Without makeup / arlamont@msn.com / October 13, 2023

THE ELBOW BRACE

Alfred, most of us travel in economy class in rows of three seats, who owns the elbow pads?

A. This is an unwritten universal rule, but one that I urge all travelers to follow:

The center seat receives the armrests. The window and aisle seats already have a little more space.

The window seat can lean against the wall of the plane, while the aisle seat extends a little further.

Giving up a sliver of space to make your fellow travelers in the middle seat more comfortable is a small price to pay to keep everyone on board happy and relaxed. After all, the flight is just a fragment of the journey and everyone feels uncomfortable to begin with.

ON THE LEFT

Why do you board and disembark through the left door on all airplanes?

A. On the one hand, having a designated side for boarding makes sense in terms of airport infrastructure. Boarding and disembarking via jet bridges is most common, and although jet bridges are movable to synchronize with different types of aircraft, they are always designed to be attached to the left side of an aircraft. With so many gates at a given airport, things could be a little confusing if planes could line up to the right or left of the jet bridge.

But why the left, specifically? It's mainly about security. “Many aircraft operations take place on the right side of the aircraft: fueling, loading and unloading bags, catering, etc.,” says former pilot Dan Bubb, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. “It would be very dangerous to board passengers on that side of the plane, while vehicles and other equipment are moving.”

This is especially true if you are disembarking via a ladder rather than a jet bridge; In that case, you definitely want to keep passengers and crew away from any potentially dangerous activities.

NIGHT SWEATS

Mr. La Mont, I often wake up with my pajamas soaked in sweat, is this a sign of some illness?

A. If you have night sweats once or twice, there is no need to worry, especially if they are relieved by opening a window or applying ice packs or cold compresses to your body. But if they occur more often than that or if you have other symptoms such as fatigue, high fever, weight loss, or body aches, see your doctor. He or she can rule out underlying medical conditions such as an infection, a thyroid problem, a hormonal condition, or, more rarely, a blood cancer, such as leukemia or lymphoma.

ORANGE

Like the chicken and the egg, what came first, the fruit or the name “orange”?

A. I share that the name “orange” for the color preceded the use of the term to refer to the fruit. Initially, the word “orange” was used to describe the color and was later adopted to refer to the fruit that shares that color. The orange fruit has its origin in Asia and was brought to Europe in ancient times. The term “orange” in English and many other languages ​​comes from the Sanskrit term “naranga.” This process of first naming the color and then applying that name to the fruit is an example of how language evolves over time to describe and categorize the world around us.