Why do you wish a person "many happy returns of the day" on their birthday?The happy returns on your birthday refer to solar returns - the moment when the sun returns to the zodiac sign and degree it occupied at your birth. A horoscope is drawn up for the precise moment of your solar return, in order to predict your year ahead - hopefully a happy one!
Jessica Adams, North Sydney
It began as an occult wish, recalling our birth and anticipating the next life: that we shall come back as, say Attila the Hun rather than Attila's horse, or Cleopatra rather than one of her eunuchs.
Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie
You are wishing them that their birthday will "return" again - many times i.e. that they will have a long life.
Amber Jones, Surry Hills
This phrase came into use when people revolved around their families (before the days of confuddling and befusing technological contraptions) and they would, when it came to their birthdays, go home to their families to celebrate with the family. When they said "many happy returns" it meant "We hope you have many more happy days like that returning to your family..."
Cam Wilson, Warrawee
Why, from newborn babyhood onward, do people rub their eyes when they're tired?
From observations of my own two daughters, I think the reason is that as we become tired and as we go to sleep, one of the first signs is our eyes become tired and eyelids start to droop. This makes our eyes a little irritated and it is a natural response to rub them. It also helps us keep awake if we don't want to go to sleep. I know that when my daughters were young, they would fight to the death to stay up and continue playing, continually rubbing their eyes to stay awake.
John Frith, Paddington
Rubbing your eyes causes your heart rate to slow down, preparing your body for sleep. The outer eyes contain the rectus muscles, which are responsible for moving our eyeballs. When you rub your eyes, and apply pressure to these muscles, you also stimulate the vagus nerve that runs along side the rectus muscles. The vagus nerve has many functions, one of which is controlling heart rate.
David Buley, Seaforth
It pressures the rectus muscles in the outer eye, which in turn stimulate the vagus nerve. The nerve causes the heart rate to slow, enabling us to sleep more easily. Unfortunately, grubby knuckles often introduce eye infections in this way.
Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie
What determines if an event will be stored in your short-term or long-term memory?It depends on how many times you are told it/repeat it. Interestingly, a person with an IQ of 90-110 has to hear something seven times to commit it to long-term memory. Someone with an IQ of 130-140 must hear it three times. And someone with an IQ of 160 or above can remember something after hearing it once. This, of course, leads to the question, does Stephen Hawking remember things before he hears them?
Cam Wilson, Warrawee
The former you really don't care about or signifies no betterment or detriment of the person and the latter has a lasting impact on oneself, hence the brain remembers.
Luke Toland, Burwood
Dunno, but I clearly remember a blouse that a colleague once wore at work when we were only 17. I'm now 63 and sometimes forget where my bathroom is!
Sandy Parkinson, Hilton WA
Long term memories are reinforced repeatedly by experience in a highly systematised data base. Many sensory experiences combine to extract memories through several types of association. Take graveyard. I grew up overlooking one retaining all my ancestors, excavated a few holes there myself and once had a part in Hamlet. Short term memories are briefly processed for a short term need. A young man will remember a girls phone number just as long as it takes him to finish another drink or meet someone sexier.
Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie
This is determined by the time limit applied at trivia nights: usually the recollection of an event becomes vividly stark, the moment the quizmaster closes answers for that particular round.
Bob Dengate, Bathurst
In cricket, why do bowlers bowl from both ends of the wicket? Wouldn't it be better and save time if just the batsmen swapped ends, rather than rearranging the field?
Cricketers change ends to give those fieldsmen who have been standing around doing nothing but getting sunburnt a little exercise and a change of solar aspect. It also helps to even out the pitch stress at the batter's end and the bowling run-up area.
J. Barrie Brown, Gordon
So Warney can bowl into the foot marks.
Simon Goldschmidt, Darlinghurst
If you did that, you might as well play baseball, a game of far less variety, complexity, imagination and subtlety.
Nick Herd, Clovelly
Saving time by batsmen changing ends. A good idea! But it would save even more time if the winner was the captain who called the toss correctly, and then everyone went home without having to be bored rigid by the playing, and worse, the commentators.
David Bishop, Port Macquarie
Oscar Wilde summed up cricket as organised loafing. The whole idea is to waste as much time as possible. It is the perfect antidote to the work ethic and as close as you'll get in sport to looking at a lighted candle chanting Ohm.
Paul Roberts, Lake Cathie
Why the batsmen don't swap? An innovation that cuts ad time is unlikely to make it.
David Ash, Bondi Beach
(a) It helps even out the wear on the turf.
(b) It gives the outfielders something to do to avoid falling asleep.
(c) To ensure that one bowler/player may not always be facing in to the sun (only really relevant outside UK).
(d) Allows for spectators to buy another beer without missing play.
(e) It helps drag out an already long and arduous game
(f) They have always done it that way?
Trevor Doornbos, East Ryde
Essentially, changing ends shares the wear of batting and bowling on the turf and enables the pitch to last longer. It also made for a more challenging game as the batsmen had to adapt to changing wind direction and sun glare while on the changeover, the fielding team could also discuss tactics. Conversely, it also enabled the batsman to get some relief from the bowlers every so often. In the early days of cricket, once a bowler started at one end, he had to only bowl from that end but in 1889 the rules were changed to allow a bowler to change ends as often as he likes in an innings (subject to not bowling two consecutive overs).
David Buley, Seaforth
Can you imagine a game at Old Trafford where Brian Statham didn't hold on to his end?
Bob Dengate, Bathurst
Source:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/big-questions/why-do-you-wish-a-person-many-happy-returns-of-the-day-on-theirbirthday/2005/08/25/1124562965035.html
