Salt, as we learn in high school, is just NaCl: a compound made from numbers 11 and 17 on the periodic table, a material so simple that it’s treated as the most basic example of how chemistry works. So why, in real life, is salt so complicated? Why is the molar mass of NaCl taught to fidgety teens instead of the differences between the various salts we consume every day? Luckily, What’s the Difference is here to step in where your AP Chem teacher failed you. Let’s start with table salt read more
Salt, as we learn in high school, is just NaCl: a compound made from numbers 11 and 17 on the periodic table, read more
After a long day, there are few things more satisfying than kicking off your shoes and swan-diving into a piece of upholstered furniture. But is that piece of upholstered furniture a sofa or a couch? Let’s find out. The term “couch” comes from the French word “coucher,” which means “to lie down.” The word “sofa,” on the other hand, comes from the Arabic word “suffah,” which refers to a wooden bench covered in blankets. The origins of the words point to the major differe read more
After a long day, there are few things more satisfying than kicking off your shoes and swan-diving into a piec read more
One of the goals of What’s the Difference—besides pure delight, and being correct—is to make everyone’s worldviews a little bit bigger. So whether you’re the type of person whose pantry looks like a seventeenth-century apothecary or someone for whom the word “soy sauce” is the only part of this title you recognize, you are all welcome, seen, and celebrated. We’re all here to bathe in the JOY of KNOWLEDGE—so let’s take a dip, shall we? Soy sauce was first invented approxima read more
No matter how you feel about law enforcement these days, let’s face it: most of the time, we try to follow the law, and we expect the people in our lives to follow the law, too. The presence and importance of the law is why we need people in our society who make sure that it’s upheld—and in America, this makes for a system that’s notoriously difficult to navigate. Exhibit A: What’s the actual difference between a cop, sheriff, and state trooper? Let’s get into it. The term “co read more
No matter how you feel about law enforcement these days, let’s face it: most of the time, we try to follow t read more
Some things in life are simple: we know that two pieces of bread with stuff between them, for example, is a sandwich. Swap in a long roll, however, and things get a lot more complicated. Let’s start with the submarine, or sub. A sub is at least six inches long and is constructed with a combination of meat, cheese, fixings (lettuce, tomato, etc.), and dressing. It is usually served cold. According to Google Trends, the word "sub" is by far and away the most commonly used of today's four la read more
Some things in life are simple: we know that two pieces of bread with stuff between them, for example, is a sa read more
As a former food writer, I have a complicated relationship with seasonality. When you’re banned from writing about tomatoes and eggplant and corn outside the hours of late July to early September, you know what you want to do? You wanna write about tomatoes in December. So with What’s the Difference, we’re deciding that seasonality is a construct. (Unless it serves the purpose of a cute newsletter introduction—in that case, we love the seasons.) And unlike tomatoes in December, whi read more
As a former food writer, I have a complicated relationship with seasonality. When you’re banned from writing read more
When we’re young, there are a group of virtues that pepper the lessons that we learn, the books that we read, the movies that we watch, the games that we play: Kindness. Compassion. Bravery. Courage. We’re taught to emulate these traits in our day-to-day lives: to do unto others, to always tell the truth, to stand up for what’s good and right. But the bigness of these qualities can overshadow any nuance, especially when there are mysteries to solve or villains to trick or princesses to read more
When we’re young, there are a group of virtues that pepper the lessons that we learn, the books that we read read more
Here at What’s the Difference HQ, we’ve already covered the distinction between deli and appetizing and the intricacies of the appetizing case. But the deli counter has its own pressing questions—because while you may have some vague understanding that pastrami and corned beef are two different things, and that one might be better than the other, you may be stuck on the how or why. Here are the major points of differentiation between the two, because no meat should ever be a myst read more
As a girl, I was never into princesses; I was more of the type to watch monster-truck videos with my brother and read almanacs for fun. However, as an adult, I find there’s something rather aspirational about the royal lifestyle, or at least the royal lifestyle of years’ past; who wouldn’t want to sit around eating teacakes and playing whist all day? I hereby present to you the differences between a castle and a palace—because if we can’t live like royals ourselves, we may as well kn read more
As a girl, I was never into princesses; I was more of the type to watch monster-truck videos with my brother a read more