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The Sydney Morning Herald<\/em> has a regular column, Big Questions<\/a>, where they invite readers to submit questions to be published, and other readers to submit answers.<\/p>\n What sort of nagging questions do their readers want – nay, need<\/em> – to get answered?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n They are not the questions that nag me. Like, how can, in evolutionary terms, can it be stable for all the males of certain species, like Antechinus flavipes<\/em>, to mate with so much exertion that they die shortly afterwards? <\/p>\n They are not the questions that amuse me. Like, how can it be that sandpaper is useful to smooth a surface, and it is also useful to roughen a surface?<\/p>\n No! As a quick inspection of their archives proves, a very large number of the “big questions” that cause newspaper readers to lie awake at night are about – of all the sciences – etymology<\/a>!<\/p>\n However, it is not the calibre of the questions that keep bringing me back to this column. It is the calibre of the answers.<\/p>\n There is a phenomena that occurs with a startling consistency. One person will write in, authoritatively, with the derivation of a word. Published right next to it will be another explanation – contradictory, but equally authoritative.<\/p>\n