I grew up in Silver Spring in the 1970's and 1980's and as I keep telling everyone, it's no longer the Silver Spring I grew up in. Here are some prime examples, and some places that haven't changed in 30 years.

[ New Silver Spring - a photoset on Flickr ]

Hey look, I'm quoting myself! But seriously, Silver Spring is so nice now, check it out!

The word evolved from “kawabonga,” a word used by the character Chief Thunderthud on the United States children’s television program Howdy Doody in the 1950s. “Kawagoopa” was an all-purpose exclamation of the Tinka Tonka Indians, the fictitious tribe of Princess Summerfall Winterspring and Chief Featherman, and “kawabonga” was the equivalent exclamation of Chief Thunderthud, who was of the Ooragnak Tribe. By the 1960s, surfers who had grown up watching Howdy Doody adopted it for surfing use, turning it to “cowabunga.”

[ Cowabunga - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

Why, you may ask, did I look this one up? Oddly the reason is also on the Wikipedia page:

Cookie Monster of Sesame Street, began to exclaim “Kowabunga!” in the 1970s. (Note the “K” spelling. He used it during a Letter of the Day segment as an example of a “K” word. When challenged by Prairie Dawn that it was not a word, he replied: “Kowabunga too a word. It esoteric, but it poetic in its own right.”)

So Cookie Monster is a surfer? Or just loved the Howdy Doody show?

Conjoined spanish slang of affection. Mi hijo, "my son." Can be said to any man or boy, usually by an older person. Can also mean "my dear" "sweetie" or "hun."

Also directed to guys by thier wives, girlfriends, or any female freind and peer.

[ Urban Dictionary: mijo ]

Kevin was typing passwords in and couldn't determine where a particular X came from. It looked different than the other X in the same password. This prompted the following research:

In the end the culprit was "Multiplication X", but I have no idea how anyone typed that in...

One of our readers asks, "When did Spring start?"

Well, Ms. Yasir of Alexandria, Virginia, it seems that is a more complicated question than one might think.

Shouldn't spring always start the same exact second every year?

While it’s true that we’ve traditionally celebrated the beginning of spring on March 21, astronomers and calendar manufacturers alike now say that the spring season starts one day earlier, March 20, in all time zones in North America. Unheard of? Not if you look at the statistics. In fact, did you know that during the 20th Century, March 21 was actually the exception rather than the rule?

[ SPACE.com ]

And how do they figure all this stuff out? Math? Apparently it has its uses...

Wikipedia.

Contrary to popular belief, Coca-Cola Zero is not a new product. The same blend of aspartame and acesulfame potassium along with the Coca-Cola Classic formula has been available for quite some time in many European countries which were never exposed to New Coke. Commonly called Coca-Cola Light or Coca Light in Europe, the Coca-Cola Zero formula is identical that used in foreign countries.

[ Coca-Cola Zero - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

And, apparently, Nate's drink of choice.

We have a facility where we name servers after rivers. Apparently I keep finding rivers that no one has ever heard of. This time I was sure I picked one that everyone knew:

The Blue Nile is one of the two main courses of the river Nile. The Saharan part of the river is formed by the union at the capital of Sudan, Khartoum, of the White Nile coming from the lacustrine region in Eastern Africa, and the Blue Nile coming from the Ethiopian Highlands. Though with a shorter length, the Blue Nile course amounts to more than 60 % of total Nile water flow.

[ Blue Nile, IGAD Sudan Peace talks ]

Someone must have heard of the Blue Nile before reading it here, please!

Update: James Bruce had heard of the Blue Nile.

Metro-city populations are such a fascinating topic. However at the rate the mid-atlatic and northeast US are growing, I think there will soon be a #1 city of Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia-Delaware-Patterson-Newark-New York-Boston area with a population of 41,100,000. And of course it will be known as The Sprawl (eventually extending southward to Atlanta, but I think that will take a while longer...).

This page lists the 101 largest metropolitan areas of the world by population. This is a controversial issue rather difficult to quantify. These figures include suburban areas immediately surrounding a major city and sometimes multiple major cities which may be close enough together to function essentially as one area (e.g. Washington-Baltimore).

[ List of metropolitan areas by population: Information From Answers.com ]

And for me personally the largest metro area in the world that I had never heard of before reading this is Kolkata-Howrah in the Indian state of West Bengal. Apparently the 3 most populous countries that I know very little about are China, India, and Brazil. All of the areas that I'd never heard of reside in these countries. Which also explains how Bengali and Portuguese get so high on the list of spoken languages of the world.

Update: Once I said Kolkata out loud, I realized it is Calcutta. So Tianjin in China is largest city I've never heard of.

If you love words like I love words, you'll love this monthly column.

The Word Detective on the Web is the online version of The Word Detective, a newspaper column answering readers' questions about words and language. The Word Detective is written by Evan Morris and appears in finer newspapers in the U.S., Mexico and Japan.

[ The Word Detective ]

Apparently this is also “in print” in something called a “newspaper”, but I guess I'll have to be satisfied with the regular Internet version.

5,000 rupiah to the first person who can identify where in the world that is, exactly.

The 24 worst highway bottlenecks, followed by the number of vehicles handled daily and annual hours of delay, according to a study by American Highway Users Alliance.

[ Yahoo! News ]

By their ranking the “Mixing Bowl” in Springfield, VA is ranked as 15th worst. The problem with their ranking is it is the total number of hours delayed by all people. I personally don't care about everyone else when I'm sitting in the traffic, I want to know how bad it is for me, annually, on average. If the list is re-weighted, taking into account the volume vs the delay, my beloved mixing bowl rises to #5.

Then, if you calculate the difference in rank between total volume and per-capita volume, you get what I call a “weakness” factor. This means that the less total volume you have the easier it should be to manage that traffic, so the higher the number the worse your mega-intersection is handled. Resort by this number and the “Mixing Bowl” now becomes #2. This means it is the 2nd worst managed major intersection in the country. The only worse managed traffic is in Cincinnati at “I-75 from Ohio River Bridge to I-71 interchange”, in what I'll call the crappiest intersection in America.

Strangely enough LA appears on the list 5 times. These 5 intersection all appear in the bottom 7 once ranked by weakness. This means that LA has lots and lots of freaking traffic moving through 1/2 dozen or so intersections, but they manage this traffic rather well, all things considered.

Attachment: Worst Intersections.xls

After being inducted for World War II service on June 14, 1943, was assigned to the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps on inactive duty. Reported for active duty one week later, on the 21st of June, and was transfered to active duty status in the Army of the United States.

Veteran of the Second World War who was awarded the World War II Victory Medal, Philippine Liberation Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (with 4 bronze service stars), Army Good Conduct Medal, Marksman Badge (with Carbine Bar) and Honorable Service Lapel Pin.

[ Biography for Don Knotts ]

Which I think is pretty darn cool.

Kinda nifty:

Time magazine has scans (you can buy prints) of the covers of their old issues. The mag closest to my birthday was The Bugs are Coming.

[ Joe Grossberg ]

As long as you were born after 1923 or so, you should be able to see what was on the cover of time the week you were born. You can get an idea of what the country was “all a buzz” about, when you made your debut. Apparently around my birth the country was concerned about missiles.

In and around my birth there seemed to be international tension and discussion about outer space. Plus some hype about an up-and-coming actor named Dustin Hoffman.

Anyone know the origin of the term “86ed”?

Here are some thoughts on the subject, but all seem a bit off.

Most say they didn't even feel anything, those that did doubted me.

It was an earthquake.

In case you were wondering:

The Washington, DC Metrorail system is a regional rapid transit system consisting of five lines, 83 stations and approximately 103 miles of track. System completion as originally planned was achieved on January 13, 2001.

[NYC Subway]

What is that? You thirst for more knowledge? Then head on over to NYCSubway.org for more trivia than you knew existed, and then read up on other cities train systems.