Literal Answers to Rhetorical Questions

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• What is so rare as a day in June?
  June having 30 days, it is clear that days in April, September, and November are precisely as "rare,"or as common, though they are slightly less common than days in January, March, May, July, August, October, and December. Days in February are t
• Where are the snows of yesteryear?
  If the question refers to the melted product of last winter's snowfall, the answer can sometimes be derived by analyzing the volume of water in the catch basins of dams located on streams downhill from the point of original snowfall. More precise measures
• How high the moon?
  It varies between 356,000 and 407,000 km in distance from the surface of the earth, its average distance being 384,400 km.
• What shall we do with a drunken sailor?
  D. Kolb and E.K.E. Gunderson's study, "Alcoholism in the United States Navy" reports that attempts to prevent, diagnose and rehabilitate sailors suffering from alcohol-related problems are to a measurable degree superior to the older approach of
• Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 183-194).
• Who wrote the Book of Love?
  René of Anjou, King of Naples 1435-1480, wrote and illustrated his
• Book of Love (
• Le cueur d'amours espris) some time after 1473 while living idly in Provence.
• Tell me why the ivy twines.
  Not all ivies do twine, of course: some are mere creeping vines. However, climbing ivies such as are commonly seen covering academic buildings maximize their exposure to light by using twining tendrils to affix themselves to other plants and objects in or
• Would you like to swing on a star?
  Even supposing that I were to wish to do such a thing, it would be quite impossible. Swinging requires that the force of gravity be exerted in the direction opposite to the pivot of the pendulum, whereas if one were somehow to succeed in attaching a pendu
• How long has this been going on?
  Data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe produce an estimated age for the universe of 13.7 billion years, plus or minus a 1% margin of error.
• What is to be done?
  I find that the Filofax A5 System Organizer efficiently tracks my appointments with a minimum of fuss and is generally superior to the personal information management software products so widely touted by computer enthusiasts.
• What's up, Doc?
  Presuming that the doctor addressed is a physician, one must assume that the question refers to the identity of the topmost parts of the human body, in which case the short answer is the frontal lobe of the brain, the skull, the scalp, and--if any--the ha
• How are you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen Paris?
  Administered commodity prices resulting in an average profit per farmer of no more than $50,000 per annum should be adequate to discourage profligate trips to France.
• Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
  No one well informed, of course, since the writer in question died in 1941; but during her lifetime she was known to have a sharp tongue, and many persons had reason to fear her wit.
• Where have all the flowers gone?
  Generally the petals of the flowering parts of plants wither and fall off to decay in the surrounding soil while the remainder is converted into fruiting bodies. However, the blossoms of early-flowering fruit trees such as plums and cherries are particula
• How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
  Though the poet neglects to enumerate them, providing instead a mere list, a simple inventory establishes that--if we omit the purely hypothetical posthumous final one--Elizabeth Barrett loved Robert Browning in precisely six ways.