Taking a cue from guest-star _floss blogger A.J. Jacobs and his past week's worth of postings on these pages, I thought I'd use the Wrap to look at some Biblical words found in the caves of Qumran in 1946: The Dead Sea Scrolls. The San Diego Natural History Museum has mounted a fantastic exhibition featuring the 2000-plus year-old scrolls and has generously put together a enlightening list of facts for us. Plus, they've given us permission to repurpose a cool video on the scrolls,... READ ON

Lots of cities can boast funny accents and unique, geographic-specific words. In the Philadelphia area, for instance, where I grew up, we pronounce water, wuter and call a sub (submarine sandwich) a hoagie—and pronounce it hOEwghie. But I don't know another city in these great States of ours that can match Pittsburgh when it comes to funny dialects. It's so unique (I know, I know, unique doesn't have gradations"¦cut me some linguistic-slack, please), it has its own name:... READ ON

I always enjoy reading instruction manuals. They're filled with misplaced modifiers, split infinitives, curious fragments and hilarious typos of all shapes and colors, especially with imported electronic gear. But this post isn't about any of those things; it's about an unusual paragraph in the instruction manual from a new oven I recently bought. If you can't read the highlighted text there from the actual oven manual I scanned, the words go like this: IMPORTANT: The health of some... READ ON

When I was a kid, my parents had a few different rituals they employed before it was time for me to go to bed. Sometimes the ritual involved reading a book. Other times it involved what we called "a meeting," which was basically my mom or dad sitting at the foot of the bed, chatting, telling stories about their childhoods, etc. During the summer, when school was out, another ritual involved the radio, if you recall my last On Music post. But whatever ritual they threw at me, the night always... READ ON