What the hell does ‘Rathskeller’ mean? –Sam Newbold, Princeton University

Rathskellers (or ‘the Rath’ or ‘the Rat’ as it is nicknamed here on campus) is a restaurant or tavern, generally below street level, that serves beer.
Yes, our Rath used to sell beer before the Student Union decided to move the bar to the ‘Sco. No, they’re not planning to move it back any time soon.
Originally, the word (from the Middle High German ‘rat’, meaning council, and the German ‘keller’, meaning cellar) referred specifically to the basement of the city hall which was usually rented out as a restaurant where beer was sold. Over time, the term came to refer to pretty much every saloon below street level that served beer at tables and sold simple food, regardless of what building they were in.

What was that international language thing I heard about? Did they ever finish that?

Despite what some people believe, Esperanto, an international language created to help people from different countries communicate, is not a child of the U.N. or otherwise a recent development. In 1887, Dr. L. L. Zamenhof published a paper laying out a ‘planned language’ — that is, the language did not develop rules and forms over time, but was created from scratch. Of course with no central authority overseeing the language’s canon of words, it is now a developing language whose future is controlled by its users.
Zamenhof wrote the paper under the name ‘Dr. Esperanto’ — meaning ‘one who hopes’ — and that name stuck to the language itself. Esperanto was never intended to replace existing languages but to supplement them, acting as a common, neutral language for people from different places. In fact it was hoped that the language would protect lesser-used languages from extinction at the hands of increasingly popular ‘mainstream’ or ‘international’ languages like English. Estimates on the number of speakers worldwide vary greatly, but over 100 countries have Esperanto speakers’ associations.
For even more information on this craze that’s sweeping the globe, check out www.esperanto.net.

A brand new semester brings brand new questions. No, really it does. Just take a moment and think of that deep, burning, unanswered question you would like answered (or doused with water). Then email aaron.mucciolo@oberlin.edu or write to Pointless Questions, c/o The Oberlin Review, Wilder Box 90, Oberlin OH, 44074. Your name will be used only with your permission.