Thread for strange questions

[GopherRock]

How did "The Sound of Music" become a Christmas movie, and why is "My Favorite Things" now a holiday music staple?

[Cincydawg]

I'm pretty sure that "Die Hard" officially replaced "SoM" as Christmas Music and movie.

[Cincydawg]

Why is "jeopardy" spelled that way?  We pronounce it more like "jeprody".


Middle English iuparti, from Old French ieu parti ‘(evenly) divided game’. The term was originally used in chess and other games to denote a problem, or a position in which the chances of winning or losing were evenly balanced, hence ‘a dangerous situation’.

[MrNubbz]

I know I'm getting old but Die Hard should never be shown in the Christmas Season.Bad Santa is as far as I'll go

[Cincydawg]

I'm pretty sure no person can enjoy Christmas without watching Die Hard at least once.  The sequels, not so much of course.

I was musing about Predator, the movie, the other day, and how good I thought it was, and then how awful the sequel was.  It ranks up there with bad sequels, with a lot of competition.

[MarqHusker]

How did "The Sound of Music" become a Christmas movie, and why is "My Favorite Things" now a holiday music staple?

Good question (both).  Ah,   there's never a bad time to root against the Nazis?  Why must Christmas be excluded from such family celebrations?

speaking of which, underrated non-traditional Christmas movie,  Stalag 17 (1953).    Funny (intentionally so) movie of American POWs in a German camp around the Christmas season.

[Cincydawg]

Would the world have been better off had Germany won WW One?

I know I asked this previously.  WW Two, no need to ask.

[Brutus Buckeye]

On another board I told some Nebraska fans that they were going to get their ears shucked, and they reacted as though I had deployed some pretty strong trash talk. I guess it is best in their mind to be the husker and not the huskee

[Cincydawg]

How much of OSU's apparent improvement is due to Fields?  (Relative to whoever they might have started.)  I surmise if they had Joe Burrow they would be doing pretty well also.  The guy who left for Miami didn't even start there.  

[Brutus Buckeye]

Mathew Baldwin, who transferred to TCU after getting beat out by Justin Fields in the Spring, would have beaten out Tate Martel, imo.

[LittlePig]

The origin of the Hawkeye nickname is actually a little controversial.  There are actually different versions. 

Which version you believe depends on whether you were a fan of the Whig political party or the Democratic-Republican Party in the 1830's

One version is that the Hawkeye nickname was inspired by the character Hawkeye from the James Fennimore Cooper's novel The Last of the Mohicans (AKA Daniel Day Lewis from the last movie).  Iowa's early settlers supposedly were a lot like Hawkeye, so Iowa became known as the Hawkeye State.

The other version is that the Hawkeye nickname was created to honor Chief Blawkhawk,  who played a big role in both Illinois and Iowa's early history.  So to honor the chief, Iowa became known as the Hawkeye State.  I don't buy this version myself because if it were true, Iowa would probably be known as the blackhawk state.

[CWSooner]

Would the world have been better off had Germany won WW One?

I know I asked this previously.  WW Two, no need to ask.

To answer your question with a question, "How can we know?"
What we can surmise is that a victorious Germany would have inflicted a harsher peace on the Allies than the Allies did in fact inflict on Germany.
Per the Font of all Wisdom and Knowledge:

The Septemberprogramm . . . was the plan for the territorial expansion of Imperial Germany, prepared for Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, at the beginning of World War I (1914–18). The Chancellor's private secretary, Kurt Riezler, drafted the Septemberprogramm on 9 September 1914, in the early days of the German attack in the west, when Germany expected to defeat France quickly and decisively. The extensive territorial conquests proposed in the Septemberprogramm required making vassal states of Belgium and France and seizing much of the Russian Empire. The Septemberprogramm was not effected because France withstood the initial German attack, and the war devolved into a trench-warfare stalemate, and ultimately ended in German defeat.

The harsh peace that Germany imposed on France after the Franco-Prussian war was one of the causes of WWI.  The Septemberprogramm peace would have encouraged most of Europe to seek a reversal of the situation.

[MrNubbz]

Is "tired old cliche" one?

[Cincydawg]

The wife wanted to go to this upscale shopping mall today.  She was looking for some specific shoes.  I suggested Walmart.

The second pair she said she liked was $750.  I forget the brand, doesn't matter.  $750.