FACTUAL RIDDLES LII

1. In a cartoon strip, when one of the characters swears, the offending word or words are often represented  by the keyboard symbols  !@#$%^&*. A symbolic word such as this has a name. What is it?

2. What are the five most common answer words found in the New York Times crossword puzzle?

3. What is the coldest temperature ever recorded in the United States?

4. Why is the synthetic fabric spandex called spandex?

5. How did the canned meat Spam come to mean junk mail?

Answers:

1. Grawlix

2. Area, Erie, aloe, aria, Eden - in that order

3. The coldest temperature ever recorded in the contiguous 48 states was in Rogers Pass, Montana on January 20, 1954 at 70 degrees below zero. The coldest temperature ever recorded in all 50 states was in Prospect Creek, Alaska in January, 1971 at 80 degrees below zero. 

4. SPANDEX is an anagram of EXPANDS. (same letters in a different order)

5. The origin of the word SPAM, as we use it today, comes from a 1970 Monty Python's Flying Circus skit set in a cafe. In this skit, all the cafe's menu items contain Spam. The waitress reads the entire menu, and every time she repeats "Spam," a group of Vikings in the corner chant "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, LOVELY SPAM."

The chanting drowns out the waitress, giving rise to the term for the computer junk mail that overwhelms normal electronic correspondence - Spam.