The Straight Dope 07/04/2003

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The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 07/04/2003

Dear Cecil:

Where did the phrase "built like a brick shithouse"
originate? How can it possibly be considered a compliment?
--Erik Smith, Hilton Head, South Carolina

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Cecil replies:

You wouldn't ask this question if you'd ever really listened
to a man try to compliment a woman. ("Of course I like your
outfit, honey. It really de-emphasizes your butt.") But you
have a point. When one contemplates the comely female form,
"brick shithouse" is not the first phrase that springs to
mind.

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030704.html


STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

As I am writing this, I am sitting on the 28th floor of a
high rise in downtown Chicago. There are about 10 spiders
with webs outside the office windows. How did they get
there? I can't imagine that they climbed up 280 feet on the
outside of the building. What made then stop at the 28th
floor? Why not continue to other 12 floors? How do they even
know that there are bugs up there? This is all very
confusing and no one in my office seems to know. One guy
suggested that spiders make little "web parachutes" and let
the wind carry them up to the heights. But if that is the
case why don't we ever see thousands of spiders flying
through the air? --Jason Steele, Chicago, IL

SDSTAFF Doug replies:

The guy who commented about "parachutes" was very nearly
correct. Many tiny spiders perform a feat called
"ballooning," which involves letting a long dragline of silk
out into the wind. When the pull on the silk exceeds the
weight of the spider, then off it goes, riding the wind
currents. The phenomenon figured in E.B. White's children's
book Charlotte's Web and Gary Larson once did a "Far Side"
parody of it, about how buffalo disperse by ballooning. The
spiders have no control once they're airborne, of course,
and most of them die--either from being blown too high and
freezing, staying aloft too long and starving, or landing in
an inhospitable spot. But a few lucky individuals land
somewhere they can survive, like your high-rise. 

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mspiderballoon.html


STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 05151981

Dear Cecil: 

I have a fear of, yet a morbid curiosity about, execution by
electrocution. How does one get in to see an execution? What
preparations go on before an execution? What happens to the
prisoner before and after? What physically happens to the
prisoner during an electrocution? Has anyone ever been
strapped in, then taken out? Are there tours of Death Houses
at prisons? Please try to be as detailed as possible.
--Scared Stiff in the Chair, Chicago

Dear Scared:  

Great. Another nut case. Ordinarily I try to avoid inquiries 
from the mentally unbalanced, but this time I'm going to 
make an exception, in hopes of stamping out any 
incipient enthusiasm for the barbaric practice alluded 
to above. The squeamish are advised to avert their eyes.

Now then, clown, suppose we wish to electrocute somebody.
Suppose it is yourself. 

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_219.html

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