If you’re up early, a ripe tomato could be forthcoming

Today’s question:

In reading about the controversy over the University of Arizona’s (basketball) coach’s problems everyone said his comments were “very forthcoming.” Why forthcoming? Why not fifthcoming or sixthcoming?

You’re kidding, right? Making a joke? It is not “fourth” coming, as in the number. It is “forth,” as in “to go forth from here.”

“Forthcoming” in this case means to be responsive or honest or outgoing, as in, “He was forthcoming about the extra ear growing out of his forehead.”

You people.

I wonder if bland store-bought tomatoes hold the same nutritional value as the best-ever grown farm fresh organic tomatoes?

Maybe, maybe not.

Organic tomatoes tend to be smaller than commercially grown tomatoes. Since a tomato plant only has so many nutrients and flavor chemicals to go around a plant with smaller fruit can pack each tomato with more nutrients than a plant with larger fruit.

However, a study published in 2013 in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviewed more than 200 studies and found no difference between the vitamin contents of organic and conventional foods.

Forget the health benefits. What could taste better than a ripe red tomato fresh from your neighbor’s garden, especially if you pick it in the cool of the morning before your neighbor is awake?

My mother used to say “What the Sam Hill” to express surprise or astonishment. My husband just told me his mother did too. Who in the Sam Hill is Sam Hill?

Sam Hill is a euphemism for hell. It is an American expression first recorded around 1839, back when people were more touchy about what they considered to be blasphemy.

Some say the expression referred to Samuel Hill (1857-1931), a railroad magnate known for his colorful language, but since it was in use before he was born that seems unlikely.