Your Queries

If you have a question, write to The Queries Man, The Sunday Post, 2 Albert Square, Dundee, DD1 9QJ or email query@sundaypost.com

An old friend once told me the scientific name for an ice-cream headache. As I recall, it’s a bit of a tongue-twister! Can you remind me? – L.

Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia, meaning “pain of the sphenopalatine ganglion”, is a type of pain or headache associated with ice-cold drinks, or desserts such as ice cream.

It is caused by something cold touching the root of the mouth.

I believe pedestrians who wander into the road are called jaywalkers in America – is this because jays have a habit of wandering around aimlessly? – R.

The term has nothing to do with the bird, as jaywalk is a compound word derived from the word “jay”, an inexperienced person, that originated in the early 1900s, and “walk”.

Jay birds are members of the crow family.

“No more for me, I’m full to the gunnels,” my granddad said, waddling away from the dinner table after a big feed. What on earth is a gunnel, and why is it so full? – N.

“Full to the gunnels” is a Scots corruption of the phrase “full to the gunwales”.

A gunwale is the upper edge of the side of a boat or ship, originally the gun walls, and the phrase was used to describe a heavily-loaded vessel.

Coincidentally, a gunnel is also a fish.

My husband claims Winston Churchill was actually half-American. True or false? – G.

The former Prime Minister’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was indeed born in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, New York.

She married Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill, whom she met at a sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight, at the British Embassy in Paris on April 15, 1874.