Is it true that lightning never strikes twice in the same place?
“ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE”.
Says David Phillips, a senior meteorologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada, who adds that “it is a long standing myth that is something is hit by lightning, it will be spared a second hit.
Tall buildings, radio and TV towers and high mountaintops are likely to receive multiple strikes every year. For example, it has been estimated that the CN Tower in Toronto is hit from 75 to 150 times annually.
Then there are areas where lightning happens more frequently. These so-called hot spots occur where warm, moist air repeatedly meets colded air, resulting in instability.
Where does the expression “a cat has nine live” come from?
“CATS ARE OFTEN invoked from their surprising ability to survive adversity. It is from this physical hardiness that, according to etymologists, the idea that a cat has nine lives originates.
Although the exact reasons for this choice of number have long ago been forgotten, University of Winnipeg English professor Mark Morton offers three possibilities:
“First, it’s pretty clear that it would have to be one of the many numbers that has traditional significance in Western culture, of which nine is among the most resonant.
“ While seven, for example, is almost positive and 13 is almost always negative, nine can have both positive and negative connotations: for example, cloud nine versus the nine rivers of hell. I think this may reflect our ambivalent cultural attitude towards the cat. “ Third, assonance often plays a role in such idioms. In this case, the long “i” in both nine and lives functions as a near rhyme, as is even more clear in ‘ a stitch in time saves nine.’ “
“ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE”.
Says David Phillips, a senior meteorologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada, who adds that “it is a long standing myth that is something is hit by lightning, it will be spared a second hit.
Tall buildings, radio and TV towers and high mountaintops are likely to receive multiple strikes every year. For example, it has been estimated that the CN Tower in Toronto is hit from 75 to 150 times annually.
Then there are areas where lightning happens more frequently. These so-called hot spots occur where warm, moist air repeatedly meets colded air, resulting in instability.
Where does the expression “a cat has nine live” come from?
“CATS ARE OFTEN invoked from their surprising ability to survive adversity. It is from this physical hardiness that, according to etymologists, the idea that a cat has nine lives originates.
Although the exact reasons for this choice of number have long ago been forgotten, University of Winnipeg English professor Mark Morton offers three possibilities:
“First, it’s pretty clear that it would have to be one of the many numbers that has traditional significance in Western culture, of which nine is among the most resonant.
“ While seven, for example, is almost positive and 13 is almost always negative, nine can have both positive and negative connotations: for example, cloud nine versus the nine rivers of hell. I think this may reflect our ambivalent cultural attitude towards the cat. “ Third, assonance often plays a role in such idioms. In this case, the long “i” in both nine and lives functions as a near rhyme, as is even more clear in ‘ a stitch in time saves nine.’ “
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