Editor Ruby here this week to round up some stray facts we’ve discovered while writing trivia questions. The Friday Know-It-All originated as a place for us to put tidbits too fascinating to discard, but too obscure to include in a question. Today we’re carrying that tradition forward! Here we go, in increasing order of detail:

We used to have a national raisin reserve, but it was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Two incredibly specific Wikipedia pages you need to know about: List of pseudonyms of angling authors (people who write about angling, as in fishing) and Twins by nationality.

There was a parody game of the puzzle computer game “Myst” that was called “Pyst” and starred John Goodman.

Cardinal-nephews: the original nepo babies. Literally! This is what the word “nepotism” was invented to describe. It’s when you get to be a cardinal because your uncle is the pope.

Speaking of nepo babies, Hoku of “Perfect Day” and “Dumb Blonde” is the great Don Ho’s daughter.

In the '80s, Harvey Comics sued Columbia Pictures on the grounds that the ghost in the "Ghostbusters" logo copied the character design of Casper the Friendly Ghost's longtime antagonist Fatso. Columbia won the suit partly on the grounds that there were limited ways to draw a ghost, but Editor Ira can attest that as a kid he definitely assumed Ghostbusters had something to do with the Casper-verse before he saw the movie.

Handing it over to co-owner Chuck: Having just learned about the song "Like a G6," I couldn't help but wonder what a "G6" is, and why they're so fly. Turns out there isn't a G6 — Cataracs just needed something to rhyme with "Three Six," so they made it up, thinking it sounded like what you might call a private jet. As a result, many listeners assumed they were talking about the Pontiac G6, which is, if I may editorialize for a moment, pretty high up on the list of the least-fly cars ever made. I love that people thought this club banger was written about a mid-size budget sedan. [Ed note: me and Chuck’s generational gap is that he is not aware of the song “Like a G6” in his bones – Ruby]

Backwards-talking: it’s more than a “Twin Peaks” conceit! Editor Ira came across this amazing article on “Lunfardo” while researching a January round on backwards talking. While Lunfardo seems to be an Italian-derived Spanish slang spoken in Argentina, this article focuses on Dr. Adolfo García’s research into one of its most popular elements: reversing the syllables or even letters of a word, such that “casa” (“house”) becomes “saca,” or “plata” (“money”) becomes “atalp.” For me, Lunfardo brings to mind Pig Latin or Cockney rhyming slang, something done to be fun for an in-group while being impenetrable to outsiders. Apparently we have back slang in English too, it’s just less common. Minneapolitans familiar with high-end dining inside of museums might be delighted to learn that Swedish “fika” is 19th-century back slang for “kaffi,” meaning “coffee.”

I needed to write a question with the answer “alley oop” for our “words that are also basketball terms” round in early May. This led me to a bewildering set of facts, some of which I was able to jam into the question:

It’s from the French “allez hop,” which is something acrobats yell to indicate it’s time to get into a lift all at once
Edith Piaf’s maternal family was all acrobats
Edward Snowden’s wife Lindsey Mills is an acrobat (and blogger!)
“Alley Oop” is the name of a long-running comic strip about a caveman named Alley Oop in the Kingdom of Moo
Short-lived doo wop group The Hollywood Argyles had a surprise hit with a song called “Alley Oop,” inspired by the comic strip
There is a defunct theme park to the comic strip Alley Oop in a town in Texas called Iraan

If you’re anything like me, you’re only familiar with lobster Thermidor as a dish you had to max out your Sims’ cooking skill to be able to make in “The Sims 2.” It’s actually kind of the deviled eggs or twice-baked potatoes of seafood: Scrape out the meat from a lobster, cook it with a sauce made of egg yolks and brandy, and stuff it back into the shell with cheese for broiling. I can’t say I’m intrigued by the dish, but the name has an interesting history. It’s named after a controversial 1891 play called “Thermidor,” about a guy who infiltrated the French Revolutionary government and helped people escape the guillotine. It was taken as a criticism of Robespierre and banned from government-funded theaters, shutting down after just two performances.

The play uses the real historical events of the Thermidorian Reaction, the ousting of Robespierre, as its backdrop. But why was the event called that? As you may have learned from previous Friday Know-It-Alls, the French Revolution successfully led to the metric system, but they also had a less-successful revolutionary calendar. All the months had weather- or pastoral-based names. “Thermidor” is basically concurrent with Leo season (end of July/most of August), and comes from the word for “heat,” much like the Latin name “Fervidor” for the same month. Each month was divided into three 10-day weeks, each day of which had its own name based on a plant or agricultural tool. I gotta say, that strikes me as more characteristic of a teenager writing a “Lord of the Rings” rip-off than the people who beheaded their king, but who am I to say who gets to have fun with their worldbuilding? Obviously, you have to look up your birthday in the French Republican Calendar converter and then check what fun thing you have on your day. Mine is either “bedstraw” or “tench,” depending on the year (honestly… you could do better). I was going to put such a good ending line on this section by telling you what day lobster is, but they didn’t include it on the list. However, bringing it all the way back around, the year begins in autumn with a day called “Raisin,” meaning “grape.” No word on the French Republic’s national raisin reserve, or its constitutionality.