Do Fish Drink Water?: Puzzling and Improbable Questions and Answers

by Bill McLain

Is it true that elephants are afraid of mice? How much gold does the United States store in Fort Knox? Why do I get a headache when I eat ice cream too fast? How did the "seventh inning stretch" originate? As the official webmaster for Xerox, Bill McLain was surprised by the kinds of questions he was receiving, like whether people born blind can see in their dreams and why rabbits are associated with Easter. McLain began to answer each and every question—attracting national attention from MSNBC, CNN, and People —and the result, collected in Do Fish Drink Water? , is a surprising, funny, and informative collection of facts. McLain's answers can often be as wild as the questions and prompt entertaining anecdotes about where he found them. McLain explains how magnets are made, what caused the Great Depression of 1922, and even explains why cats purr. Also included is an extensive list of websites where he conducts research, offering an informative guide to making the most of the Internet.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Trivia, Reference, Humor, History, Childrens

296 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 1999

Reviews

[Mackenzie H · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Do Fish Drink Water?" was a very interesting book. I needed another nonfiction book so Mrs. Morgan recommended this one to me. When she first handed me this book, I was very skeptical. She told me I would probably appreciate it in a odd kind of way. So I tried it. I am going to be honest, I actually liked the book. It was very informative in the way that if you ever needed to drop your trivia knowledge on somebody, you could. Or if it was a life or death situation where you needed to know what animal is commonly known to have a body the color of grape juice, you would be able to live. (In case you were wondering, it is the South African blesbok, a type of antelope.) There was a ton more facts that were surprisingly fascinating. There were some facts that I didn't have much interest in but all in all it was pretty engaging.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants an easy read in the nonfiction genre.

[Nathan · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author claims that this book contains the answers to a variety of trivia questions that he has been asked over the course of his career.

However, he hasn't made the effort of actually providing correct answers. Sometimes he repeats urban legends as facts, other times he makes claims that are both ludicrously untrue and easily checkable. (E.g. the German word "Gesundheit" is not "German for 'God bless you,'" which he claims on p. 109. Any first-year student of the language would have told him it means "Good health.") His discussion of Valentine's Day also reads like an email forwarded on by an elderly relative.

I have no confidence in any of the claims that this book makes. Bill McLain has managed the impressive feat of writing a book inferior in every way to any random "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader."

There are a thousand good trivia books out there. This one is a worthless waste of time.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

McLain explains how magnets are made, what caused the Great Depression of 1922, and even explains why cats purr. Also included is an extensive list of websites where he conducts research, offering an informative guide to making the most of the Internet.

[Carmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very informative book. I learned some (not a lot, because I am already pretty well-versed in trivia). The book is out of date, it would be interesting to read a more modern version (this was published in 1999). The book covers many topics: Animal Kingdom (e.g. Do fish drink water?), Clothing and Apparel (e.g. Where did the idea for underwear come from?), Finance (e.g. Does the government still print two-dollar bills?), Food(e.g. What is the difference between jelly, jam, preserves, and marmalade?) , Geography (e.g. How did each of the seven continents get its name?), History (e.g. Who were the Knights Templar?), Holidays (e.g. What is the origin of the Christmas tree?), Language (e.g. Where did the term 'dark horse' come from?), Literature (e.g. Who wrote the first 'detective' novel?), the Human Body (e.g. Why don't Eskimos die from scurvy?), Music (e.g. In the Australian song, what does 'waltzing Matilda' mean?), Odds and Ends (e.g. Why don't beeswax candles drip?), Off the Wall (e.g. How many licks does it take to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop?), Religion (e.g. What is the history and significance of the Infant of Prague?), Science (e.g. Why are the oceans salty but not lakes?), Sports (e.g. How did the 'seventh-inning stretch' originate?), Transportation and Travel (e.g. Why don't they make dirigibles anymore?), United States (e.g. What is the book that the Statue of Liberty is holding?), Weather e.g. (What is the difference between partly cloudy and partly sunny?), and The World (e.g. Why is the Tower of Pisa leaning and will anyone ever straighten it?). Recommended for anyone wanting to learn some new facts.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lighthearted fun, good to read out-loud to someone for a laugh. The facts are educational but told in a entertaining way. The book also contains internet resources for further information. I would rather those pages have been used for a couple more "improbable questions". I mean, if someone is reading a book, they probably want the answers delivered in that format instead of doing more research through anther medium. But, overall, a fun book. Would make a cute gift :)

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that this book is very interesting and educational, with super cool facts I find extremely interesting! Let's not give away what this book is about but dolphins MUST stay conscious to breath, so how do they sleep...??? Also "a group of dolphins is called a pod. Being social, they tend to congregate ( Socialise and communicate ) and spend their entire lives with their Podmates!" That's all i'm telling you.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a bizarre piece of history--a trivia book based on Internet Searches before Google became popular and before Wikipedia existed.

As such, the author gets certain pieces wrong, sometimes providing incorrect answers & perpetuating urban legends.

Had some fun nuggets for sure, but there are much better examples out there.

[Jen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was very disappointing. Several of the answers (such as where the phrase "mind your p's and q's" comes from) propogate legends and myths rather than admitting that we don't know the answer. Even the answers that were legitimate seemed incomplete.

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasing eclectic mix

What sets Bill McLain's book apart from other miscellaneous sound bytes of knowledge books is (a) it's the latest (b) the Q & A's were inspired by actual questions and answers from McLain's website, and (c) the organization, which allows McLain to elaborate and provide website addresses for additional information.

McLain's light-hearted, semi-corny style is also a plus, although the cutesy parenthetical asides after each question (e.g., "Where did the idea for underwear come from? (Not from Jockeys.)") sometimes miss the mark. There is also a Western bias in the text; for example the section on religion doesn't get east of Mecca, and even the section entitled "World" is almost exclusively concerned with sites Western. The information however, as far as I can tell, is textbook accurate with one puzzling exception. On page 219 McLain speculates about a planet revolving around Alpha Centauri. He writes: "Although the planet's terrain would probably be similar to earth's continents, islands, and oceans, the planet would be different in most other ways." He adds that "Temperatures would be much higher than those on earth and could be lethal to humans trying to live in the tropical regions. Life would prefer the cooler highlands." Amazing. How would or could he know this! More likely, if the descriptions of actual extra solar planets are to be believed, a planet revolving around Alpha Centauri (at least any one that we could become aware of) would be a gas giant like Jupiter or Saturn, and any talk of "tropical regions" or "cooler highlands" just so much terra-centered silliness.

Some of my favorite bits of knowledge found here: the amount of gold in Fort Knox; a rather thorough answer to whether water drains clockwise or counter-clockwise depending on hemisphere; why Eskimos don't die of scurvy; and what's the world's faster roller coaster. This is a nice entertainment and an easy read.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

[Yaaresse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because of my rule about always stopping at the end of a chapter, this is the kind of book I like to have going for when I have only a few minutes to read. The sections are very short, so you can put it down and not lose track of what's going on. So it takes me forever to read something like this even though it's really a light, fast book.

It's entertaining, but I found some things in it that are more perpetrating old urban legends than factual information. This, of course, led to more reading as I ended up going on-line to verfiy some of the more questionable entries. Still, the spouse and I had fun doing the "did you know?" and "do you think that's accurate?" game with it.

[Patrick Farley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This felt like something you would find in a time capsule. While some of the trivia is interesting a lot of it might be out of date. The book is broken into different topics. The weirdest part is that at the end of each section there are links to websites for furtherr information on the topics. At the time this was published (1999) this feature may have been great, but the internet has grown so much since than and we have better search engines, making it much easier to find the information we are looking for and to fact check.

[Charlotte Ehney · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you love random information and facts, this is the book for you. Bill McLain tackles questions on topics as diverse as Holidays, Geography, History and Language just to name a few. This book was published in 1999, so there are some sections that are outdated. Overall, this is a great collection of trivia.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit out-of-date, but what an interesting collection of trivia. I learned a lot and found myself looking up several places on the Internet to see if they still existed and records to see if they had been broken in the years since this was written. Fun book!

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book needed to be better researched and edited. There were many times that the author would mention some fact and then two paragraphs later, he would mention the same fact as if it was new information. I also hated the anecdotes sprinkle throughout the book.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for lovers of random trivia! Although this book was written in 1999, the factoids are almost all still accurate even if the Web links are outdated. A must for team trivia lovers!

[Leonca · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways hasn’t aged well (theories on dog behavior for example). Some decently interesting information, especially on random customs we’ve kept alive somehow after forgetting their meaning.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of it was interesting and some of it wasn't and it was a little outdated, but it was fun to read the parts I wanted to.

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a little old now reading it in 2021. But still interesting enough if you’re behind on everything like I am.

[Mariah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fun read! Easy to understand too, with maybe some dated information but really informative all the same. I loved the writers style!

[Melina Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good magazine replacement for your living room table.

[Cammie (HeadInTheBooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

weird facts

[Ronnie Cobb · Rating 2 out of 5]

read

[Kenneth · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit light weight but cute and amusing.

[Brad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting tidbits of trivia, but it is a bit sad that since 1999, this book and this man have both become all but obsolete.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the audiobook and it reminded me of a ‘how it’s made’ episode.

Liked the White Elephant tidbit

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but often repetitive, and quite out of date due to when it was published.

[Caleb · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read, though like anything about facts, some of it is dated. This book makes reference to the future year of 2000. However, I found it interesting

[Hana Anderson]

The book Do Fish Drink Water was wrote by Bill Mclain. The genre of this non-fiction book is informational. The book has various different kinds of interesting facts on where pizza came from, on government, even to how dolphins sleep. You can learn many things from reading this book.

I believe the main point of this book is to teach people things they would not know, and to interest them with learning about the strange facts as well. The author put in very strange and weird facts, such as, that dolphins sleep by shutting down half of their brain to regenerate itself in order for it to look out for danger and breathe at the same time. He also put facts on clothing and other different subjects so people can possibly learn about a topic that appeals to them.

This book did not have a theme to it. It just had multiple facts on different topics.

I personally did not like this book, because its not my kind of reading style. Although it taught you a lot of things, it seems to me it was a bit rediculous because the book taught you about things you will never need in every day life. It kind of bored a little, and it was slow through out the entire book with the exception of the rediculously funny facts here and there. I would recomend this book to people who like to learn things just for knowning the facts.

[Jason Tyne-zimmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truly fascinating book...some of his answers are incorrect and others don't answer the question at all, but all-in-all an entertaining book which does answer many...if not all...the enduring questions of our time:

Are denim and jeans the same thing?
Does the government still print two-dollar bills?
Who were the Knights Templar?
What does the word mistletoe mean?
Where did the term "dark horse" come from?
Was there a real Count Dracula?
What does "Waltzing Matilda" mean?
In my grandmother's day, where did the iceman get his ice from?
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie-Roll Pop?
Why are there 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour?
In football, how did a "down" get its name?
What's the difference between partly sunny and partly cloudy?

All the minutia you always wondered about and so much more minutia that never even crossed your mind.

You'll never wonder again.

[Christopher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't let the quirky title of this trivia book fool you. This is not a very interesting read. Typically, I find that the most interesting trivia books are the ones that either ask really off the wall questions or those that have some kind of game component to it. This book tries to be the former and fails quite miserably at it. Practically none of the questions are all that quirky or funny, nor does Mr. McLain's writing make the answers interesting or funny. This is a book of straight up useless information. Not only that, but having been written 10 years ago, this book also has many inaccuracies (ex. the Titanic was sunk by a 200 foot gash in the hull rather than the currently accepted "morse code" hull punctures). Still, there are some interesting nuggets of information that you can throw around at your local cocktail party. However, there are probably more interesting, and more up-to-date, trivia books on the market.