Mr. Write's Page

The Questions…

1. The US Postal Service introduced the ZIP code in 1963 and expanded it with the ZIP+4 system in 1983. What does “ZIP” stand for?

2. The Pacific Ocean is the planet’s largest body of water. What percent of Earth’s surface does it cover?

3. After a long career as a womanizer in the 1700s, how did Italian playboy Giacomo Casanova spend his declining years?

4. What do the words gallows, scissors, binoculars, and pliers have in common?

5. Why is a monkey wrench called a monkey wrench?

The Answers…

1. Zone improvement plan.

2. About 30 percent. The Pacific is larger than all of the planet’s land area combined.

3. He became a librarian for Count Ferdinand von Waldstein at a remote castle in Bohemia. Secure and comfortable, but bored by life among the peasants, he kept himself secluded with his fox terriers and wrote his memoirs.

4. They only exist in plural form.

5. No consensus on the origin of the name. The inventor, Loring Coes, patented it in 1841 as a “screw wrench.” It’s possible the term “monkey wrench” evolved because, in those days, a small implement or piece of equipment sometimes was called a monkey. I don’t get it either.