‘Hilarious’ Versus ‘Hysterical’

When you're rolling on the floor laughing, describe the joke as hilarious, not hysterical. 

‘Hilarious’

“Hilarious” means roughly "super funny"; it comes from a Greek word meaning "cheerful." 

Pandas are hilarious. I love to watch videos of them rolling down hills. They make me laugh every time.

And if you listened to last week’s episode about ‘continuous’ versus ‘continual,’ you’ll note that “hilarious” ends with the same “-ous” suffix we talked about at the end of “continuous,” which means nonstop. Panda videos are continuously hilarious, at least to me.

‘Hysterical’

“Hysterical” means “excited.” It comes from the same root as “hysteria," from a Greek word meaning "womb" (coming from the idea—hrumph—that only women were emotionally excitable). 

And, I love this, we also used to have the adjective “hystericky” in American English. Here’s an example the Oxford English Dictionary lists from the novel “The Thin Red Line”: “He had had a strange hystericky encounter with his clerk Fife on the march.”

Some kinds of laughter truly can be hysterical. If people are so uncomfortable they laugh in an inappropriate situation, like at a funeral or while they are being robbed, that is most likely hysterical laughter.

Etymonline reports that people started using “hysterical” to mean “funny” in the late 1930s from the idea of people having “uncontrollable fits of laughter.” But some sources tag this use as informal or even sexist when applied to women.

‘Hilarious’ Versus ‘Hysterical’: A Memory Trick

Think of the word 'hysterectomy' when you think of 'hysterical' to remember the root means from 'womb.'

If you decide you want to avoid using the word “hysterical” to mean “funny,” you can remember the difference between the words by thinking of the word “hysterectomy” when you think of “hysterical” to remember the root. And a woman who needs a hysterectomy is likely to be worried, so that’s not funny.

‘Histrionics’

Finally, while researching this topic, I started wondering about the...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Surprise! People in This Country Read the Most Books

Have you wondered how other people have been spending their time in 2020 while at home?

While Netflix, Facebook, and YouTube have seen a huge spike in usage, and online education platforms such as MasterClass have grown, one age-old pastime has also become more popular—reading books.

Global English Editing pulled together a fascinating infographic that explores the world’s reading habits in 2020. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in the infographic:

• Reading was up by a whopping 35% across the world in 2020
• Printed books still drive more revenue than ebooks and audiobooks (though the gap is closing)
• While social isolation has kept some couples apart, we’re reading more romance novels than ever.

No doubt, it was a great year for having your nose in a book whether you were looking for a distraction, to lower your stress levels, or probably a bit of both.

Check out the fascinating stats below to see how your reading in 2020 compares to the rest of the world.

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

What Are Sine, Cosine, and Tangent?

Do you know what two angles living inside the same right triangle said to each other? The first angle goes, "Hey Thelma (or is it Theta?), I don't mean to go off on a tangent here, but what's your sine?" To which the second angle replies, "Phil (or is it Phi?), I don't know why you even bother to ask, my sine is obviously the same as your cosine!"

Okay, so maybe that's not the best joke in the world, but once you understand sines and cosines, it is kind of funny. Of course, that means that if you don't know the difference between a sine and a cosine, you're currently left out in the metaphorical cold.

Clearly we can't let that happen—and we won't! Because today we're going to learn all about sines, cosines, and tangents.

Recap: trigonometry and triangles

When we talked about the world of trigonometry, we learned that the part of math called trigonometry deals with triangles. And, in particular, it's the part of math that deals with figuring out the relationship between the three sides and the three angles that make up every triangle.

Of particular interest to us is the special type of triangles known as right triangles. Every right triangle has one 90-degree angle (like the corner of a square or rectangle), and two angles that each range between anything larger than 0 degrees and smaller than 90 degrees (with, as we'll talk about in the future, the sum of all 3 angles being 180 degrees).

For our discussion of sine, cosine, and tangent (which, don't worry, are not as complicated as they sound), it's important that we have a way of labeling the sides of right triangles.

As we learned last time, the longest side of a triangle is known as its "hypotenuse." The side opposite the angle we're looking at is known as the "opposite" side (logically). And the side adjacent to the angle we're looking at (the one that isn't the hypotenuse) is known as the "adjacent" side.

Sine, cosine, and tangent

With all of these preliminaries now happily splashing around inside our growing pool of mathematical knowledge, we're finally ready to tackle the meaning of sine, cosine, and tangent. Here's the key idea:

The ratios of the sides of a right triangle are completely determined by its angles.

The ratios of the sides of a right triangle are completely determined by its angles.

In other words, the...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How Many Credit Cards Should You Have for Good Credit?

Have you ever wondered, "How many credit cards should I have? Is it wise to have a wallet full of them? Does having multiple credit cards hurt my credit score?"

If you’ve been following this blog or the Money Girl podcast, you know the fantastic benefits of having excellent credit. The higher your credit scores, the more money you save on various products and services such as credit cards, lines of credit, car loans, mortgages, and insurance (in most states).

Even if you never borrow money, your credit affects other areas of your financial life.

But even if you never borrow money, your credit affects other areas of your financial life. For instance, having poor credit may cause you to get turned down by a prospective employer or a landlord. It could also increase the security deposits you must pay on utilities such as power, cable, and mobile plans.

Credit cards are one of the best financial tools available to build or maintain excellent credit scores. Today, I'll help you understand how cards boost your credit and the how many credit cards you should have to improve your finances.

Before we answer the question of how many credit cards you should have in your wallet, it's important to talk about using them responsibly so you're increasing instead of tanking your credit score.

5 tips for using credit cards to build credit

1. Make payments on time (even just the minimum)
2. Don’t rely on being an authorized user
3. Never max out cards
4. Use multiple cards
5. Keep credit cards active

A common misconception about credit is that if you have no debt you must have good credit. That’s utterly false because having no credit is the same as having bad credit. To have good credit, you must have credit accounts and use them responsibly.

Having no credit is the same as having bad credit.

Here are five tips for using credit cards to build and maintain excellent credit scores.

1. Make payments on time (even just the minimum)

Making timely payments on credit accounts is the most critical factor for your credit scores. Your payment history carries the most weight because it’s an excellent indicator of your financial responsibility and ability to pay what you owe.

Having a credit card allows you to demonstrate your creditworthiness by merely making payments on time, even if you can only pay the minimum. If the card company receives your payment by the statement due date, that builds a history of positive data...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Yes, Lab-Grown Meat (Without Animals) Is for Real

Plant-based meat alternatives like the Impossible Burger or the Beyond Burger are capturing a growing share of the market. Consumers are attracted to these products for a variety of reasons. Some believe that plant-based diets are a way to reduce their risk of disease. Others are concerned about the environmental impact of animal agriculture or the welfare of the animals themselves. A lot of people who enjoy meat or value its nutritional profile are nonetheless reducing their consumption.

RELATED: The Problem with Vegan Alternatives

But new technology may soon deliver the best of both worlds to our plates: real meat that can be produced without using any animals. Paul Shapiro recently joined me on the Nutrition Diva podcast to talk about this brave new world of meat without animals. 

Paul is the author of the national bestseller Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will Revolutionize Dinner and the World, the CEO of The Better Meat Co., and the host of the Business for Good Podcast.

Below are some highlights from our conversation. Please click on the audio player to hear our entire interview.

Nutrition Diva: Let’s start by clarifying for everybody what we're not talking about here. We're not talking about taking gluten and pea protein and soybeans and fashioning them into a darn good imposter for hamburger. We're talking about something very different.

This is a way of producing meat that uses far less land, far less water, and [creates] far fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

Paul Shapiro: That's exactly right. When we talk about clean meats, we're not talking about a meat substitute. We're talking about real meat that is simply divorced from the process of raising and slaughtering an animal. So instead of having to go through that months- or years-long process, a clean meat simply involves taking a tiny biopsy from an animal, maybe the size of a Sesame seed.

And within that little biopsy, there are millions of cells that when you put them into a cultivator outside of the animal's body makes them think that they still are in the body. And they do exactly what they would do if they were in the body, which is to produce muscle, which of course is what we eat as meat.

So this is a way of producing meat that uses far less land, far less water, [and creates] far fewer greenhouse gas emissions. And of course, spares animals the cruelty of...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

Pandemic Paunch? Stay Active with 'Movement Snacks'

The International Journal of Exercise Science published a study titled The Acute Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior in University Students and Employees recently. It highlighted the need for more daily movement—something I call "movement snacks"—now more than ever.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, most universities across the United States closed campuses, sent students home, and transitioned from face-to-face classes to remote learning. Such changes, coupled with physical distancing guidelines, and various levels of quarantine, have altered social interactions and limited our access to fitness facilities, studios, and gyms. 

It’s not just university students, either—younger children have had more sedentary time during the pandemic. In fact, the CBC (Candian Broadcasting Corporation) reports that just five percent of Canadian children met basic physical activity guidelines early in the pandemic. 

And another study on older adults, called The COVID-19 pandemic and physical activity, reported "Unfortunately, modern lifestyle behaviors promote physical inactivity and sedentariness. These poor lifestyle behaviors are intensified by social distancing and self-imposed or government-mandated quarantine measures intended to reduce COVID-19 spread."

Spending some time in a gym or at a fitness class is great, but it should take a backseat to making regular movement a part of daily life.

I probably don’t need to even say this, but I believe this is a big problem. Both social interaction and access to exercise facilities promote physical activity. But many people still are of the mind that a gym, club, or studio is the best (and perhaps the only) way to get physical movement into their day. And worse yet, they believe that once they've checked that workout off their to-do list, they're free to loaf about for the remainder of the day.

If you have been following me for any amount of time, you know that I believe in the importance of living an active lifestyle. Spending some time in a gym or at a fitness class is great, but it should take a backseat to making regular movement a part of daily life.

The past few months have made it even more evident than ever that more of us need to adopt this philosophy. 

Science looks at how the pandemic changed our physical activity

Recently, a group of Kent State University researchers took a close look at the...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips

How to Conceive a Boy or a Girl (According to Science)

As someone who never found out the sex of my babies until they joined us on the outside, I’m not sure I fully understand our fascination with the sex of unborn babies. We even have gender reveal parties (which—ahem—should be assigned-sex-reveal parties) so elaborate that they cause acres of wildfire damage.

Total strangers would stop me on the street to say things like 'Oh wow, you're carrying low; that's definitely a boy.'

During my pregnancies, total strangers would stop me on the street to say things like “Oh wow, you're carrying low; that's definitely a boy.” Hmm. I’m pretty sure the low-hanging belly just means I had no ab muscles to speak of when we started on this pregnancy journey, so the muscles that were there just gave up.

But what does fascinate me is whether or not there's any scientific evidence to back up the common lore surrounding how women might influence the sex of their baby. I’ve heard many times that eating a lot of salty snacks and red meat while you’re trying to conceive will produce a boy. Or, if you have a lot of chocolate and yogurt in your diet when you get pregnant—and who doesn’t?—you’re destined to have a girl.

Sometimes advice like this gets passed along without any backing, but sometimes it’s based on convincing anecdotal data. 

How is a baby's sex determined?

The sex of a fetus is determined by its X and Y sex chromosomes. Very simply put, the provider of the egg typically also provides an X chromosome while the sperm can either contribute another X chromosome or a Y chromosome. Two X chromosomes (XX) make a girl, and an X and Y (XY) chromosome combined make a boy. There are rare instances when a sperm may have both an XY which creates a boy with Klinefelter syndrome (an XXY boy) or no sex chromosome to create a girl with Turner syndrome (an X girl). 

Two X chromosomes (XX) make a girl, and an X and Y (XY) chromosome combined make a boy.

There are ways to use technology to essentially choose the sex of the baby. An embryo with a known sex can be implanted through in vitro fertilization (IVF) via a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. 

Sperm can also be sorted into X and Y carriers before being used in artificial insemination. One such sperm sorting technology, called ...

Keep reading on Quick and Dirty Tips