Why is a rooster sound spelled cock-a-doodle-doo?

As a kid I often wondered why the onomatopoeia for a rooster call seems to have zero relation to how it actually sounds. An actual rooster call sounds like "er, er-er, er-er", so why is it described as "cock-a-doodle-doo"? The answer is unlike many animal calls, the defining attribute of a rooster call is more in its rhythm than in its timbre. They needed a way to capture this rhythmic aspect, and using commas or dashes to denote rhythm would've rendered the onomatopoeia rather inelegant and hard to remember. What's interesting about "cock-a-doodle-doo" is that it is practically impossible to say it without the swing-like rhythm which was intended by its inventors. English speakers are then meant to infer that this combination of words represents only the rhythm of a rooster call rather than its actual sound.

How "achoo" is actually pronounced during a sneeze

It's a myth that "achoo" is pronounced "aah-CHOO" with the emphasis on the "choo" part. The way the word was originally invented, it's actually "ACH-oo". "ACH" is the big expelling factor and "oo" is a very quiet sub-vocalization after the main part of the sneeze.

A sneeze generally has 3 parts: Inhale, big expelling ending in "sh", and sometimes a very quiet vocalization after the "sh" as the air expelling draws to a close. The big expel always has an "sh" sound. The loudest sound is the fast-moving air through the "sh" syllable. This is universal and it's literally impossible not to do it while sneezing. So it is simply not possible for "oo" to be part of the loud sound, unless of course one were to tack it on voluntarily after sneezing. Anyone sneezing with no cultural background (e.g. babies, small children), will form a sound resembling more "ASCH-oo" than "aah-CHOO". In fact literally the only people who pronounce it the second way, are people who learned the word "achoo".

Observing the full list of sneeze sounds in every language, it appears the majority including put emphasis on the 1st syllable while a few including English put emphasis on the last syllable. It is my hypothesis that unfortunately at some point in history, the onomatopoeia became misinterpreted. Now a lot of children's books and cartoons depict people saying "aah, aah, aah-CHOO!" and the unnatural pronunciation is stuck in culture.

Traditional tea brewing is overrated

What is the best way to enjoy a batch of fresh high-mountain oolong tea such as Taiwan's esteemed "Jin Xuan"?

Just put hot water on it, wait for 5-10 minutes, and enjoy the whole thing. Seriously. The only benefit to the traditional short steep times of 40-60 seconds is that you can taste how the flavor of the leaves changes over time, like telling a story over time. That's nice, but what if I want to taste the whole story in the same sip? Steeping for a long time gives you its entire complex flavor in a single serving, rather than giving you slices of its full glory diluted across multiple servings.

I challenge advocates of traditional brewing to administer controlled taste testing experiments to the general public comparing short-steeped tea to long-steeped tea and see which one is more popular. I would bet some money that the long-steeped tea would be more popular.

Also, do NOT throw away the first batch. The initial steeping has the strongest, best flavor. The reasoning that it gets rid of pesticides isn't correct, because you're actually getting rid of tea flavor at the same rate at which you're getting rid of other chemicals. You may as well just throw away the first 10 batches to get rid of 99% of the pesticide and also end up with 1% tea flavor. Also, "awakening the leaves" not only has no scientific basis, but also is simply a logical fallacy: It's not like throwing out the first batch is going to make the water spend more time with the "awakened" tea leaves than it would've if you'd just left it in.