Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 18, 1991                   TAG: 9104180099
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUST BE GLAD FRANCE DIDN'T FIND CHILHOWIE

A. Because the words are totally unrelated.

And because the French can't spell.

Dr. John L. Ferguson, state historian for Arkansas, tells us there used to be some native Americans living at the juncture of the Mississippi River and what we now call the Arkansas River. In the 1700s WHY THINGS ARE JOEL ACHENBACH the French explorers called them the "Arkansas" Indians, which was the name used by Algonquin-speaking Indian guides who lived up on the Ohio River.

"Arkansas" meant "people of the south wind." The Indians didn't have a written language, so the French were merely approximating the spoken sound "Arkansaw," using their own peculiar spelling habits that have also given us hors d'oeuvres, bouquet, denouement and contretemps, words that, as far as we're concerned, are horribly misspelled.

There has been confusion. Some maps have used the name "Arkansaw." And some people have insisted on pronouncing "Arkansas" as though it rhymed with Kansas (which, by the way, is named after the Kanza Indian tribe).

This matter became so heated that in 1880 a group called the Eclectic Society teamed up with the Arkansas Historical Society and delved into the origin of the name, concluding that Arkansas is a Gallicized Indian name and should be pronounced with the "saw" at the end. This was duly decreed in a special legislative resolution by the Arkansas General Assembly in 1881.

Sticky situation

Q. Why doesn't Super Glue stick to the inside of the tube?

A. What makes Super Glue turn from a liquid to a solid is not, as all you nerds reflexively shouted out, air. That's for other glues. They just dry. But alpha-cyanoacrylate - that's Super Glue - is triggered by minute traces of moisture. Your basic humidity will do the trick. Super Glue works better in Miami than Phoenix.

When exposed to moisture the glue molecules start crystalizing, linking up like a daisy chain. That's why you can't swallow it like ordinary classroom paste; Super Glue solidifies before it reaches the throat. ("But Super Glue is already wet!" our puerile friends tell us, thinking that anything liquid must necessarily contain water.) Because of this moisture sensitivity, the people at Super Glue headquarters, the Loctite Corp., have to assemble the tubes as though handling the deep-space virus from "The Andromeda Strain." Water molecules are rigidly policed. Loctite wouldn't give details of this process except to say that years ago some of the human workers were contaminating the tubes and had to be replaced by robots.

\ Bonus medical fact: If you accidentally Super Glue your eyelids shut (note use of a trademarked name as a verb), wash with warm water, apply a gauze patch and sit tight. Don't try to pry it. The eye will open in one to four days, undamaged. According to the Loctite Corp.

The mailbag:

Virginia L. of Baltimore asks, "Why does newsprint tear in a straight line up and down but jaggedly across?"

Ginny, if you ever go on a tour of a newspaper plant you'll see that the newsprint has to be strong on the vertical axis to keep from being ripped apart as it travels at high speed through the presses. The fact that it tears cleanly up-and-down and tears jaggedly side-to-side is testimony to that tensile strength. They make the newsprint that way intentionally, down at the paper mill, utilizing some fancy trick with the pulp. Washington Post Writers Group