The Straight Dope 08/18/2006

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 08/18/2006

Dear Cecil:

Do unborn babies pee and/or defecate in the womb? --Realtime, via
e-mail

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Cecil replies:

That's two questions, so two answers. Number one: yes, and it's a good
thing they do. Number two: yes, but you better hope they don't.

Fetal urination is normal. It's part of that "miracle of life" folderol
the nature programs exalt just before they hit you with something you'd
rather not know. Naturally, fetal urine isn't quite the same as yours or
mine. It does contain urea, but much of the nitrogenous waste enters
maternal circulation for mama to clean up. Fetal urine isn't yellow,
either. Fetuses and newborns lack enzymes to convert bile pigments to
urobilin, which colors the output of older children and adults.

Urine production begins late in the first trimester, about the same time
the two-inch embryo becomes a fetus. In the second half of pregnancy,
fetal urine is an important constituent of amniotic fluid. By the time
the kid is about ready to pop out, he or she is passing roughly a liter
a day. Where does it go? Seems kids learn the benefits of recycling
early on--they swallow it. They'd better, too, lest polyhydramnios (a
potentially dangerous buildup of fluid volume) result. When fetal
urination is impaired, the opposite complication, oligohydramnios,
usually occurs.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/060818.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

A long time ago a friend told me that the origin of the word "idiot"
comes from ancient Greece where it was the name given to all those
citizens who weren't politicians. Is this true or was my friend joking
with me? --Jan Lindkvist, Borlang, Sweden

Guest contributor Fierra replies:

You're asking if the ancient Greeks disagreed with Mark Twain when he
said "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member
of Congress. But I repeat myself." The ancient Greeks evidently lacked
the perspective that a couple of millennia gave Twain, because your
friend was right: In Greek, idiot was the term for non-politicians, or
more precisely, those not active in public life.

The word idiot originated in the English language around 1300 AD. At that
time it meant "a person so mentally deficient as to be incapable of ordinary
reasoning," and came to English via French from late Latin idiota, "an
ignorant or uneducated man." This in turn came from earlier Latin where
it had the same meaning as the original Greek word from which it
derived. This Greek word was idiwtes or idiotes in the Latin alphabet.
This had several meanings, the first and most common being "a private
person as opposed to a magistrate, ruler, king," just as your friend
said. The second meaning was similar--"a common soldier as opposed to a
military officer." There's a third meaning we won't mention to Cecil--"a
prose writer as opposed to a poet." Then again, the fact that he once
wrote an entire column in dactylic tetrameter might make the Master less
inclined to take umbrage.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/midiot.htm

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 08/02/1991

Dear Cecil:

I've heard the following expression from people all over the country and
on television. It makes absolutely no sense:  "That's the exception that
proves the rule."  Is this a bastardization of some other phrase? If
not, what does it mean? --Lorraine N., East Weymouth, Massachusetts

Dear Lorraine:

Don't you get it? The whole point of this saying is that it doesn't make
sense. It's what you say to confound your enemies when your argument
has been shot out from under you by some pesky counterexample. From
the point of view of advancing the debate it's about one jump ahead of
"yo mama," but it beats standing there with your mouth open.

To be sure, a few scholarly types have tried to make excuses for "The
exception proves the rule," as the quotation books usually phrase it. They
say it comes from the medieval Latin aphorism Exceptio probat regulam.
Probat means "prove" in the sense of "test," as in "proving ground" or "the
proof is in the pudding." So "the exception proves the rule" means a close
look at exceptions helps us determine a rule's validity.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_201.html

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