I recently cut my hair to a length of one-eighth of an inch. How long is it going to take to grow back to its usual length of one-half inch? In other words, how fast does your hair really grow?
– Stefan Schetselaar, Gainesville, Va.
Stefan, it will take 23 days for your hair to grow back to its usual length. That’s because hair on your head typically grows about an inch every two months.
OK, I can hear many of you out there splitting hairs. And you’re right: I can’t really be quite that specific. Many factors – from genetics to age to hormones to nutrition – affect hair growth.
Richard De Villez, a professor of dermatology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, has written an excellent scholarly paper on hair growth. You can read it online at the great educational Web site howstuffworks.com. Just click on tinyurl.com/8ykmp for De Villez’s paper.
The professor has calculated that, on average, our scalp hair grows about 0.017 inches per day.
Some hairy facts
• There are different types of body hair. Vellus hairs are fine, soft and often unpigmented. Terminal hairs are large and dark. Men have more terminal hairs on their bodies than women.
• The darkest hairs on the human body are usually the eyelashes.
• Beards grow about 0.01 inches per day, on average. (Again, these things vary. I’m like Homer Simpson in that my 5 o’clock shadow pops out at 5 a.m.)
• Malnourishment slows hair growth. Basic amino acids, fats and vitamins are all necessary for the growth of healthy hair.
• According to Guinness, the world’s longest documented hair belongs to Xie Qiuping of China. Her hair is nearly 18.5 feet long. She has not cut it since she was 13, in 1973.
• An anonymous bidder paid $115,120 for clippings from the crown of “The King,” Elvis Presley. The 2002 purchase makes the locks the most expensive ever sold. It was authenticated by John Reznikoff, whom Guinness calls “the world’s most respected authority in the field of hair collecting.”
And I thought I had a weird job.
If we can buy non-pareil candies, what’s a pareil?
– Don Poe
Don, pareil is sort of like “couth.” They’re more properly known in English by their antonyms, nonpareil and uncouth.
Nonpareil comes from the Old French and means “unparalleled.” So the candies’ name suggests unique distinction.
I always thought they were pretty good. But nothing to get all uncouth over.
—
Q: Where did the expression P.U. come from? – Gregg
A: Don’t look at me.
Gregg, word-origin experts say there is probably a link to “putrid,” which has a Latin base and stinky connotations. In fact, it’s more ghastly that gaseous, relating originally to rotting flesh. The disease typhus was at one point known as “putrid fever.” (Eeek.)
There might be an instinctive function to gasping P.U., as well, etymologists guess. Imagine you smell something really stinky. Now say “P.U.!” (Go ahead. Nobody’s watching.)
What did you just do? You exhaled through your lips and probably also wrinkled your nose, closing it off a bit from the offending odor.
So P.U. protects you.
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