Based on the qualitative data of casual observations over the years that Billy can eat twice as fast as I can with seemingly few trips from plate to mouth, he came up with the hypothesis that his mouth is bigger than mine. He suggested testing this hypothesis by gathering quantitative data concerning actual mouth capacity, number and size of teeth, and size of tongue. His methods for the mouth capacity study were for each of us to take the biggest mouthful we could from measuring cups filled with 1 cup of water and see what each of us had left in the cup. The results from this study (Bahiyyih- 1/4 cup per gulp, Billy- 1/2 cup per gulp; number of gulps needed to drink 1 cup of water: Billy- 2, Bahiyyih- 4) prompted us to reject the null hypothesis that there is no significant difference between our mouth capacities. The results were confirmed this morning by the counting of our respective teeth with the following results: Billy- 34 teeth, Bahiyyih- 23 teeth. Billy's tongue is also about 1/3 bigger than Bahiyyih's. The one result that may shed doubt as to the verity of our conclusions is that Bahiyyih's teeth are bigger than Billy's. Further study as to the surface area available for chewing in each of their mouths needs to be done before these results can be conclusive. However, years of participant observation by Billy and Bahiyyih regarding who steals food from whose plate because their plate is empty already before the other is half done would suggest that the surface area issue is not terribly significant. I think we can safely say that Billy has a big mouth, and though I have big teeth, I have a relatively small mouth.
Just in case you were curious.
Posted by Bahiyyih at March 17, 2004 02:24 PMI just wanted to say that I think you guys are awesome! Your post made me laugh out loud -which is always good when I'm writing up a very long take home exam.
Posted by: liza at March 19, 2004 01:25 PMHow fast you eat has something to do with your eating capacity too.
Patty
Posted by: Patty at March 19, 2004 03:17 PMSorry about the last stupid remark. What I was trying to say was that in families where there are lots of children and little food, the children learn to grab faster, swallow faster and stretch their mouths to hold more food and therefore eat lots more than their siblings. Its like not being the runt of the litter who always miss out on most of the food because they are not fast enough or agile enough to beat everyone else.
Posted by: Patty at March 20, 2004 06:42 AMDon't worry about it Grandma. Billy just laughed at your comments. He's not so easily offended.
Posted by: Bahiyyih at March 20, 2004 11:22 PMThis post is seriously funny. I'm going to show it to my research methods prof to see how he would measure mouth capacity. He really gets into this kind of thing. Happy eating!
Posted by: Amy Eades at March 21, 2004 10:42 PMChewing! How many times does Bill chew a bite of food before he swallows it? I chew for a long time and Vern chews 2-3-4 times then *gulp* it's down. He's always done before everyone else, and he almost always gets seconds, too.
Talking! I talk when there is someone eating with me, but Vern generally doesn't. He just eats. And listens, I presume. Maybe not. Maybe inside his head there's just this nice humming noise that accompanies his eating.
Posted by: Janie at March 22, 2004 08:11 PMThanks for the additional research lines. We will consider them for future studies, especially coming from such an illustrious and brilliant scientific source as yourself. I know where you got that humming noise idea! Dave Barry rules. Hmm. I haven't read him in awhile, wonder what he's up to.
Posted by: Bahiyyih at March 31, 2004 05:17 PM