Useless But Compelling Facts - November 2008 Answer
Shari Gottesman and Richard Fine, long-time Legal Bytes’ readers, were essentially tied in getting me the correct answer to the last trivia question about what Gene Rodenberry, Smithers on The Simpsons, the sci-fi film Hangar 18, and the block-building game Jenga!, all have in common. Well, Star Trek’s Lieutenant Uhuru’s name means “freedom” in Swahili; Smithers speaks Swahili (Marge’s resume says she speaks Swahili, but she’s lying); the speech system on the alien spaceship in Hangar 18 is a Swahili phrasebook; and Jenga comes from the Swahili word “kujenga,” which means “to build.” Swahili is a Bantu language spoken by thousands of people on the southeastern coast of Africa.
