Settle It Once and For All

The internet's longest-running arguments, ruled on with sources. Forward liberally.

How much should I tip?Tip 20 percent at sit-down restaurants, a dollar or two per drink at a bar, and 15 to 20 percent for delivery and ridesh…
Roth or traditional: which retirement account wins?Traditional saves taxes now; Roth saves them later. Young or in a low bracket, take the Roth: pay tax on the seed, not t…
Debit or credit: which should you actually use?Use credit like a debit card: fraud on credit is the bank's money while they investigate, fraud on debit is yours. Feder…
Is renting really throwing money away?No. Renting buys housing; owning buys housing plus a leveraged asset plus taxes, insurance, maintenance, and transaction…
Term or whole life insurance: which should you buy?Term, for almost everyone: pure coverage for the decades someone depends on your income, at a tenth the price. Whole lif…
What is the difference between an HSA and an FSA?An HSA requires a high-deductible health plan, the money is yours forever, it rolls over, and it can be invested. An FSA…
How much water should I drink a day?The 8-glasses rule is folklore. Science says roughly 15.5 cups of total fluid a day for men and 11.5 for women, food inc…
Do I really need 10,000 steps a day?10,000 steps was a 1960s pedometer marketing number, not science. Research shows major benefits arrive by 7,000 to 8,000…
Is cracking your knuckles bad for you?No. The pop is a gas bubble in joint fluid, and studies, including one doctor who cracked one hand for 60 years, found n…
Should you wash raw chicken before cooking it?No. Rinsing chicken sprays bacteria up to three feet around your sink and kills nothing. Cooking to 165°F does all the s…
What is the difference between baking and roasting?Mostly temperature and what you are cooking. Roasting uses higher heat on foods with existing structure, like meat and v…
Which type of two-factor authentication is actually best?Hardware security keys are strongest, authenticator apps are a good default, and SMS codes are the weakest but still far…
What temperature should you set the thermostat?The efficiency answer: 68°F when home in winter, 78°F in summer, with setbacks when out or asleep worth about 10 percent…
How often should you wash your sheets?Once a week is the standard, two weeks is the honest ceiling. You shed skin cells and sweat nightly, and dust mites thro…
Do you need to rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher?No, and you should not. Scrape off solids, then load them dirty. Modern detergents contain enzymes that need food residu…
Is there really a cheapest day to book flights?The Tuesday-booking trick is dead; fares reprice constantly by algorithm. What works: book domestic 1 to 3 months out, i…
What is the difference between a layover and a stopover?A layover is under 24 hours on domestic itineraries, or under 24 on international; a stopover is longer and is often a s…
Do you still need a cover letter?Sometimes, and it costs little to include one. Many recruiters skip it, but a specific, short letter still helps for car…
How much should you spend on a wedding gift?$75 to $100 for friends and coworkers, $100 to $200 or more for close friends and family. Cash is fully acceptable now, …
How long should you wait to text back?Reply when you see it and feel like replying. Strategic delay is a game with no prize: the right person is not timing yo…
Who pays on a first date?The person who did the inviting offers to pay. The other person offers to split. Whoever wins, decide in five seconds an…
Why do we still have daylight saving time?It started as a WWI fuel-saving measure, the farmers actually opposed it, modern studies find little energy benefit, and…
Is the United States a democracy or a republic?Both, and the framing of the question is usually a rhetorical move. The US is a constitutional republic and a representa…
What is the difference between Medicare and Medicaid?Medicare is federal health coverage based mainly on age, 65 and older, plus certain disabilities. Medicaid is need-based…
Affect vs. effect: which one do I want?Affect is almost always the verb, effect almost always the noun: the rain affected the game; the rain had an effect on t…
Who vs. whom: does anyone still care?The test: answer the question with he or him. He gets who; him gets whom. In speech, whom is dying and nobody will arres…
Is irregardless a word?Yes, it is in the dictionary, and has been for decades, labeled nonstandard. Dictionaries record usage rather than issue…
Does literally now mean figuratively?The intensifier use of literally is centuries old; Twain, Joyce, and Dickens all did it, and dictionaries record it. Eng…
Is i before e except after c actually true?The short rule fails constantly: weird, science, seize, their. The full old version, restricted to the ee sound, works b…
Your or you're: what is the actual rule?You're is a contraction of you are; your shows possession. Expand the contraction to test it: if you are fits the senten…
What is the Oxford comma, and do you need it?The comma before the final and in a list: red, white, and blue. It is optional, but use it, because leaving it out occas…
Fewer or less: which is correct?Fewer for things you can count, less for amounts you cannot: fewer bottles, less water. The famous exception is time, mo…
When does its take an apostrophe?Only when it means it is or it has. The possessive its takes no apostrophe, which breaks the usual rule and is exactly w…
Are double negatives actually wrong?Wrong in standard written English, but grammatically systematic in many dialects and in most world languages. I don't kn…
What is the difference between e.g. and i.e.?E.g. means for example and introduces a partial list. I.e. means that is and restates or clarifies precisely. Memory tri…
Can you end a sentence with a preposition?Yes. The prohibition was invented in the 1600s by writers trying to make English behave like Latin, and no major style g…
What is the order of operations?Parentheses, exponents, then multiplication and division left to right, then addition and subtraction left to right. The…
Should you stretch before or after a workout?Do dynamic movement before, save the long holds for after. Research shows static stretching pre-workout does not prevent…
Why do Americans call it soccer when everyone else says football?Soccer is a British word. It came from association football, shortened to assoc and then soccer by Oxford students in th…
What is the difference between rugby and American football?American football descends from rugby and diverged in the 1880s when Walter Camp introduced the line of scrimmage and do…
Does premium gas do anything for a regular car?If your car specifies regular, premium buys you nothing: AAA tested it and found no gains in power, mileage, or emission…
What is the difference between AWD and 4WD?AWD is usually automatic and always on, tuned for traction on wet or snowy roads. 4WD is typically driver-selectable wit…
What is the difference between horsepower and torque?Torque is twisting force, how hard the engine pushes. Horsepower is how fast it can do that work, torque times engine sp…
Is it legal to record a conversation?Depends on your state. Most are one-party consent, meaning you may record a conversation you are part of. Around a dozen…
Is a hotdog a sandwich?Merriam-Webster says yes; the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council formally ruled no, declaring it its own category. We …
Is cereal a soup?No. Soup is defined by cooking and intent: liquid as the unified dish. Cereal is dry solids meeting cold milk seconds be…
Does pineapple belong on pizza?The Hawaiian was invented in 1962 by a Greek immigrant in Canada, sweet-plus-salty has centuries of culinary precedent, …
Is water wet?Wetness describes a liquid adhering to a solid, so water makes things wet rather than being wet itself. Fire is not burn…
How do you pronounce GIF?The format's creator insists on JIF, peanut butter and all, but usage surveys show the hard G winning decisively, and cr…
Should you tip on takeout?Something small, in the 10 percent range, when someone assembled and packed the order, and nothing is genuinely acceptab…
Is it rude to recline your airplane seat?You paid for a seat that reclines, so it is not rude to use it, but it is rude to slam it back without looking. The real…
Should toilet paper hang over or under?Over, and there is a patent to prove it. The 1891 patent drawing shows the paper hanging over the top. Over is also more…
Is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?Botanically a fruit, legally a vegetable in the United States. The Supreme Court ruled in 1893 that tomatoes are vegetab…
Do you really need to wait 30 minutes after eating to swim?No. There is no evidence linking eating to drowning or dangerous cramps. The advice appears to trace to a 1908 Boy Scout…
Is ketchup on a hot dog actually wrong?No, eat what you like. The rule is a Chicago regional tradition that got treated as universal law, and even the National…
Are there actually rules about which foods belong to which meal?No, and the categories are surprisingly modern and local. Breakfast food is a cultural convention, not a nutritional one…
Is it better to shower in the morning or at night?Night has a slight edge for sleep and clean sheets; morning wins for alertness and for people whose hair needs it. Both …
Is it rude to use speakerphone in public?Yes. You are conscripting everyone nearby into a conversation they did not choose, and unlike ambient noise, speech is u…
Should you take your shoes off in someone else's house?Take them off unless told otherwise, and the hygiene evidence backs the habit. Studies find substantial bacteria on shoe…
Does it matter whether milk goes in the tea before or after?It genuinely changes the chemistry. Adding tea to milk warms the milk gradually; pouring milk into hot tea heats it in s…
Is it better to idle or turn the engine off when waiting?Turn it off past about ten seconds. The old belief that restarting burns more fuel than idling was true for carbureted e…
Is it rude to decline a wedding invitation?No. Declining promptly and warmly is a normal, respected answer, and it saves the couple real money since they pay per h…
Are open offices actually better than cubicles?No, on the evidence. Harvard research tracking employees before and after a move to open plan found face-to-face interac…
Do you have to tip at a counter with a screen?No, and the pressure is by design. Tipping norms expanded to counter service through default screen prompts, not through…
Who really discovered America?Indigenous peoples arrived at least 15,000 years ago, so they discovered it. Among Europeans, Norse sailor Leif Erikson …
Who was really the first president of the United States?George Washington, inaugurated in 1789 under the Constitution. The trivia trap points to John Hanson, who led Congress u…
What is the difference between the UK, Great Britain, and England?England is one country; Great Britain is the island holding England, Scotland, and Wales; the UK adds Northern Ireland. …
What is the tallest mountain in the world?Everest is the highest above sea level at 29,032 feet, but Mauna Kea in Hawaii is taller base to peak, most of it underw…
What is the longest river in the world?Traditionally the Nile, at about 4,130 miles, but it is genuinely contested: many scientists argue the Amazon is longer,…
How many continents are there?Depends where you went to school. English-speaking countries teach seven, much of Europe and Latin America teach six by …
What is the difference between a hurricane, a typhoon, and a cyclone?Nothing meteorological. They are the same storm with three regional names: hurricane in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific…