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April 5th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
So, What’s the Deal with Lent Again? March’s Top Questions
Photo Credit: Getty Images
A couple big things were front of mind for the curious denizens of the interwebs last month: Lent, temblors, and the lovely, late Elizabeth.
1. Why can’t you eat meat on Fridays during Lent? Theories abound in response to the #1 most-visited question in March (17 answers at last count), but congratulations to Ankhorite, who had the top and surely the most exhaustive answer. Be sure to read down to the part about when beaver, capybara and muskrat were declared “fish” for the purposes of Lent.
2. An enormous earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in mid-March, as everyone now knows. The scale of the disaster was so vast, so beyond comprehension, that at first people simply tried to understand what a 9.0 earthquake meant. On Friday, March 11—the day the earthquake hit—the question How high does the Richter scale go? got more than 100 times more visits than usual.
3. The passing of film great Elizabeth Taylor sparked remembrances across the country, which had many asking, say, how many times was she married? Thanks to SASSYWI-Q-Sassia-Jetpacking with NASCAR for getting the numbers right—no mean feat.
4. Lent inspired more than one question about the purpose and origin of meat proscriptions. Our #4 most-visited question was What’s the origin of eating fish on Friday? Answers were as varied and thought-provoking as they were to our #1 question—and not necessarily the same. Kudos to one Anonymous user, who nabbed the top-Liked answer with a story about a bargain struck between a mistress and a pope.
5. Do you know anybody with purple eyes? Well, if to follow a star from silver screen to silver screen is to know them, then yes—for the late Ms. Taylor was famous for her violet eyes. According to kalbert801, “After four years of med school, five years of residency and my fellowship I can definitively state that violet eyes do exist and are natural.”
Lastly, kudos to the askers of Answerbag's top questions:
Fun
Breanne Green
wickedwillie
MyKinKStar
2old2dieyoung
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Rachel Globus
Comments
I guess I'm confused how these questions and "askers" can be the top for March 2011. All of the questions are from years ago and the askers mentioned have been gone from 2/11 to 2006??
by Mrs. Cleaver on April 5th, 2011
Good point Mrs Cleaver.
by Gingerminx on April 5th, 2011
They're top by the number of visits they receive, not by the number of answers they receive (an equally important metric!). So even if the questions were asked years ago, certain events will cause people to have those questions and search for them, either on Answerbag or search engines such as Google. That's why we saw traffic to questions on Lent, earthquakes and Elizabeth Taylor surge in the past month. So, the question or answer you ask today may still be helping people years after! Pretty neat, eh?
by Rachel Globus on April 6th, 2011
Ah I see how they are chosen.
by Gingerminx on April 6th, 2011
hmm, I think you mean blue eyes... purple eyes are impossible, and her's were no except. just plain blue. no idea where the "violet" thing came from.
by AudreyHepburn on April 9th, 2011