Why call them "wisdom teeth"???

Just ranting.

I spent 2 and a half hours in the dentist's chair today... having two teeth yanked out. I won't get into the gory details, but suffice to say that one of them was my "wisdom" tooth, and since it was a difficult extraction, the doctor had to work overtime. Needless to say I am in considerable pain, though nothing a good gunshot to the head won't cure. :)

As for that misnomer... I mean, hello??? This is a tooth (set of teeth, actually) that does absolutely nothing for us... So why is it a wisdom tooth?

I mean, I can understand "Achilles heel" or "funny bone," but what great and wise person named this tooth, I'll never know.

Of course, I will never know how in the heck George W. Bush got elected, much less re-elected, so I guess there are bigger mysteries in the Universe to fathom.