Education & Reference Questions & Answers

Sugar is a food that people use for energy. Each person in the USA uses, on average, about 41 kg (90 lb) of sugar a year. All plants produce sugar, but the main sources of commercial sugar are sugarcane, a type of grass plant grown in tropical and subtropical regions, and sugar beet, a root crop grown in temperate areas.

It is difficult to pin an exact date for this very popular series of stories because they come from various sources, Indian, Persian and Arabian. Sir Richard Burton, who was responsible for the most popular translation, reckoned that some of the stories Sinbad, for instance dated back over a thousand years.

In his own words “This right hand shall work it all off”. In 1809 he had supplied half the capital of the published, Ballantyne & Co. Although he made a lot of money from his poems and books, he spent much of it on building his home, Abbotsford. In 1826 Ballantyne were in very serious financial difficulties and Scott had …

The names that the famous swordsmen assumed when they joined the French King’s bodyguard of musketeers were Athos, Porthos and Aramis. By these names they are known throughout Alexandre Dumas’ magnificent novel The Three Musketters. It is not until the swashbuckling D’ Artangnan sets out twenty years later, that the true names of them all are revealed. D’ Artangnan, now …

Gulliver’s Travels. Its title was originally The Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World by Laemuel Gulliver. The book was so well presented with an illustrated portrait of Gulliver and maps, that many credulous people believed it to be a true story. Indeed, a bishop in Ireland angrily asserted that in his opinion it was full of improbable untruths …

Samuel Langhorne Clemens grew up by the Mississippi River, where he was to set his most famous stories- The Adventure of Tam Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. For several years he worked as a river pilot, guiding traffic through the treacherous waters. Later, as a journalist and author, he chose to write under a pen name taken from …

Rishyashringa, son of Vibhandaka sage was brought up in wilderness and knew no human beings except his father. The childless king Dasharatha was advised by sage Vasishtha to invite Rishyashringa, known for his spiritual powers to the city of Ayodhya, to perform a special sacrifice for obtaining sons under his supervision. Accordingly teams of dancing girls were sent to the …

The gradual extension of the workweek caused by performing work-related activities during non-work hours. • Constant connectivity via your smartphone and computer blurs the boundaries between your work life and your personal life. • Constant connectivity at work via e-mail & chat, results in so many interruptions that you cannot get blocks of time to do any thinking, resulting in …

Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly. Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be …

Waithood refers to that period in the life of a young graduate when activities regard to settling down, such as getting married or buying a house are postponed until a job is found or enough money has been saved. Learn More: Waithood (a portmanteau of “wait” and “adulthood”) refers to the period of stagnation in the lives of young unemployed …