#639 Juxtaposer

So I pose questions to myself about some things.
Like spiders.
This is the time of year when everywhere you turn you run into a spider web. Is it just the fog that makes us see them better? Or are there really more spiders out there?
If there are, why do they proliferate so much now? Seems to me most of the spider prey insects—mosquitoes and gnats and fruit flies— are really abundant in the spring.
Why, by the way, does gnat have a silent “g” and knot a silent “k”? And if you add a silent k to the word for young headlice “nit” you get something for old people to do, knit.
I once had a house that had a sound-muting ceiling covered with the popcorn stuff some worry may contain asbestos. All I really know is it contained a lot of opportunity for dust and cobwebs, that those tiny cob spiders build.
There is such a thing as a cob spider. It’s related to the black widow, actually, in case you ever want to win a bar bet on crannies of your house that need to be vacuumed.
And how come I never see cobwebs under my corn husk?
I also pose questions to myself about instruments like tongs. Does that make me a juxtaposer?
When they are in a buffet line, we call them tongs. When we are in a medical facility, we call them forceps. Sometimes we just call them pincers.
I’m not sure if the distinction emerges from the power with which the jaws of the pincer/tong/forceps close or what.
Maybe, in fact, it’s just a name based on use thing. If I need to pluck a grape from the fruit bowl or retrieve a stringless teabag I don’t suspect I’d like to ask someone to pass me the forceps.
And when I mount a dead spider in my insect collection box, forceps are far more delicate than tongs.
So why is it for-ceps when there are only two pincers on it?
America, ya gotta love it