Why is an Orange Like a Bell? - Learn Stuff

The 1960`s Batman TV Show was pretty campy by today`s standards. Most of the time, characters like The Riddler were just as ridiculous, but sometimes the puzzles were actually pretty good. That doesn`t mean ol` Adam West didn`t make some serious leaps to get to the answer.

Why is an Orange Like a Bell?

I had absolutely no idea. Robin came up with the solution pretty quickly, however. Knowing the script helps. It turns out that you peel an orange and you peal a bell. What?

To Google I go. The term peal comes from the science of bells called campanology. There`s another new word for me. I don`t feel too bad, as the term is not widely used and was even an old word in the 60`s. The last time pealing was standardized was 1891.

Pealing is super-complicated and if you and interested you should look it up yourself. Basically, it`s a sequence of sounding (usually seven) bells uniquely over 5000 times in three hours. That comes out to a new sound every 15 seconds per bell. Seems like quite a task to me.

Quarter-pealing is common as it only takes 45 minutes. That`s still a long time.

Since English is full of homophones, the Greatest Detective quickly deduced that The Riddler was referring to... The Peale Art Gallery of course!

If you were a music major or professional campanologist, I`m sure none of this is news to you. But I learned something today, and I hope you did too.