Q COULD you explain why when a person has no personal interest in a matter, they are said to have no axe to grind? - Tony Bills, Wharfedale Avenue, Harrogate.

A THE phrase is of American origin and is often attributed to a story told by Benjamin Franklin. However, the originator of the story and the associated phrase was Charles Miner (1780-1865) who related a story from his childhood in a column published in the Wilkesbarre Gleaner in 1811. The story, headed Who'll Turn The Grindstone, is about a man carrying a blunt axe who compliments a young boy on the operation of his father's grindstone. The man asks if he can borrow the grindstone and continues to compliment the boy on his strength. The boy obligingly shows off, by continuously grinding the man's axe until he has unwittingly sharpened the man's axe to perfection.

Charles Miner remarked that he was reminded of this childhood memory every time he saw "a merchant being over-polite to his customers, begging them to taste a little brandy whilst throwing half of his goods on the counter". Miner concluded his column by saying that such a man had an axe to grind. In other words they have an ulterior motive.

LAST week, Mrs Harrison of Newton Aycliffe asked if anyone remembered tiger nuts, which she had last purchased more than 70 years ago. Eric Suddes tells me they can be obtained from a little shop in old Whitby near the swing bridge. Mrs Thompson of Sedgefield also mentions the Whitby shop and remembers tiger nuts and 'locusts' as being her favourite childhood sweets. Colin Jones of Spennymoor pointed me in the direction of an Internet site called wwwsugarboy.co.uk where tiger nuts can be bought, along with many other sweets that went out of fashion decades ago. The tiger nuts are described as not strictly sweets, but something that was stocked by sweet shops during the war when sugar was in short supply. D.A Howard, Managing Director of Lewis & Cooper tells me that tiger nuts are also known as 'chufa nuts' and 'earth almonds' and are available in Lewis & Cooper's Northallerton store.

Apparently tiger nuts are not really a nut, but a tuber that grows underground. The plant is a member of the sedge family and is grown in Ghana, South Africa, Spain and other Mediterranean countries.

Donald Ferguson, whose mother came from Middleton in Teesdale thought that tiger nuts went out of fashion when the Second World War commenced. Donald also recalls his mother talking of something called a pig nut that she and her friends used to gather when they were young. He says these grew in the fashion of a truffle and had to be dug out of the ground but were very good to eat. He would be interested to know if any reader knows anything about pig nuts.

If you have a Burning Question, or can improve on any of the answers above, please write to Burning Questions, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or e-mail david.simpson@nne.co.uk

Published 02/09/2002