Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (Bathroom Readers)
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Original name for 7-Up: Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.
Root beer was an herbal tea before it was a soda; its creator, Charles Hires, added carbonated water to over 25 herbs, berries, and roots, and the rest is history.
Spice It Up
When Heinz ketchup leaves the bottle, it travels at a rate of 25 miles per year.
Most widely used herb in the world: parsley.
Hottest peppers: habaneros. Sweetest: bells.
Four tablespoons of ketchup contain as much nutrition as a medium-size tomato.
Piperine is the stuff in black pepper that makes you sneeze.
What part of the cinnamon tree is used to make cinnamon? The bark.
Vanilla comes from orchids.
The top-selling spice in the world? Pepper. Mustard comes in second.
When pizza became popular in the United States in the 1930s, sales of oregano shot up 5,200 percent.
Humans and Koshima Island monkeys are the only creatures that intentionally salt their food.
In the 1800s you could buy ketchup flavored with lobster, walnuts, oysters, or anchovies.
Pesto is most often made with basil, but variations can be made using parsley, spinach, or arugula instead.
WORD PLAY
I spent all of last evening evening out the pile.
That poor invalid, his insurance is invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
They were much too close to the door to close it.
That buck sure does some odd things around the does.
The absentminded sewer fell down into the sewer.
For the Birds
Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand.
Female canaries can’t sing.
Vultures fly without flapping their wings.
The bones of a pigeon weigh less than its feathers.
Chickens are the only birds that have combs.
Crows don’t fly in straight lines.
An ostrich’s eyes are bigger than its brains.
There are 4.5 million wild turkeys in the United States.
Approximately 56,000 carrier pigeons “fought” in World War II.
When migrating birds fly in V formation, it increases their range by as much as 70 percent.
Penguins have an organ on their foreheads that desalinizes water.
Egg shells are 90 percent calcium carbonate—the same thing your teeth are made of.
Eagles can’t hunt when it’s raining.
Hummingbirds hold their nests together with spiderwebs.
In her entire lifetime, a female hummingbird will lay at most two eggs.
The pelican breathes through its mouth because it doesn’t have nostrils.
Male birds in Australia have been observed mimicking the sound of a cell phone during courtship.
Sweet Tooth
It takes an estimated 2,893 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.
Cracker Jack is the world’s largest purchaser of popcorn.
The U.S. military specifications for fruitcake are 18 pages long.
In the year 2000, Italian pastry chefs built an edible Ferrari out of 40,000 cream pies.
Per capita, Alaskans eat twice as much ice cream as the rest of the nation.
What’s the difference between jam and preserves? Jam has minced fruit; preserves have whole.
Remember tan-colored M&M’s? They’re gone. They were replaced by the blue ones in 1995.
According to experts, dark chocolate is the candy most likely to cause tooth decay.
Hostess Twinkies are 68 percent air.
Why is pound cake called pound cake? The original recipe called for a pound of butter.
Most popular Popsicle flavor: cherry.
World record for keeping a Lifesaver in the mouth with the hole intact: 7 hours, 10 minutes.
There are 24 flowers on every Oreo cookie.
America’s most popular candy bar? Snickers.
It’s estimated you’ll eat some 35,000 cookies in your lifetime.
Getting Around
The three safest modes of transportation: ship, train, and commercial airplane (in that order).
When filled, the oil tanker Jahre Viking weighs 1.13 billion pounds.
Blackbeard’s pirate ship was named Queen Anne’s Revenge.
An American living in Japan in 1869 invented the rickshaw to transport his invalid wife.
The SS in a ship’s name stands for “steamship.”
In 1870 it took eight days to cross the United States by train.
The world’s longest traffic jam was 84 miles long and took place in Japan in 1990.
In skywriting, the average letter is nearly two miles high.
In 1997 three times as many bikes as cars were manufactured.
The 10.1 mile tunnel in Saint Gotthard, Switzerland, is the longest vehicular tunnel in the world.
It is generally agreed that new cars are kept an average of at least five years.
One escalator carries as many people as 13 elevators.
An astronaut can reach the moon in less time than it took a stagecoach to travel the length of Great Britain in the 19th century.
The diesel cruise liner Queen Elizabeth II gets about 50 feet to the gallon.
The term hell on wheels originally applied to the Union Pacific Railroad’s saloon railcars.
How long will a person wait for an elevator without fidgeting? About 40 seconds.
It is estimated that you’ll walk more than 65,000 miles in your lifetime.
Modern Symbols
THE PLAYBOY BUNNY
When Hugh Hefner was little, one of his prized possessions was “a blanket with bunnies all over it.” Apparently, he never outgrew it—when he started Playboy magazine, he used the same bunny as his symbol.
THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT
In the early 1920s the Minnesota Valley Canning Company introduced a large variety of peas to the American market. They called the peas “green giants,” and—because the law required it to protect their trademark—they put a picture of a green giant on the label. Oddly enough, the original giant (lifted from a volume of Grimm’s Fairy Tales) was white, not green; he looked like a dwarf, not a giant; and he wasn’t jolly—he was scowling. His image eventually softened, and he became such a powerful symbol that the company changed its name to the Green Giant Company.
BETTY CROCKER
The Washburn Crosby Company, a Minneapolis flour maker, got so many letters asking for baking advice that, in 1921, they made up a character to write back to consumers. They picked Betty because it sounded “warm and friendly,” and Crocker was picked to honor a former company director. To come up with a signature for Betty (so she could sign “her” letters), the company held a contest for its women employees. The winner—still used today—was submitted by a secretary.
THE PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY
In 1965 Rudy Pera was trying to design an advertising campaign for Pillsbury’s new refrigerated dough product . . . but he couldn’t think of anything that would make the brand stand out. One day he began playfully pounding on a container of the dough, hoping to drum up ideas. “I imagined what could pop out,” he recalls. “A dough man? A dough baker? A dough boy!”
RONALD MCDONALD
Willard Scott, weatherman on NBC’s Today Show, was the first McClown. Here’s the story he tells:
“The folks at the NBC television station in Washington—WRC-TV—had signed on a national kiddie show [called “Bozo the Clown”], and they tapped me to star in the thing . . . I did a lot of personal appearances as Bozo—at shopping malls, local fairs, that sort of thing. After a while a local McDonald’s asked me to appear at an opening, and before too long my Bozo was a regular fixture at area franchises. When WRC dropped [the show], McDonald’s didn’t like the idea of having to drop a successful promotion. They were hooked on clown. And so—you guessed it—Ronald McDonald was born. He was almost christened Donald McDonald, but Ronald sounded just a
touch more natural, so we went with that.”
THE QUAKER OATS MAN
In 1891 seven oatmeal millers combined to form the American Cereal Company. One of the seven was Quaker Mill of Ravenna, Ohio, which had trademarked the Quaker man 14 years earlier. In 1901 the American Cereal Company changed its name to Quaker Oats, and the Quaker man was revived as its symbol. The real Quakers weren’t too happy about this. They tried unsuccessfully to get Congress to prohibit manufacturers from using religious names on products.
THE COST OF THINGS: 1956
8 1/2-oz. box of Rice Crispies: 25¢.
Pound of steak: 43¢
Avis Rental Car: $5 a day, plus 8¢ a mile
RCA color TV: $795–$895
Median income for men: $3,400
For women: $1,100
The Detroit Tigers major league baseball team:
$5.5 million (a record at the time)
Brainiac
Your brain operates on the same amount of power that would light up a 10-watt light-bulb.
There are about as many nerve cells in your brain as there are stars in the galaxy.
Gesturing with your hands while speaking improves your memory.
Living brain cells are bright pink, not gray. They’re about the color of cotton candy.
A newborn baby’s brain weighs only three ounces. The average adult’s brain weighs three pounds.
Your brain uses 40 percent of the oxygen that enters your bloodstream.
Brain waves have been used to run an electric train.
Your brain is only 2 percent of your body’s weight, but uses 20 percent of your energy.
The brain can record about 86 million bits of information each day.
Brain cells are the only human cells that don’t reproduce.
Every second, 100,000 chemical reactions occur in your brain.
Every second, your senses send about 100 million different messages to your brain.
It takes about 8/1000 of a second for a human nerve impulse to reach the brain.
The human brain can hold 500 times the information found in a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica.
In Vogue
Most types of lipstick contain fish scales as an ingredient.
The heel of a sock is called the “gore.”
The first watches (portable clocks) were known as Nürnberg eggs.
In the 1600s in Europe, “fashion” wigs were often made of plaster of paris.
Watches get their name because they were originally worn by night watchmen.
Sneakers get their name because they don’t squeak like leather shoes do.
How did Levi’s 501 jeans get their name? The new denim’s lot number was 501.
Americans spent approximately $250 billion on fashion, apparel, shoes, and accessories in 2000.
The G in G-string stands for “groin.”
Clothing is the third most popular item purchased at yard sales.
The trial of O.J. Simpson revealed that there were only 299 pairs of size 12 Bruno Magli shoes ever sold.
The average ten-gallon hat can hold only three quarts of water.
A bolt of cloth is 120 feet long.
It takes between 35 and 60 minks to make a single coat.
Some people in Siberia make clothes out of halibut skins.
The average bra is designed to last for only 180 days of use.
It takes four hours to weave a hula skirt from 60 ti plants. The skirt will only last about five days.
According to a garment industry study, 75 percent of women wear the wrong size bra.
What’s in a Name?
Most common first name in the world: Muhammad. Most common last name: Li. About 108 million people have it.
The five most common American surnames: Smith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown.
Twenty-eight percent of Southerners refer to their mothers as Mama. Nine percent of non-Southerners do.
More than 1,000 people belong to the Society of Jim Smiths. All of them are named Jim Smith.
Three percent of all English surnames are derived from animal names.
The name Ann is used as a middle name 10 times more often than as a first name.
When pronounced correctly, many Chinese surnames have only one syllable.
The most common name for male dogs and cats in the United States is Max.
The most popular names for American children born in 1970 and 1980 were Michael and Jennifer. By 2005 Michael had dropped to 12th place, and Jennifer didn’t even make it into the top 100.
The name of the city we call Bangkok is 155 letters long in the Thai language and the longest place name in the world. The people of Thailand shorten it to Krungthep for everyday use.
The most common street name in America is Second Street.
Silly Putty
Binney & Smith, makers of Crayola, own the rights to Silly Putty and produce about 500 pounds of it every day.
Silly Putty comes in 16 different colors including glow-in-the-dark, glitter, and hot fluorescent colors. There’s even Silly Putty that changes color depending on the temperature of your hands.
One of the original Silly Putty eggs is on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.
Over 300 million eggs have been sold since its inception in 1950—enough to form a ball of Silly Putty the size of a Goodyear blimp.
In 1968 Apollo 8 astronauts used a new adhesive to fasten down tools during their voyage into weightlessness: Silly Putty.
In 1989 a grad student at Alfred University wanted to find out what would happen to a ball of Silly Putty dropped from a roof. He dropped a 100-pound ball from the top of a three-story building. The ball first bounced about eight feet into the air, but it shattered into pieces on the second bounce.
In 2000 Binney & Smith sponsored a “Silliest Uses for Silly Putty Contest.” The winner: Replace your stockbroker by throwing a ball of Silly Putty at the stock page in the newspaper and investing in whatever stock it lifts from the newsprint. (Second place went to the woman who suggested it could be used to form a fake swollen gland to get out of an unwanted date.)
In 2001 Silly Putty was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, taking its place beside such classics as G.I. Joe, Lincoln Logs, and Monopoly.
Where in the World?
If you’re west of the Ural Mountains, you’re in Europe; east of them, you’re in Asia.
Damascus, Syria, is the oldest continuously occupied city in the world.
India has an estimated 550 million voters.
At its peak, the Persian empire was roughly two-thirds the size of the United States.
Siberia contains more than 25 percent of the world’s forests.
World’s highest city: Lhasa, Tibet, at 12,087 feet above sea level.
The only four countries on earth with one-syllable English names: Chad, France, Greece, and Spain.
China has a longer border than any other country in the world: 13,700 miles.
Twice as many people live in Shanghai, China, as in New York City.
Mongolia is the only country in the world where horses outnumber people.
Most visited mountain on earth: Mount Fuji, in Japan.
Russia’s Lake Baikal is deep enough to hold four Empire State Buildings stacked atop each other.
Mississippi Bay is off the coast of Yokohama, Japan.
There are more English speakers in China than in the United States.
For Word Nerds
What’s a hooker? An Irish fishing boat with a single mast.
The abbreviation for pound, lb., comes from the astrological sign Libra.
An erythrophobe is someone who blushes easily.
A gnomon is the thing that casts a shadow on a sundial.
In some parts of England garbage collectors are known as swill solicitors.
An exocannibal is a cannibal who eats only enemies. An indocannibal eats only friends.
According to one expert, the most frequently
used English noun is way.
Illegible handwriting is known as griffonage.
A singulthus is a hiccup.
A gozzard is a person who owns geese.
Mediterranean means “middle of the world.” That’s what people used to think it was.
Dividing something into squares is known as graticulation.
The handle of a bucket or a kettle is called the bail.
An algologist studies seaweed.
What does genitofemoral neuropathy mean? “Jeans are too tight.”
Another word for the crater caused by a meteor: astrobleme.
Siberia means “sleeping land.”
Literally translated, hors d’oeuvre means “outside of work.”
E Pluribus Unum means “from many, one.”
A pulicologist studies fleas.
Bimonthly can mean every other month or twice a month.
I Do
In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a girl was a marriage proposal. Catching it meant yes.
In ancient Rome, wedding guests wished a bride good luck by breaking the cake over her head.
At Old English weddings, guests threw shoes at the groom.
In the Middle Ages, you were supposed to throw eggs at the bride and groom.
The parents of the groom pay for weddings in Thailand.
Moroccan brides keep their eyes closed during a wedding to avoid the “evil eye.”
According to Brides magazine, an average wedding costs nearly $19,000.
Impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 states.
The United States is the only western country with restrictions of marriage between cousins. Twenty-four states do not allow first cousins to marry each other.