Uncle John’s Legendary Lost Bathroom Reader (46 page)

We use them, and we understand them. But where do familiar words come from? Probably not where you’d guess. Here are a few examples
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Debonair

French for “of good air.” In the Middle Ages, people’s health was judged partly by how they smelled. A person who gave off “good air” was presumed healthier and happier.

Gymnasium

Meant “to train naked” in ancient Greece, where athletes wore little or nothing.

Carnival

Literal meaning: “Flesh, farewell.” Refers to traditional pre-Lenten feast (like Mardi Gras) after which people usually fasted.

Daisy

Comes from “day’s eye.” When the sun comes out, it opens its yellow eye.

Ukulele

In the 1800s, an English sailor gave such enthusiastic performances with this instrument that he was nicknamed
Ukulele
—“little jumping flea” in Hawaiian. He went on to popularize it around the world.

Gung Ho

Means “work together” in Chinese. After a group called Carlson’s Raiders used it as their motto in WWII, it became a term to describe an enthusiastic soldier.

Ballot

Italian term for “small ball or pebble.” Origin: Italian citizens once voted by casting a small pebble or ball into one of several boxes.

Jiggle

Refers to the jig (a dance).

Genuine

Originally meant “placed on the knees.” In ancient Rome, a father legally claimed his newborn child by sitting in front of his family and placing the child on his knee.

Cab

Old Italian term for goat. The first carriages for public hire bounced so much they reminded people of goats romping on a hillside.

Spectator sports: 38% of Americans say they enjoy football on TV; only 16% like baseball.

Some info to give you a little historical perspective when you’re brushing your teeth
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T
OOTHBRUSHES.
People have been cleaning their teeth for thousands of years, but the implements they used weren’t much like toothbrushes. Many cultures used “chew sticks,” pencil-sized twigs with one end frayed into soft bristles; they’ve been found in Egyptian tombs dating back to 3000 B.C.

The first toothbrush to resemble modern ones originated in China around 1498. The bristles were plucked from hogs and set into handles of bone or bamboo. But animal hair is porous and water-absorbent, which makes it a breeding ground for bacteria; so brushing often did more harm than good. Nevertheless, by the 19th century, hogs-hair brushes were the standard for people who brushed.

Toothbrushing didn’t become widely popular in the U.S. until the late 1930s. Two reasons for its spread: with the invention of nylon bristles by DuPont chemists in 1938, Americans finally had a hygienic substitute for hogs-hair; and every soldier who fought in World War II was instructed in oral hygiene and issued a brush—when the war ended they brought the habit home to their families.

TOOTHPASTE.
History’s first recorded toothpaste was an Egyptian mixture of ground pumice and strong wine. But the early Romans brushed their teeth with human urine...and also used it as a mouthwash. Actually, urine was an active component in toothpastes and mouthwashes until well into the 18th century—the ammonia it contains gave them strong cleansing power.

Fluoridated
toothpaste came about as the result of a discovery made in Naples, Italy, in 1802, when local dentists noticed yellowish-brown spots on their patients’ teeth—but no cavities. Subsequent examination revealed that high levels of fluoride in the water caused the spots
and
prevented tooth decay, and that less fluoride protected teeth without causing the spots. It took a while for the discovery to be implemented; the first U.S. fluoridated water tests didn’t take place until 1915, and Crest, the first toothpaste with fluoride in it (“Look, Ma...”) didn’t hit stores until 1956.

Poll results: U.S. bartenders say they hear more complaints about work than any other subject.

Thoughts from Carl Sandburg, one of America’s most celebrated poets and authors
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“Even those who have read books on manners are sometimes a pain in the neck.”

“Put all your eggs in one basket and watch the basket.”

“Everybody talks about the weather and nobody does anything about it.”

“Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed.”

“Those who fear they may cast pearls before swine are often lacking in pearls.”

“May you live to eat the hen that scratches on your grave.”

“A lawyer is a man who gets two other men to take off their clothes and then he runs away with them.”

“Six feet of earth make us all one size.”

“I want money in order to buy the time to get the things that money will not buy.”

“Many kiss the hands they wish to see cut off.”

“Time is the storyteller you can’t shut up.”

“We asked the cyclone to go around our barn but it didn’t hear us.”

“Someday they’ll give a war and nobody will come.”

“Who swindles himself more deeply than the one saying, ‘I am holier than thou?’”

“There are dreams stronger than death. Men and women die holding these dreams.”

“If there is a bedbug in a hotel when I arrive he looks at the register for my room number.”

“Why is the bribe-taker convicted so often and the bribegiver so seldom?”

“Liberty is when you are free to do what you want to do and the police never arrest you if they know who you are and you got the right ticket.”

After the birth: New parents spend about 50% more on health care and 34% less on alcohol.

California Monthly,
the magazine for alumni of the University of California at Berkeley, features a game called
Twisted Titles.
They ask readers to send the title of a book, film, play, etc., with just one letter changed—and include a brief description of the new work they envision. Here are excerpts from
Twisted Titles XII.

LITTLE RED HIDING HOOD

Marxist midget shelters Hoffa
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DON’T FIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE

The Andrews Sisters experience middle-age spread
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JUNE THE OBSCURE

Wally and the Beaver’s reclusive mom tells all
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THE CAT IN THE CAT

Dr. Seuss introduces toddlers to the facts of life
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MY LIFE AS A LOG

Pinocchio reflects on his childhood
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THE NOW TESTAMENT

Bible of the “Me” generation
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DUNCES WITH WOLVES

Western epic starring the Three Stooges
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PATRIOT DAMES

The DAR does the IRA
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’TIL DEATH DO US PARK

Vows exchanged in New York City gridlock
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NEVER THE TWAIN SHALL MEAT

Sam Clemens becomes a vegetarian
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CANTERBURY TALKS

Phil, Oprah, Geraldo, and now,
GEOFF!

CLUB TED

High jinks at Hyannisport
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MY LEFT FOOD

Politically correct chow
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GOYZ ’N THE HOOD

Jews and blacks unite to drive the KKK out of Beverly Hills
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THE WINNER OF OUR DISCONTENT

I’m more dysfunctional than you are
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SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMA

A
tragedy in one act
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World record: In 1993, Japan became the first country with
of its population age 65 or older.

Did you use a credit card to buy this book? Credit cards are a way of life to Americans. In fact, you could argue that those little pieces of plastic are actually the backbone of the American economy. How’s that for a scary thought?...And they haven’t even been around that long. Here is a brief history
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B
ACKGROUND
By the 1950s, gasoline companies, department stores, and major hotels had developed their own credit cards—small pieces of cardboard or metal plates they gave their best customers to use instead of cash (allowing holders to pay for purchases at the end of the month). But these early cards were different than the ones we use today—they were only accepted at the business that had issued them.

THE FIRST SUPPER

According to legend, that all changed in one night in 1950, when businessman Robert X. McNamara finished his dinner in a posh New York restaurant—and realized that he didn’t have enough cash to pay for the meal. His wife had to drive across town to pay for it, which embarrassed him deeply. But it also gave him an idea: why not issue a “diners card” that people could use to pay for meals when they were short of cash?

McNamara proposed his idea to a number of restaurants around town. In exchange for honoring his new “Diners Club” card, he would pay for the meal of anyone who presented the card. Diners Club would absorb the risk of non-payment; the restaurant got the money even if the cardholder was a deadbeat. How the card made its money: it paid the restaurants 90¢ to 95¢ on the dollar, billed the cardholder $1.00, and kept the difference in the form of a “discount.” The restaurants balked at this arrangement at first, but McNamara convinced them that people with cards would spend more money—and more often—than people without them. By the end of the year, he had signed up 27 New York restaurants and 200 cardholders. The age of the credit card as we know it had begun.

The Danish flag, used since the 13th century, is the oldest unchanged national flag in existence.

CREDIT CARD FACTS

• The average American holds 2.9 Visas or MasterCards; even so, credit card companies send out more than 1 billion new credit card offers every year.

• Why do merchants like credit cards? On average, consumers spend 23% more money when they pay with credit cards than when they pay cash.

• Had you signed up for Sears’ Discover card when it premiered in 1986, you would have been entitled to meal discounts at Denny’s restaurants and 50% off psychiatric exams.

• In 1993, more than 31 million of the 211 million MasterCard and Visa cards in circulation were “affinity cards”—cards that donated a portion of each purchase to the charity shown on the card. One of the least popular: the Muscular Dystrophy Association Card, which has a picture of Jerry Lewis on it. It bombed so badly that it was taken off the market.

• It’s illegal now, but credit card companies used to mail credit cards to people who hadn’t even applied for them. It wasn’t always good business: In 1966, five Chicago banks banded together and mailed five million credit cards to people who hadn’t asked for them. But “the banks had been less than cautious in assembling their mailing lists. Some families received 15 cards. Dead people and babies got cards. A dachshund named Alice was sent not one but four cards, one of which arrived with the promise that Alice would be welcomed as a ‘preferred customer’ at many of Chicago’s finest restaurants.”

• In 1972 Walter Cavanagh and a friend bet a dinner to see who could accumulate the most credit cards. Eight years later he won the bet—and broke the world record—by applying for and getting 1,003 credit cards, weighing 34 pounds and entitling him to $1.25 million in credit. He’s still applying for credit cards, and has set a goal of 10,000 cards.

• In 1987 aspiring moviemaker Robert Townsend paid for his first film,
Hollywood Shuffle
, by charging $100,000 on his 15 personal credit cards. Luckily, the movie made enough money for him to pay back the money.

According to one study, the “average American” is a 32.7-year-old woman who likes potato

No, this is not a scratch ’n’ sniff page—it’s about the scratch ’n’ sniff phenomenon
.

B
ACKGROUND

For years advertisers understood that scents help sell products, but they couldn’t find a way to include smells in printed advertisements. The first attempt came in the 1950s, when newspaper companies tried printing with scented ink. The experiment flopped—either the smells dissipated rapidly, or they mixed with the newspaper’s smell, spoiling the effect.

In 1969 the 3M Corp. and National Cash Register Co. (NCR) each developed a way to impregnate printed advertisements with fragrances. They called the technique “microencapsulation,” because it literally sealed the smells in the surface of the ad until the consumer released them by scratching the page. For the first time in history, products as diverse as bananas, bourbon, shaving cream, dill pickles, pine trees—and, of course, perfume, could be advertised using their scents.

HOW IT WORKS

• The printing company takes a product like perfume or food, and extracts its aromatic oils.

• The oils are mixed with water, which breaks them up into tiny droplets—an average of one million drops per square inch.