candidates for articles that don't exist yet	Miscellaneous
29 May 09	Sensible of	Language
4 Jun 09	Readerly, writerly and painterly	Language
11 Jun 09	Allow vs. permit	Language
17 Jun 09	Cunjevoi	Language
26 Jun 09	Lay and lie	Language
3 Jul 09	Supposed to rain, etc	Language
9 Jul 09	Debussy and Chouchou	Language
12 Jul 09	Crazy TV news and current affairs practices	Entertainment
15 Jul 09	Songs sometimes referred to by their lyrics	Entertainment
22 Jul 09	Distribution of total solar eclipes	Science
24 Jul 09	Regicide	Language
30 Jul 09	Efficiency of written languages	Language
4 Aug 09	-ear- pronounced -ar-	Language
7 Aug 09	A tense question	Language
22 Aug 09	The word "damascan"	Language
	Mathematically possible	Language
26 Aug 09	Who is that woman?	Miscellaneous
30 Aug 09	Misremembering having seen a movie	Miscellaneous
3 Sep 09	Wee solid?	Humanities
4 Sep 09	12 people in a family, all with birthdays in different months	Mathematics
8 Sep 09	Premiere performances	Humanities
9 Sep 09	Faintly ridiculous	Language
19 Sep 09	Standards	Language
23 Sep 09	Melbourne > Melburnian	Language
7 Oct 09	The missing Arlésienne	Language
16 Oct 09	Enjoying someone's support	Language
	Perfect anagrams of notable people's names	Language
26 Oct 09	Governor-General of the United Kingdom	Humanities
3 Nov 09	"Only" used as a contrast	Language
6 Nov 09	Dumb words and expressions	Language
9 Nov 09	Politeness and grammar	Language
11 Nov 09	Prison learning	Language
26 Nov 09	ffrench and fforde	Language
11 Dec 09	Lover of bitter things	Language
21 Dec 09	Woman as an adjective	Language

2010

Date	Topic	Desk
1 Jan 10	Entertention?	Language
4 Jan 10	Of a [period]	Language
7 Jan 10	Combinations of sounds that are hard to pronounce	Language
15 Jan 10	Antithetical opposites	Language
20 Jan 10	Mental pejorative	Language
27 Jan 10	Assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman	Miscellaneous
	Harping on	Language
4 Feb 10	Excessive thanks	Miscellaneous
	Devaluation of "snub"	Language
7 Feb 10	Verbs used as nouns	Language
15 Feb 10	Whoever vs. whomever	Language
16 Feb 10	4 nations, 4 flags - same pair of colours	Entertainment
21 Feb 10	Mann von Geist und sogar poetischen Geist	Language
22 Feb 10	Repluralisation of initialisms, not to mention fried chicken	Language
23 Feb 10	Making tea with zingless water	Science
28 Feb 10	What's a tassie?	Language
4 Mar 10	Premiere/premier	Language
12 Mar 10	Can't be arsed	Language
13 Mar 10	Italianate	Language
24 Mar 10	Delight, opposite of de-light	Language
31 Mar 10	Evelyn and Evelyn	Miscellaneous
1 Apr 10	The larger woman	Language
3 Apr 10	Clash of ofs	Language
14 Apr 10	Bank cheque present etiquette	Miscellaneous
15 Apr 10	Expeditious expeditions	Language
16 Apr 10	The Leaning Brown Building of the Spanish Steps	Science
19 Apr 10	English possessives of French names ending in silent -s	Language
26 Apr 10	Double possessives and relative clauses	Language
1 May 10	Hospitalised	Language
7 May 10	Opposites of 'well-to-do' and 'well off'	Language
	Invitation to help me out with my German	Language
12 May 10	Merging of expressions into single words	Language
20 May 10	St. Louis vs. Saint Louis	Humanities
27 May 10	Kopek	Language
29 May 10	Chrzciciel	Language
	Words with no relevant grammatical function	Language
9 Jun 10	Speed of light gibberish at the end of advertisements	Miscellaneous
	Extravagances and extravaganzas	Language
15 Jun 10	Etymology of "to hail from"	Language
22 Jun 10	'Dirty big' and 'dirty great'	Language
1 Jul 10	Special relationships between countries	Humanities
5 Jul 10	Soccer post-goal excitement	Entertainment
6 Jul 10	Zsa Zsa figure of speech	Language
13 Jul 10	Pronunciation of "homage"	Language
20 Jul 10	Jurors taking notes	Humanities
22 Jul 10	Was Audrey Hepburn a lesbian necrophiliac?	Language
6 Aug 10	Double adjectives following "a pair of"	Language
9 Aug 10	That … and which	Language
23 Aug 10	Knights/dames who have sex changes	Humanities
25 Aug 10	Beethoven's "ingharese"	Language
1 Sep 10	Only too happy	Language
7 Sep 10	Up and down, the verbs	Language
12 Sep 10	Tress, trix and tor	Language
16 Sep 10	Time and (time) again	Language
21 Sep 10	Close/tight-knit communities	Language
3 Oct 10	Comma usage	Language
8 Oct 10	Double -er in fruiterer	Language
12 Oct 10	Colourful verbs	Language
13 Oct 10	Sex at the Games	Entertainment
21 Oct 10	Alternative "Shakespeare" theories - claimants, candidates, what?	Language
1 Nov 10	UIR words	Language
3 Nov 10	Adverbesque words	Language
14 Nov 10	Violent macho expressions	Language
27 Nov 10	Which queen is Elizabeth II?	Humanities
1 Dec 10	Did Arnold Böcklin paint a picture called "The Return"?	Humanities
6 Dec 10	I would have thought	Language
7 Dec 10	Knighthoods, peerages, Bob Geldof et al	Humanities
10 Dec 10	Larrabee	Language
13 Dec 10	You had better/best read this question (* see 10 Apr 15, 23 Jan 16)	Language
22 Dec 10	Let's see if we can't get to the bottom of redundant negatives	Language
30 Dec 10	English universities: teaching in cosy private rooms	Humanities

2011

Date	Topic	Desk
2 Jan 11	Unusual given names of movie characters	Humanities
7 Jan 11	Not quite homonyms, homophones or homographs	Language
13 Jan 11	Thème vs. thême (Fr.)	Language
19 Jan 11	Rabbits' habits and rebels' pebbles	Language
23 Jan 11	The Germans' fear of the "cold steel"	Miscellaneous
4 Feb 11	Ambiguous abbreviations	Language
17 Feb 11	Please remember not to forget	Language
28 Feb 11	People who died on aircraft in mid-flight	Miscellaneous
2 Mar 11	Men who just keep on doing it	Miscellaneous
9 Mar 11	Irrepressible	Language
16 Mar 11	Commentary on a writing issue	Language
18 Mar 11	Weird TV colour problem	Miscellaneous
22 Mar 11	Pomp vs. pompousness	Humanities
30 Mar 11	Your call is important to us, yada yada	Miscellaneous
3 Apr 11	Premier vs. premiere	Language
5 Apr 11	Relative pronouns	Language
19 Apr 11	French capitalisation of adjectives and nouns in titles	Language
25 Apr 11	It's not me, it's you	Humanities
6 May 11	Saddam Hussein, Goldilocks and Mother	Language
23 May 11	Judges and Wikipedia	Humanities
27 May 11	Suspicious usages (* see 22 Feb 08, 14 Aug 12, 7 Jul 23)	Language
30 May 11	It was him playing	Language
14 Jun 11	x-j switch in Spanish-American places	Language
19 Jun 11	Enforced redundancy	Language
25 Jun 11	Why are bird droppings white?	Science
28 Jun 11	Fussable Chasselais	Language
1 Jul 11	Silent w in wh- words	Language
	Extended homonyms	Language
5 Jul 11	Shipdham	Language
7 Jul 11	Knockabout	Language
16 Jul 11	Hyphenation of French double-barrelled given names	Language
19 Jul 11	I'm like how come?	Language
25 Jul 11	Friends with	Language
3 Aug 11	United States presidents turning 50 in office	Humanities
8 Aug 11	THIS YEAR	Entertainment
19 Aug 11	Then for than	Language
22 Aug 11	Pointless English eccentricity: To the Manor Born	Humanities
24 Aug 11	Plurals of -y surnames	Language
7 Sep 11	Initialising Mac, Mc and O' surnames	Language
13 Sep 11	Poker dots	Language
23 Sep 11	Deeply popular	Language
24 Oct 11	Repeating the message	Language
31 Oct 11	Parents of multiple monarchs of different sexes	Humanities
6 Nov 11	Forms of address used by literary characters	Humanities
22 Nov 11	Scott vs. Amundsen	Humanities
28 Nov 11	Doing without "on" when dating an event	Language
30 Nov 11	She had a good innings	Language
5 Dec 11	Knowledge me up	Language
9 Dec 11	Only too happy	Language
19 Dec 11	Oh, you scared me!	Science
28 Dec 11	Curate's egg: 'her' and 'she'	Language
31 Dec 11	Police communication practices	Miscellaneous

2012

Date	Topic	Desk
4 Jan 12	Small-c vs. capital C	Language
10 Jan 12	Surnames as movie titles	Humanities
20 Jan 12	Talking products and shopping stores	Language
23 Jan 12	Killing me softly with his definition	Language
26 Feb 12	TV screen portion reserved for ads	Entertainment
28 Feb 12	Impossibilty of feeling or conveying sorrow	Humanities
29 Feb 12	Pre-ordering and pre-booking	Language
4 Mar 12	This email has been round the world 7 times	Miscellaneous
18 Mar 12	Do two wrongs sometimes make a right?	Language
26 Mar 12	Surnames derived from country names	Humanities
19 Apr 12	Just one more	Miscellaneous
25 Apr 12	Anonymous music critics	Humanities
7 May 12	There are already questions about François Hollande	Language
9 May 12	Annulment (the soap opera concept thereof)	Miscellaneous
18 May 12	Demonyms and their uses	Language
28 May 12	Collapsed like a bad chair on a black Monday	Language
31 May 12	Programming TV advertisements	Entertainment
6 Jun 12	Word or expression that originally meant literally what it said but no longer means literally what it says, but is still in use	Language
14 Jun 12	The last word in ultraverbalism	Language
20 Jun 12	High-profile actors in voice-only roles	Entertainment
7 Jul 12	Why was he born so beautiful?	Entertainment
24 Jul 12	Connecting the unconnectable	Language
30 Jul 12	Olympic anomalies	Entertainment
14 Aug 12	Curious and suspicious adjectives (* see 22 Feb 08, 27 May 11, 7 Jul 23)	Language
17 Aug 12	I find that term to be offensive (* see 16 Nov 23)	Language
16 Sep 12	Three Sisters	Science
26 Sep 12	Minor or major?	Language
3 Oct 12	TV news interview subjects who are first shown walking	Entertainment
9 Oct 12	The 4 top dogs are ladies	Humanities
11 Oct 12	Astley's Cigar Pipe	Miscellaneous
16 Oct 12	We’re done for	Language
31 Oct 12	The best ever question	Language
4 Nov 12	Confusing Morgan Freeman for Nelson Mandela	Entertainment
15 Nov 12	Peeps, Weemz, Sandz etc	Language
5 Dec 12	Right royal	Language
17 Dec 12	Are you the one?	Entertainment
29 Dec 12	Aged notable siblings	Humanities

2013

Date	Topic	Desk
3 Jan 13	Number governed by "each"	Language
8 Jan 13	Is "renowned" derived from a verb?"	Language
11 Jan 13	Spanish/Galician help	Language
29 Jan 13	My lucky day, or not	Humanities
5 Feb 13	Mythical animals in national symbols	Humanities
14 Feb 13	A frightfully fascinating question	Language
16 Feb 13	Itschory - Itsyursk - Itsiursk	Humanities
19 Feb 13	"...than what ..." in comparative expressions (* see 12 Oct 21)	Language
28 Feb 13	Naked zoo-gazing pothead movie	Entertainment
11 Mar 13	Pronouns with short memories	Language
13 Mar 13	Bwanos Aires	Language
18 Mar 13	Tall and lanky	Language
22 Mar 13	Male counterpart of "grande dame"	Language
11 Apr 13	Pronunciation of 'medieval'	Language
22 Apr 13	Advise (n.)	Language
27 Apr 13	Telling time in "The Browning Version"	Language
30 Apr 13	Forecastle vs Newcastle	Language
5 May 13	Earliest-born known human to be photographed	Humanities
8 May 13	Latin case order anomaly	Language
23 May 13	Fictional characters becoming real people	Humanities
24 May 13	Why only 2 tools?	Mathematics
4 Jun 13	Hello, Bastards!	Entertainment
13 Jun 13	Use of possessive pronouns as (?) intensifiers	Language
16 Jul 13	Consecutive prepositions	Language
24 Jul 13	Changing a monarch's regnal name	Humanities
27 Jul 13	Do male religious ever take female names? (* see 26 Oct 16, 29 May 17)	Humanities
30 Jul 13	Sesquipedelian government agencies	Humanities
13 Aug 13	Unaccredited actors [sic]	Language
29 Aug 13	Why is "larger" less large than "large"?	Language
10 Sep 13	Latin motto	Language
17 Sep 13	Strange grammar in Bunyan	Language
19 Sep 13	Verbs of electoral motion	Language
25 Sep 13	What's special about "predecease" in the grand scheme of things?	Language
2 Oct 13	Which film studio used this music for its opening fanfare?	Entertainment
6 Oct 13	"One of the best films of this or any year"	Language
17 Oct 13	Actors appearing in different versions of the same film	Entertainment
27 Oct 13	My dog has fleas	Entertainment
	Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma	Humanities
30 Oct 13	Pronunciation of Gia	Language
1 Nov 13	Articles (or not) with epithets	Language
15 Nov 13	Name of literary device	Language
26 Nov 13	Why are television reporters cliche magnets?	Language
30 Nov 13	Waste products	Science
7 Dec 13	Just say the word	Language
14 Dec 13	Nationality-born vs. country-born	Language
19 Dec 13	[Sic]cing the [sic]cer; or "Fully [sic]"	Language

2014

Date	Topic	Desk
3 Jan 14	National censuses that exclude certain groups of citizens	Humanities
7 Jan 14	Double credit for film directors	Humanities
13 Jan 14	Why do we care?	Language
18 Jan 14	An immigrants' son done good	Language
28 Jan 14	The case	Language
3 Feb 14	Copyright assertions by dead people	Humanities
7 Feb 14	How do you plead?	Humanities
11 Feb 14	Reckless Conduct Endangering Serious Injury	Language
	Indian name complexity	Humanities
6 Mar 14	What is fucken going on?	Language
15 Mar 14	A cuttle of days	Language
25 Mar 14	Missing characters in The Railway Man	Entertainment
31 Mar 14	Earworm help needed	Entertainment
5 Apr 14	People who married each other more than once	Miscellaneous
9 Apr 14	Surname "Iwi"	Language
21 Apr 14	Sir Eric Ronge	Miscellaneous
27 Apr 14	Upper case F	Language
29 Apr 14	Mailer/Behan punch-up	Humanities
5 Jun 14	Countries that have done away with coins altogether	Miscellaneous
11 Jun 14	Pronunciation of 'protocol'	Language
26 Jun 14	Longest series of prenominals	Humanities
11 Jul 14	Chocolate caramel makes the eye(s) water	Science
15 Jul 14	Has "whore" become neutral?	Language
23 Jul 14	Take no prisoners	Language
4 Aug 14	Adverbs that are not	Language
11 Aug 14	French o'clock	Language
6 Sep 14	The endings of the ordinals	Language
7 Sep 14	"Bad grammar" in early song lyrics	Language
17 Sep 14	Cars driving into houses and shopfronts - what the hell is going on?	Humanities
18 Sep 14	Referring to a Polish husband-wife pair by a single surname	Language
27 Sep 14	Mc and Mac names	Language
28 Sep 14	"Very good, my lord"	Language
14 Oct 14	Police impersonating soldiers	Miscellaneous
27 Oct 14	Ida Scott's singing teacher	Humanities
1 Nov 14	Liverpool College of Music	Humanities
2 Nov 14	Continued square (or nth) roots of Graham's number	Mathematics
27 Nov 14	Sioux in German	Language
2 Dec 14	Living former heads of government	Humanities

2015

Date	Topic	Desk
9 Jan 15	Why no "off board"?	Language
13 Jan 15	Elizabeth Barrett Browning and "iconoclast"	Language
29 Jan 15	Grand Slam bridesmaid	Entertainment
7 Feb 15	"Adjective" stress	Language
11 Feb 15	Transcription dilemma	Language
27 Feb 15	Publically	Language
2 Mar 15	Why are my coffee mugs too hot?	Science
11 Mar 15	The five Coles brother knights	Humanities
14 Mar 15	Early Spanish contacts with Japan	Humanities
25 Mar 15	Daughters named after their fathers	Miscellaneous
26 Mar 15	Pronunciation of "wrath"	Language
31 Mar 15	Why did /am-er-EE-ka/ become /a-ME-ri-ka/?	Language
3 Apr 15	Why is there no Ferdinand II of Castile?	Humanities
10 Apr 15	You'd better answer this question, better'nt you (* see 13 Dec 10, 23 Jan 16)	Language
25 Apr 15	For all its/it's worth	Language
4 May 15	History of the abbreviations 'ag' or 'a/g' (for "acting")	Language
7 May 15	Schumann's stranded repeat sign	Humanities
14 May 15	Congolese	Language
1 Jun 15	Circumnavigation of the Europe-Asia-Africa land mass	Miscellaneous
5 Jun 15	Well-to-do	Language
19 Jun 15	Overuse of 'different' and 'separate'	Language
15 Jul 15	Juxtaposed homographs	Language
21 Jul 15	Words ending in -cund	Language
22 Jul 15	The King's step-children	Humanities
10 Aug 15	The government will announce today ...	Language
29 Aug 15	Out-and-out	Language
30 Aug 15	Life hack?	Language
4 Sep 15	Is Arcedeckne of Anglo-Saxon origin?	Language
7 Sep 15	Places that are closer to foreign capitals than to their own capital	Miscellaneous
13 Sep 15	Body part anagrams	Language
27 Oct 15	Titular terminological travesty	Language
28 Oct 15	Upper bound on the number of possible Scrabble games	Mathematics
29 Oct 15	When 'out of' means 'at'	Language
15 Nov 15	Birthdate of Nicolae Ceauşescu - which calendar?	Humanities
22 Nov 15	The Next Big Thing	Language
25 Nov 15	Republic of Texas: Date problem	Humanities
5 Dec 15	Who is or was Hadia Bejar?	Language
12 Dec 15	I don't give a damn	Language
29 Dec 15	Referring to art works by the artist's name	Language

2016

Date	Topic	Desk
16 Jan 16	Split subject?	Language
23 Jan 16	You had good/better/best answer this question (* see 13 Dec 10, 10 Apr 15)	Language
8 Feb 16	How many defecators?	Science
15 Feb 16	Auteur as an adjective	Language
21 Feb 16	"Smash hit new comedy program"	Entertainment
24 Feb 16	Mongrel pronunciations	Language
5 Mar 16	Too much of a too-muchness	Language
20 Mar 16	"Selects for ..." or "selects against ..."	Language
27 Mar 16	Supernumerary urogenital numbering system	Miscellaneous
2 Apr 16	Microsoft Word vs XL: sibling rivalry?	Computing
12 Apr 16	Heads of government who couldn't occupy their official residences	Humanities
15 Apr 16	Jchekovitch spelling	Language
18 Apr 16	Why no "distrustworthy"?	Language
1 May 16	Dhingo	Language
3 May 16	Nôrmale Mûsique	Language
13 May 16	What was this typo supposed to be?	Language
22 May 16	Is Australia really "so far away"?	Miscellaneous
26 May 16	Alien movie identification	Entertainment
2 Jun 16	Does Lviv hold the record?	Humanities
28 Jun 16	Job (biblical figure)	Language
3 Jul 16	There's bad things happening here (* see 25 Mar 09)	Language
9 Jul 16	Characters who are never seen, but are not "unseen characters"	Entertainment
16 Jul 16	Cluidunning	Miscellaneous
17 Jul 16	Medical tautology	Language
22 Jul 16	St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle	Humanities
24 Jul 16	Parenthetical phrases	Language
5 Aug 16	Dedication protocols	Humanities
10 Aug 16	Longevity of widowhood	Miscellaneous
31 Aug 16	Does "could" still mean "could"?	Language
9 Sep 16	Several	Language
24 Sep 16	Jack and the Bean talk	Language
26 Oct 16	Gender preferences in religious names (* see 27 Jul 13, 29 May 17)	Miscellaneous
8 Nov 16	Wrong on so many levels	Miscellaneous
16 Nov 16	The Rising of the Moon	Science
18 Nov 16	Coining of 'vexillology'	Language
21 Nov 16	What I want to know is ...	Language
23 Nov 16	Film production house moving logos	Entertainment
27 Nov 16	Half-siblings from different mothers or fathers	Miscellaneous
30 Nov 16	Occurance [sic]	Language
5 Dec 16	Headless chickens and pork chops	Language

2017

Date	Topic	Desk
6 Feb 17	Crocide	Language
13 Feb 17	Charlie Chaplin's lack of popularity in Colombia in the 1920s	Entertainment
28 Feb 17	Diocese and its plural	Language
22 Mar 17	Meaning of "traves"	Language
8 Apr 17	Pretentious interview stories	Language
11 Apr 17	But and however	Language
21 Apr 17	Identifiable whisperers	Science
29 May 17	Male Elizabeths (* see 27 Jul 13, 26 Oct 16)	Language
29 May 17	Frequency of solar eclipses at a given place	Science
1 Jun 17	Offhand	Language
6 Jun 17	Surname Y'Blood	Language
8 Jun 17	The pleasure of sneezing	Science
28 Jun 17	Plurals of -ooth words	Language
8 Jul 17	Fall in love, fall pregnant	Language
13 Jul 17	Temperature at which water vapour formst	Science
3 Aug 17	Unusual given names	Humanities
10 Aug 17	Death day probability	Mathematics
27 Aug 17	Subject and author with similar names	Humanities
2 Sep 17	Weird Google result	Computing
9 Sep 17	Pronunciation of 'integral'	Language
11 Sep 17	Coining the term 'black hole'	Miscellaneous
11 Sep 17	Latin mono-syllabic words ending in -x	Language
10 Oct 17	Catalan's President?	Language
18 Nov 17	Actors' names misspelled in film credits	Entertainment
27 Nov 17	Glottal stops in Aussie English	Language
5 Dec 17	Glottal stops in Aussie English (continued)	Language
16 Dec 17	Entitled	Language

2018

Date	Topic	Desk
2 Jan 18	Words containing the same number of letters as their numerical value	Language
8 Jan 18	Japanese vs. Hungarian personal names	Language
19 Jan 18	Random vehicle registration plates	Miscellaneous
24 Jan 18	Why are there no male coeds?	Language
25 Jan 18	Super blue blood moons	Science
10 Mar 18	Superstars, superheroes, supermodels, ...	Language
26 Mar 18	Strange anomalies	Miscellaneous
13 Apr 18	Bigger than Ben-Hur	Entertainment
13 Apr 18	Stopped her (from) doing it	Language
7 May 18	Weddings of the century	Humanities
31 May 18	Inordinately	Language
23 Jun 18	Potable	Language
1 Jul 18	Birthdate of Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby	Humanities
7 Jul 18	Philandrous philanderers	Language
25 Sep 18	And he smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter ...	Language
30 Sep 18	Pianos vs motor vehicles: moving parts	Science
5 Oct 18	The case	Language
10 Oct 18	Souls or soles?	Language
22 Oct 18	Pandar	Language
22 Oct 18	Murian	Language
28 Oct 18	Subjunctive overkill in the USA?	Language
10 Nov 18	When did the norm change from monochrome to colour feature films?	Entertainment
2 Dec 18	Adjective and objective	Language
21 Dec 18	How many pregnancies at one time?	Science

2019

Date	Topic	Desk
3 Jan 19	Turning corners	Miscellaneous
19 Jan 19	GPs wearing white lab coats	Entertainment
16 Feb 19	Spoken rather than visual credits at the start of a movie	Entertainment
30 Mar 19	Waltzing Matilda is not a waltz	Entertainment
21 Apr 19	Worshipping ancient Greek or Roman gods	Humanities
23 Apr 19	Polish el	Language
9 May 19	Which is the correct book title?	Humanities
19 May 19	Rearranging digits in XL	Computing
21 May 19	Matoid	Language
26 May 19	The Song of Bernadette - "We have religious, not priests"	Humanities
1 Jun 19	Bad voice dubbing in TV ads	Entertainment
2 Jun 19	The Voice of the Sacred Crane	Humanities
4 Jun 19	Why Italia and not Itaglia?	Language
20 Jun 19	You can't help but not answer this question	Language
14 Jul 19	Subject-keyword disconnection	Language
26 Jul 19	XL Replace function query	Computing
27 Jul 19	Ladies "literally sitting among" senators in the US Congress	Humanities
16 Aug 19	Runs for wickets vs. wickets for runs	Entertainment
16 Aug 19	Personal pronoun "I" capitalised in English	Language
21 Aug 19	Plurals of foreign-origin nouns adopted into English	Language
5 Sep 19	Purposively vs. purposefully	Language
8 Sep 19	Literals	Language
11 Sep 19	A monk's footsteps	Humanities
18 Sep 19	Cars without registration plates	Entertainment
3 Oct 19	Unnatural side-on camera angles	Entertainment
16 Oct 19	Bested vs. worsted	Language
22 Oct 19	Source of a film quote	Entertainment
30 Oct 19	World War II vs. the Second World War	Language
16 Dec 19	SVU - Part 38	Entertainment

2020

Date	Topic	Desk
15 Jan 20	Pedantic correctness vs. commonsense phraseology	Language
24 Jan 20	Product of primes	Mathematics
28 Jan 20	Direct flights between antipodes	Miscellaneous
11 Feb 20	... is ... and ...	Language
17 Feb 20	Honorary ambassadors	Humanities
27 Feb 20	Dantesque	Language
6 Mar 20	Identical words for "poet" and "liar"	Language
16 Mar 20	Permanent Residency condition	Humanities
17 Mar 20	Silent-letter acronyms	Language
25 Mar 20	Is "person of color" an adjective?	Language
27 Mar 20	The seventies, East Side	Miscellaneous
4 Apr 20	John Marlowe and the other John Marlowe	Mathematics
10 Apr 20	(Sometimes serial) unstressed your	Language
24 Apr 20	XL formatting issue	Computing
29 Apr 20	Or forever hold your peace	Humanities
7 May 20	Covid-19 reporting basis: deaths per million	Humanities
1 Jun 20	Rousseauian	Language
4 Jun 20	Mismatched time references	Language
14 Jun 20	These porridge	Language
18 Jun 20	Petrol (gasoline) becoming unusable over time	Science
16 Jul 20	Murder at the Palace	Humanities
22 Jul 20	Vital dates for H. Price Collier	Humanities
23 Jul 20	Boys and bies (Forster)	Language
31 Jul 20	Hands around the nose and mouth	Miscellaneous
13 Aug 20	Quote source	Humanities
22 Sep 20	Productive letter groups	Language
6 Oct 20	British ladies named Feodorowna	Humanities
26 Oct 20	La Croix de Berny: Roman steeple-chase	Humanities
4 Nov 20	Electoral - pronunciation	Language
10 Nov 20	NAIDOC Week	Humanities
29 Nov 20	TV anchors cutting to reporters in the field	Entertainment
30 Nov 20	Comparative adverbs	Language
11 Dec 20	The numbers	Language
19 Dec 20	Lord Tennyson's moniker	Humanities

2021

Date	Topic	Desk
3 Feb 21	Chronicles of wasted time	Miscellaneous
19 Feb 21	I would have thought ...	Language
20 Feb 21	Bombshell	Language
22 Feb 21	List of moments of death of British monarchs	Humanities
9 Apr 21	Writing as a native in more than one language	Language
25 Apr 21	Television film first	Entertainment
2 May 21	Squawking Eclectus	Language
19 May 21	Waiting periods for remarriage after divorce	Humanities
26 May 21	Pyramids at centre of the Earth	Science
2 Jun 21	Rap singers' short lives	Humanities
13 Jun 21	Bilateral talks	Language
22 Jun 21	Random number game	Mathematics
13 Jul 21	Amputation without general anaesthetic	Miscellaneous
17 Jul 21	Quotient problem	Mathematics
16 Aug 21	Broken news	Language
21 Aug 21	Men with suits and ties in old movies	Entertainment
23 Sep 21	Bushy and straggly eyebrows	Science
30 Sep 21	As of yet	Language
12 Oct 21	Than what (* see 19 Feb 13)	Language
18 Oct 21	Edmund Kean's date of birth	Humanities
13 Dec 21	Paradox name	Humanities
13 Dec 21	Well-knit	Language
14 Dec 21	When is a suicide not a suicide?	Humanities
26 Dec 21	The least obscure person	Humanities
28 Dec 21	"I'm like", she said	Language

2022

Date	Topic	Desk
4 Feb 22	Updating Chomsky's quote	Humanities
20 Feb 22	Non-rebelling North American British colonies	Humanities
5 Mar 22	Rolled-up long-sleeved shirts on TV talk shows	Entertainment
5 Mar 22	Countries with non-continuous borders with other countries	Humanities
10 Mar 22	Russian oligarchs	Miscellaneous
16 Mar 22	A possible shower or two	Language
24 Mar 22	Different than/from	Language
30 Mar 22	Personal conversations with royalty	Language
19 Apr 22	Triple insomnia	Miscellaneous
20 Jun 22	Himself >> themself(ves)	Language
26 Jun 22	Selective sensitivity (* see 1 Jul 23)	Miscellaneous
1 Jul 22	Unknown players of title roles	Entertainment
8 Jul 22	Singular nouns in plural form	Language
18 Jul 22	Should/would	Language
19 Jul 22	Secret celebrity weddings	Language
26 Aug 22	Question marks as emojis	Language
31 Aug 22	That's as an inanimate relative pronoun	Language
9 Sep 22	Presidential death across the International Date Line	Humanities
11 Sep 22	Counting letters (and numbers) in a text	Computing
21 Sep 22	The Queen's head	Humanities
6 Nov 22	Homey-jones	Language
8 Nov 22	Henry Campbell-Bannerman's earldom	Humanities
23 Nov 22	One too many loan	Language

2023

Date	Topic	Desk
7 Jan 23	Germans' fear of bayonets	Miscellaneous
13 Jan 23	A weightless universe	Science
14 Jan 23	The only person in history who was free from all human weakness	Humanities
20 Jan 23	Attributed, possibly/probably apocryphal	Humanities
15 Feb 23	Unscripted conversations	Language
2 Mar 23	Arabic surnames including al and bin	Language
16 Mar 23	Travelling a light second	Miscellaneous
1 Apr 23	Grand prixs	Language
19 Apr 23	Witness not permitted to give sworn testimony	Humanities
5 May 23	Pre-wedding legal advice	Miscellaneous
20 May 23	When are halves plural, and why?	Language
30 May 23	Sapphic thoughts	Language
22 Jun 23	Touching down	Language
1 Jul 23	Selectivity of trigger warnings (* see 26 Jun 22)	Miscellaneous
7 Jul 23	I lost them: idiom with opposite meanings (* see 22 Feb 08, 27 May 11, 14 Aug 12)	Language
19 Jul 23	Words with unexpected meanings	Language
6 Aug 23	Queen Camilla Bloggs	Humanities
17 Aug 23	Better and best, but not good	Language
24 Aug 23	Talking without breathing	Entertainment
20 Sep 23	Random integer factors	Mathematics
28 Sep 23	A leading question	Language
11 Oct 23	Desiccate	Language
16 Nov 23	Who's the finger really pointing at? (* see 17 Aug 12)	Language
21 Dec 23	Rouxs and jus	Language

2024

Date	Topic	Desk
3 Jan 24	"if ... then" stranding	Language
29 Jan 24	Tree hanging over a neighbour's fence	Humanities
7 Feb 24	Ctrl-Y timing issue	Computing
9 Feb 24	French senses in translation	Language
24 Feb 24	Say, speak, talk, tell	Language
13 Mar 24	Not to change the subject ...	Language
14 Mar 24	Have never vs. never have	Language
16 Apr 24	1,000 random editors	Mathematics
2 May 24	Why is Tresckow pronounced like -cow and and not -coff	Language