Uncle John's Great Big Bathroom Reader (57 page)

HOW NOW, BROWN COW

Meaning:
What’s up? What’s next?

Origin:
“‘Brown Cow’ is an old (18th century) way of referring to a barrel of beer, and it is likely that the saying was originally meant as a suggestion that everybody have another beer to prolong a pleasant interlude at the tavern. The idea of ‘what’s next’ apparently derives from the question of whether or not to have another beer.” (From
The Dictionary of Clichés
, by James Rogers)

BRING HOME THE BACON

Meaning:
Win; Deliver a victory.

Origin:
“In Old England any married couple who swore they hadn’t quarreled for over a year, or had never wished themselves ‘single again’—and could prove this to the satisfaction of a mock jury—was entitled to the famed Dunmow Flitch, a prize consisting of a side of bacon that was awarded at the Church of Dunmow in Essex County. This custom—which was initiated in 1111 and lasted until late in the eighteenth century—is how ‘bacon’ came to mean ‘prize.’” (From
Animal Crackers
, by Robert Hendrickson)

Have you ever thought you were communicating brilliantly, only to find out that other people thought you were speaking nonsense? That’s a particularly easy mistake to make when you’re speaking a foreign language. A few examples:

L
AYING PIPE

When the Sumitomo Corporation in Japan developed an extremely strong steel pipe, they hired a Japanese advertising agency to market it in the United States. Big mistake: The agency named the pipe Sumitomo High Toughness, and launched a major magazine advertising campaign using the product’s initials—SHT—in catchy slogans like “SHT—from Sumitomo,” and “Now, Sumitomo brings SHT to the United States.” Each ad ended with the assurance that SHT “was made to match its name.”

PRODUCT CONFUSION

The Big Mac:
Originally sold in France under the name
Gros Mec.
The expression means “big pimp” in French.

GM cars:
Originally sold in Belgium using the slogan “Body by Fisher,” which translated as “Corpse by Fisher.”

The Jotter:
A pen made by Parker. In some Latin countries, jotter is slang for “jockstrap.”

Puffs tissues:
In Germany, puff is slang for “whorehouse.”

Cue toothpaste:
Marketed in France by Colgate-Palmolive until they learned that
Cue
is also the name of a popular pornographic magazine.

Schweppes Tonic Water:
The company changed the name from
Schweppes Tonic Water
to
Schweppes Tonica
when they learned that in Italian, “il water” means “the bathroom.”

The Ford Caliente:
Marketed in Mexico, until Ford found out “caliente” is slang for “streetwalker.” Ford changed the name to S-22.

The Rolls-Royce Silver Myst:
In German, mist means “human waste.” (Clairol’s Mist Stick curling iron had the same problem.)

Serendipity isn’t only a factor in little things, like bubble gum (see “It’s Just Serendipity” on
page 37
). On at least one occasion, it helped pick a president of the United States. Here’s the story.

T
IGHT SITUATION

The presidential election of 1824 was a four-way race. Andrew Jackson got the most votes—with John Quincy Adams close behind—but didn’t receive a majority. That meant the election would be decided in the House of Representatives. According to law, the candidate with the most votes in each delegation would get the state’s electoral vote.

The House met to pick a president on February 9, 1825. It was close, but Adams was the favorite. Although he’d come in second in the popular vote, he had put together almost enough support to win the presidency on the first ballot.

However, if he
didn’t
make it the first time around, his opponents felt sure that his support would begin slipping away. So the anti-Adams forces concentrated on keeping the election unresolved.

A CRUCIAL DECISION

As the vote approached, Adams was one state shy of victory...and there was only one state still undecided: New York. Their delegation was evenly split—half for Adams, half against. If it remained tied, New York’s ballot wouldn’t count...and the election would be forced into a second round. But there was a weak link in the anti-Adams camp. As Paul Boller writes in
Presidential Campaigns:

One of the New York votes [that anti-Adams forces] were counting on was that of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, the rich and pious Congressman from the Albany district....The old General went to the Capitol on election day firmly resolved to vote against Adams, but on his arrival he was waylaid by Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. They took him into the Speaker’s Room and painted a dismal picture of what would happen to the country if Adams wasn’t chosen on the first
ballot. Van Rensselaer was deeply upset by the encounter...”The election turns on my vote,” he told a cohort. “One vote will give Adams the majority—this is a responsibility I cannot bear. What shall I do?”

His friend urged him to vote against Adams, as planned, and Van Rensselaer agreed. Boller continues:

But Van Rensselaer wasn’t really resolved. He was still perplexed when he took his seat in the House Chamber. Profoundly religious, however, he decided to seek divine guidance while waiting to cast his [anti-Adams] ballot and bowed his head in prayer.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw, lying on the floor, was a ballot with Adams’ name on it. Van Rensselaer took this as a sign from God. He threw his other ballot away, picked the Adams ticket off the floor, and stuck it in the ballot box. As a result of this serendipitous moment, New York went for Adams, “and Adams was elected president on the first ballot.”

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SERENDIPITY SAVES COLUMBUS

If it hadn’t been for a serendipitous drink of water, Christopher Columbus might never have taken his trips across the Atlantic.

“In the 1480s,” write Stefan Bechtel and Laurence Roy Stains in
The Good Luck Book
, Columbus “had been but one of many adventurers who believed it would be possible to reach the spice-rich Indies by sailing west.” But he couldn’t find a financial backer. For seven years he tried convincing the crowned heads of Europe to finance a voyage, and he always got “no” for an answer. “Eventually,” say Bechtel and Stains, “he made his way back to the Spanish court for yet another audience with Ferdinand and Isabella. After listening to his plea, once again they turned him down.”

It was an insufferably hot day, so after leaving the court Columbus stopped at a nearby monastery to get a drink of water. He fell into conversation with one of the monks, and before long Columbus was pouring out his heart again, telling the holy man all about the voyage he hoped to make. The monk, it so happened, was also the Queen’s confessor. And he was so taken with Columbus’s speech that he spoke to Isabella, who granted Columbus yet another audience. And that time, at long last, Ferdinand and Isabella said yes.

We probably take it for granted that the foods we eat for breakfast have always been around. Of course, they haven’t. Here’s the history of five foods we’ve come to expect on the table in the morning.

W
AFFLES.
Introduced to the United States by Thomas Jefferson, who brought the first waffle iron over from France. The name comes from the Dutch “wafel.” Waffles owe much of their early popularity to street vendors, who sold them hot, covered in molasses or maple syrup. It wasn’t until the twentieth century that the electric waffle iron made them an American staple.

ENGLISH MUFFINS.
In 1875, Samuel Bath Thomas moved to America from England, bringing with him his mother’s recipe for “tea muffins.” He started out baking them in New York in 1880. In 1926, he officially named them Thomas’ English Muffins.

FRENCH TOAST.
Really does have its origins in France, where it’s known as
ameritte
or
pain perdu
(“lost bread”), a term that has persisted in Creole and Cajun cooking. Throughout its history in America, it has been referred to as “Spanish,” “German,” or “nun’s toast.” Its first appearance in print as “French toast” was in 1871.

GRAPE JUICE.
In 1869, Dr. Thomas Welch, Christian, dentist, and prohibitionist, invented “unfermented wine”—grape juice—so that fellow teetotalers would not be forced into the contradiction (as he saw it) of drinking alcohol in church. Local pastors weren’t interested, so he gave up and went back to pulling teeth. His son Charles began selling it as grape juice in 1875.

PANCAKES.
When the first European settlers landed in the New World, they brought pancakes with them. They met Native Americans who made their own pancakes, called
nokehic.
Even the ancient Egyptians had pancakes; in fact it’s difficult to think of a culture that didn’t have pancakes of one kind or another.

The first ready-made pancake mix came in 1889, when two men in St. Joseph, Missouri, introduced “Self-Rising Pancake Flour.” They named it “Aunt Jemima” after a song from a minstrel show.

Here’s the last installment of BRI’s Top Ten of the Year list.

1996

(1) Macarena (Bayside Boys Mix)
—Los Del Rio

(2) One Sweet Day
—Mariah Carey & Boys II Men

(3) Because You Loved Me (from
Up Close & Personal) —Celine Dion

(4) Always Be My Baby
—Mariah Carey

(5) Nobody Knows
—The Tony Rich Project

(6) Give Me One Reason
—Tracy Chapman

(7) Tha Crossroads
—Bone Thugs-n-Harmony

(8) You’re Makin’ Me High / Let It Flow —
Toni Braxton

(9) I Love You Always Forever
—Donna Lewis

(10) Twisted —
Keith Sweat

1997

(1) Candle In The Wind 1997 / Something About The Way You Look Tonight —
Elton John

(2) You Were Meant For Me / Foolish Games —
Jewel

(3) I’ll Be Missing You
—Puff Daddy & Faith Evans

(4) Un-break My Heart
—Toni Braxton

(5) I Believe I Can Fly (from
Space Jam
) —R. Kelly

(6) Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down
—Puff Daddy
, featuring
Mase

(7) Don’t Let Go (Love) (from
Set It Off
) —
En Vogue

(8) Return Of The Mack
—Mark Morrison

(9) Wannabe —
Spice Girls

(10) How Do I Live
—Leann Rimes

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2000 Trivia

TIME FLIES.
Dick Clark, America’s perennial teenager, will be 70 years old in the year 2000.

HUH?
According to a 1994
Cosmopolitan
article, the “Cosmo Girl” in the year 2000 will be “an egg-freezing, libido-boosting dynamo with no glass ceiling, preparing for missions to Mars or donning the virtual-reality goggles for a shopping spree.”

Think your heroes will “go down in history” for something they’ve done? Don’t count on it. These folks were VIP’s in their time...but they’re forgotten now. They’ve been swept into the Dustbin of History.

F
ORGOTTEN FIGURE
: Nicholas P. Trist, Presidential envoy to Mexico, 1847-48.

CLAIM TO FAME
: Trist negotiated the treaty that ended the Mexican-American war, and played a major role in opening the West. It should have been the crowning achievement of his diplomatic career. Instead, it cost him his job.

President Polk wasn’t pleased with the way negotiations were going, so he ordered Trist to call them off and come home. Trist ignored Polk, stayed in Mexico and completed the negotiations. With the signing of the treaty in February 1848, he added the territories of California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico to the United States, as well as parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

INTO THE DUSTBIN:
Trist was fired for insubordination, and spent many years afterward working in obscurity as a railroad clerk. Finally in 1870, 20 years after Polk left office, Trist was officially recognized for achieving a major diplomatic coup.