13 March 2013

pochemuchka

noun, Russian

[poh-chay-MOOCH-ka, почемучка]

– a person who asks too many questions, who always wants to know the reason or meaning of things, who is extremely inquisitive.

From the Russian children’s book, Alyosha Pochemuchka, in which the title character is an extremely inquisitive 5 year old boy.

Derived from the Russian word ‘pochemu’ (почему), meaning ‘why’.

Example sentence

‘Because of the highly disruptive pochemuchka in the front row, the professor failed to finish the lecture in the allocated time’.

Today’s aphorism

‘How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world’.

– William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

On this day

13 March 1929 – The Butler Act is passed, making it illegal to teach the theory of evolution in schools in Tennessee. The Act was repealed in 1967.

13 March 1969 – Disney releases the hit movie, The Love Bug, based on a Volkswagen Beetle with a life of its own.

13 March 1979 – a left-wing military coup in Grenada overthrows Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy. His leadership was controversial with allegations of illegitimately winning the election, rigging a Miss World contest and calling for the United Nations to establish a committee to investigate UFOs and extraterrestrial life.

13 March 1996 – Sixteen children at the Dunblane Primary School in Scotland are shot dead by former boy scout leader, Thomas Hamilton. The massacre resulted in stricter gun laws in the United Kingdom.