From ancient Greeks to 17th-century Dutch settlers

Today’s question: We celebrated a birthday and one of the kids wondered why we put candles on the cake and blow them out to make a wish. Like most questions kids ask, we didn’t have a clue. Did they ask you how those trick candles work? I know the answer to that one, too.

Birthday cakes and candles and wishes go all the way to the ancient Greeks, who baked round cakes as offerings to Artemis, the moon goddess. The candles, of course, represented the light of the moon.

And they believed smoke carried their prayers up to the gods, which, if you think about it, makes a certain amount of sense.

So you blow out the candles in hopes that their smoke will make your wishes — prayers — come true.

Now, about the trick candles, the candles that won’t extinguish when you blow on them.

When you puff at a regular candle there remains a little bit of ember that sends off a wisp of smoke and gradually dies out.

Those stupid trick candles are dusted with a bit of magnesium, which has a very low ignition temperature. So when you blow out the candles the ember is hot enough to ignite the magnesium dust and bring the candle back to life.

Where did the word “Yankee” to describe Americans come from?

It dates back to the late 17th century when the Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam — New York — applied it to the English colonists in neighboring Connecticut. It comes from the “Janke,” Dutch for “Little John.” The British used it later as a label for their American colonists.