You can look it up, no matter how useless

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, August 5, 2006

Although many people find the Internet a handy tool for digging up all sorts of information, some still prefer to look things up the low-tech way – in a book.

One reason might be that a book provides a tactile pleasure, as one hand firmly cradles the book’s heft while the fingertips of the other hand gently scan the smooth surface of the pages, almost as if they are reading the text.

What’s more, a “skyline” of reference books arranged on a shelf or desk top is an impressive sight, one that shows you are one ardent researcher!

Some recent reference works zero in on specific subjects and offer information that’s unusual but useful – and even some that modestly claim to be “perfectly useless.”

One-letter words

In English, there can be no more than 26 one-letter words. But among them, there are more than 1,000 definitions and uses – indeed, enough to fill a book such as One-Letter Words: A Dictionary (HarperCollins) by Craig Conley.

Word-lovers will give an “A” to this compilation of single-letter words from A to Z, with definitions, usage, historical background, and literary and cultural references.

Someone with a big ego might be dismayed to learn that there are as many as 42 definitions for I. Like some other letters, I is a Roman numeral (1). It’s also the chemical symbol for iodine, a school grade meaning “incomplete,” and a type of hat, beam, girder and football formation.

Also, it means “also” in Polish.

The fewest entries, 18, accompany W. But the most (76) are for X, which the book claims is the most printed single letter in English.

“X” is a ray and a rating (in movies), the mark of a kiss, of a signature and of a spot (as in “X marks the spot”). “X” is a sex chromosome and the symbol for multiplication.

And “X” is mysterious – a symbol for the unknown found in this book full of knowledge.

Batter up

Baseball is a game of numbers, not only in the seeming endless variety of statistics concocted to measure the performance of players and teams, but in the fascination fans have for the numbers worn on players’ uniforms.

Now Batting, Number … (Black Dog &Leventhal) by Jack Looney (who wore No. 4 as a semipro player) is a hefty 546-page volume that’s apparently the product of hefty research. It provides densely packed columns with yearly rosters of 30 big-league teams showing, in numerical order, the uniform numbers worn by every player.

For those who’d rather do their research through players’ names, there’s an alphabetical list, from Aardsma, David, to Zwilling, Dutch, that tells you which number each player wore, and when.

Accompanying the stats are color photos and text that explores numbers myths and legends, and how the digits are distributed to players. Anecdotes, a numbers trivia quiz, and retired numbers (including five players whose numbers were retired before the players were) provide additional information and entertainment.

Special days

In the Encyclopedia of American Holidays and National Days (Greenwood), Len Travers has compiled a series of essays by various writers describing holidays and days of celebration – religious and civil, past and present – in chronological order, from Martin Luther King Day to New Year’s Eve.

Essays delve into the origins, evolution and cultural significance of special days including Passover and Pope’s Day, Cinco de Mayo and Super Bowl Sunday, Earth Day and Easter, May Day and Mardi Gras, and Labor Day.

Several photos illustrate the text: An ad from the May 9, 1956, edition of the Saturday Evening Post suggests we “remember mother” with a box of Whitman’s chocolates; Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson are seen in their infamous performance during halftime at the Super Bowl in 2004; the cover of The New Yorker magazine from Nov. 26, 1949, bears a cartoon showing a family at Thanksgiving dinner mesmerized by the football game being broadcast on their newfangled, rabbit-eared TV set; and a famous photo shows a sailor kissing a young woman passer-by in Times Square during a celebration of V-J Day ending World War II.

The two-volume work includes suggestions for further reading, an index, and sidebars that offer tidbits of information about several of the events, including Arbor Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Forefathers Day and Mother’s Day.

There are plenty of English-language dictionaries around, but one thing they omit is “unofficial” English.

The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English (McGraw-Hill) tries to fill that gap.

This “Crunk Omnibus for Thrillionaires and Bampots for the Ecozoic Age” – that is, “good collection for wealthy thrill-seekers and fools for a future age when humans live in harmony with nature” – contains more than 750 words that have become part of the English language but have not yet been accepted by standard dictionaries.

Grant Barrett has compiled his paperback volume alphabetically, as one might expect, and supplies each word’s part of speech, definition, origin and dated citations of its uses in print and on the Internet.

Included are several words coined for the Iraq war, including “hillbilly armor” (improvised protection for personnel and vehicles), “ali baba” (an Iraqi term for the looters who sprang into action after Saddam Hussein’s government was toppled along with his statue), and “angel” (a soldier killed in action).

This book serves as a “terp” – that is, interpreter – for such words as “homegoing” (a death or funeral), “gurgitator” (a person who competes in eating contests), “stink eye” (a look of doubt, distrust or dislike) and “lumberjill” (a female lumberjack).

Guess who’s on the cover of Guinness World Records 2007?

You!

The cover of this latest edition of the superlative book of superlatives is cleverly embedded with a holographic mirror ball. (Warning: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear!)

Inside, publisher Guinness World Records has provided hundreds of updated records, including the impressive, the imponderable and the improbable, generously accompanied by color photos.

Records are divided into subjects including the Earth, the human body, arts and media, science, sports and society.

Here you can find the fastest turkey-plucker, oldest piece of cake, longest toenails (with actual-size photo, to boot), largest underwater wedding, longest distance walked backward, and the most expensive piece of toast, which fetched $28,000 on eBay for its perceived image of the Virgin Mary.

Those who don’t want to walk backward or pluck turkeys can turn to the page of records that can be tried at home with everyday objects. You can be a record-holder if you can throw a playing card more than 216 feet 4 inches, eat more than 1.58 ounces of Jell-O with chopsticks in one minute, spin a 12-inch aluminum frying pan on one finger for more than 14 minutes or find a place on your face to attach more than 159 wooden clothespins.

Of course, there are more useful and less frivolous records to behold: Among the holders are “The Dandy” (longest-running comic strip), “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” (film with the highest opening-day receipts) and the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco (largest hotel lobby).

Sprinkled throughout are charts that list, among other things, the 15 oldest living people (all but two are female), highest earners in several fields, most crimes worldwide, and the heaviest fruits and vegetables, among which are a 54-pound cauliflower, a 75-pound rutabaga and a 268-pound watermelon.

Noted, too, is the most difficult musical instrument to play – the oboe, described as an “ill woodwind that no one blows good.”

The title of This Book … of More Perfectly Useless Information (HarperCollins) doesn’t do it justice.

Who can say one might never benefit from knowing that Chelsea Clinton is an anagram of “in clean clothes”? Or that James Cagney earned a black belt in judo?

Mitchell Symons’ chunky little 360-page book, a sequel to his “That Book …” (2004) is loaded with information that, useful or otherwise, is certainly addictive and entertaining.

Topics are arranged into about 300 themes, with an index to help readers zero in on what they’re looking for, from “Accomplished Rollerbladers” to “Yoga Practitioners.”

Researchers and browsers alike can learn the names of famous people who worked in a circus, people born in India, people with famous stepparents, and people born on the same day: Lenny Bruce and Margaret Thatcher (Oct. 13, 1925), Stephen Sondheim and Pat Robertson (March 22, 1930), Gina Lollobrigida and Neil Simon (July 4, 1927).

Other sections contain word origins, tongue-twisters and “Pure Trivia.”

There are lists of “onlys” (“Libra is the only inanimate symbol in the zodiac”), inventions by women (windshield wipers and disposable diapers), and Lennon-McCartney songs never released by the Beatles (Cilla Black’s “Step Inside Love”).

And this book could be the most useful one on the shelf for anyone who needs to know that a “truck” is the name of the ball atop a flagpole and that “eyes” are what one calls the holes in Swiss cheese.