Some people view Professor James Moriarty as the ultimate arch-enemy to Sherlock Holmes. But is this true? Or did Sherlock Holmes face even greater rivals? Is the role of Professor Moriarty as big as some subsequent movies and TV series have presented it? Or did he have a smaller role in the ori...

Looking at the list of post-structuralist authors, my impression was that a majority of them were French. Is that an accurate assessment? If so, why is that the case? (yes, the founders or post-structuralism were French, but why didn't it spread far wider than France?)

It is a commonly known fact that Lewis Carroll based Alice in his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the looking glass on Alice Liddell. But were any other characters, for instance the mad hatter, inspired by real life people, and what evidence is there for this, or were they made up b...

Over the whole Jewish Bible, there are cantillation marks that denote how the text is supposed to be chanted. The sounds differ between places, such as between the Ashkenazi and the Sephardic communities. However, as far as I can tell, the marks are the same. How long have the current cantillatio...

In Simon and Garfunkel's song The Sound of Silence1, there is the following passage in lyrics: And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made What is this neon god? Obviously, they are referring to neon signs, but in what sense are neon signs "gods" and how exactly are people...