Uncle John’s Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (60 page)

DRAB

Meaning:
Lacking brightness, dull

Origin:
“In the 16th century,
drab
was a word for a kind of cloth, coming into English from French
drap
, ‘cloth.’ From this, the word came to mean the common color of such cloth, which was its natural undyed color of dull brown or gray. Hence the fairly general meaning ‘dull,’ whether of an object’s color (where it usually is brown or gray still, as ‘drab’ walls) or in a figurative sense, as a ‘drab’ day or someone’s ‘drab’ existence.” (From
Dunces, Gourmands & Petticoats
, by Adrian Room)

Old softie: Princeton professor John W. Tukey coined the term
software
in 1958.

URANIUM

Meaning:
A dense radioactive metal used as a fuel in nuclear reactors

Origin:
“In 1781 the brilliant English-German astronomer Sir William Herschel first recognized the seventh planet in our solar system, and named for it Uranus from the Greek god
Ouranos
. Eight years later the German chemist Kloproth discovered element 92, which he named
uranium
in honor of Herschel.” (From
Word Origins
, by Wilfred Funk)

NONCHALANT

Meaning:
Feeling or appearing casual and relaxed

Origin:
“The nonchalant person is cool and indifferent, a literal etymology, since the word is from French
nonchaloir
, meaning ‘not heated,’ which is derived from Latin
noncalere
, ‘not to be hot.’
Calor
is Latin for ‘heat,’ from which we get
calorie
, the amount of food needed to heat you or energize you.” (From
More About Words
, by Margaret S. Ernst)

SALARY

Meaning:
A regular payment made by an employer to an employee

Origin:
“A salary, during the great days of the Romans, was called a
salarium
, ‘salt-money.’ The ancients regarded salt as such an essential to good diet (and before refrigeration it was the only chemical that preserved meat) that they made a special allowance in the wages of soldiers to buy
sal
(Latin for ‘salt’). With time any stipend came to be called a
salarium
, from which English acquired the word salary.” (From
Hue and Cry and Humble Pie
, by Morton S. Freeman)

BLINDFOLD

Meaning:
A piece of cloth tied around the head to cover the eyes

Origin:
“The name of the folded piece of cloth has only a coincidental resemblance to the way the material is doubled over.
Blindfold
actually comes from the Middle English
blindfeld
, ‘to be struck blind.’ Walter Tyndale used
blyndfolded
in his English translation of the Bible (1526), and if he was not the first to make the mistake, he was certainly the most influential.” (From
Devious Derivations
, by Hugh Rawson)

Q: What woman’s body part would ancient Chinese artists never paint? A: The feet.

EH TWO, CANADA?

While rummaging through the trivia vault here at the BRI, we kept coming across a fascinating fact: Of the 175-plus nations in the world, Canada—the 35th most populous country—comes in second in a surprising number of categories
.

Canada was the 2nd
country to legalize medical marijuana. (
1st: Belgium
)

Canada has the 2nd
coldest national capital: Ottawa. (
1st: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia
)

Canada is the 2nd
largest foreign investor in Chile. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest University enrollment rate in the world. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
most tornadoes. (
1st: United States
)

Canada is the 2nd
in pork exports. (
1st: Denmark
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest amount of gum chewed per capita. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest broadband Internet access in the world. (
1st: South Korea
)

Canada was the 2nd
country to publish a National Atlas. (
1st: Finland
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest fresh water use per capita. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest water quality. (
1st: Finland
)

Canada is the 2nd
largest per capita emitter of greenhouse gases. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
most biotech companies. (
1st: United States
)

Canada is the 2nd
largest exporter of red meat. (
1st: Australia
)

Canada is the 2nd
biggest market for U.S. seafood. (
1st: Japan
)

Canada is the 2nd
largest foreign investor in Korea. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest incidence of breast cancer in the world. (
1st: United States
)

Canada is the 2nd
most workaholic nation in the world. (
1st: Japan
)

Canada was the 2nd
country with triple platinum sales of
Prodigy’s
“Fat Of The Land,” featuring the single
Smack My Bitch Up
. (
1st: New Zealand
)

Only 20% of the Sahara is covered with sand—the rest is rocky.

Thanksgiving Day in
Canada is the 2nd
Monday in October.

Canada has the 2nd
most foreign visitors to Texas. (
1st: Mexico
)

Canada was the 2nd
country to establish a Ministry of the Environment. (
1st: France
)

Canada was the 2nd
country to require daytime running lights on all new vehicles. (
1st: Norway
)

Canada has the 2nd
largest oil reserves in the world. (
1st: Saudi Arabia
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest proportion of immigrant population. (
1st: Australia
)

Canada was the 2nd
country with a Boy Scout program. (
1st: England
)

Canada has the 2nd
most civilian pilots in the world. (
1st: United States
)

Canada has the 2nd
highest cable TV access in the world. (
1st: Belgium
)

Canada was the 2nd
country in the world to have a nuclear reactor. (
1st: United States
)

Canada was the 2nd
country to develop a jet airplane. (
1st: Great Britian
)

Canada is the 2nd
largest country in the world. (
1st: Russia
)

ALTHOUGH…

• Canada is
1st
in literacy rate.

• Canada is
1st
in waste generated per person.

• Canada was the
1st
country to mine uranium.

• Canada was the
1st
British colony to gain self-government.

• Canada was the
1st
western country to recognize Ukrainian independence.

• Canada was the
1st
country to conduct a national survey on violence against women.

• Canada was the
1st
country to have a domestic communications satellite.

•
Canada is 1st
in ATM usage.

•
Canada was the 1st
to adopt a national multiculturalism policy.

•
Canada is 1st
in hydropower generation.

•
Canada also has…

…the highest ocean tides (They’re in the Bay of Fundy).

…the longest covered bridge (New Brunswick).

…the longest street (Yonge Street, Toronto, at 1,178 miles).

…the largest National Park (Wood Buffalo National Park in Alberta/North West Territories).

No surprise: Canada is the largest importer of American automobiles.

LITTLE THINGS MEAN A LOT

A few more little things that caused big problems
.

A
NOTHER
CONVERSION ERROR

The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off in December 1998. Ten months later, it suddenly stopped transmitting signals and was presumed lost. An investigation found that the satellite had entered Martian orbit 60 miles too low and was destroyed entering the atmosphere. What caused the error? Lockheed Martin, which operated the satellite for NASA, had been sending maneuvering data to the orbiter in standard English units…unaware that the navigation team had done its calculations in
metric
units. Asked if they knew that NASA used the metric system, a Lockheed spokesman said, “obviously not.” Estimated loss: $125 million.

A COMMA

In 1997 the American Asphalt Co. submitted the winning bid ($27 million) for a contract to build and pave the planned Las Vegas Beltway. But one of the losing bidders noticed something—American had mistakenly put a comma where a period was supposed to be, and road signs that were supposed to be priced at $23.80 per square foot were priced at $23,800 instead. This erroneous amount hadn’t been added to the final price—the $27 million bid was still correct—but rather than risk a lawsuit, county officials scrapped all the bids and changed the scope of the bid, delaying construction for weeks…and adding $3.1 million in new costs.

A CHIP OF PAINT

On April 24, 1990, NASA launched the $1.5 billion Hubble Space telescope into Earth orbit…only to have it send back blurry images. What happened? A single chip of paint flaked off one of the instruments used to measure the shape of the telescope’s huge 94.5-inch main mirror. That distorted some of the measurements and caused the mirror to be shaped slightly too flat. NASA evenutally fixed the problem, but it took an extra space shuttle mission to do it and cost them millions of dollars.

Up or down? The Congo is the only river that flows both north and south of the equator.

DISEASES THAT JUST WON’T DIE

Before modern medicine and sanitation, diseases routinely decimated huge portions of the population. Some of these scourges, such as smallpox, have been virtually eliminated…but not all of them
.

T
HE PLAGUE.
It thrives in unsanitary environments and comes in two main varieties: bubonic and pneumonic. Bubonic plague is transmitted by infected fleas carried by rats. It’s 50% to 60% fatal without treatment. Pneumonic plague is even worse—it’s spread via airborne droplets and kills nearly 100% of untreated victims.

Over the course of world history, plagues have been responsible for 200 million human deaths and it’s still with us. According to the Centers for Disease Control, a dozen Americans get it every year, mostly in southwestern states. It’s treatable today, but still deadly: two U.S. citizens died of the disease in 1996.

RICKETS.
This condition—caused by a lack of vitamin D—won’t kill you. But it weakens your bones to the point where they become deformed. Children who develop rickets can end up with curved spines and bow-shaped legs resembling wishbones.

Rickets was a widespread ailment until the 1920s, when the introduction of vitamin D–fortified milk, along with a greater awareness of nutrition, led to a dramatic decline in cases. Yet the preventable condition still occurs where bad eating habits prevail. In 2001 the CDC identified six cases of rickets among children in Georgia.

LEPROSY.
Contrary to popular belief, leprosy does not cause body parts to fall off. It is an infectious disease that kills all feeling in the victim’s nerve-endings. Because lepers can’t feel pain, their infected parts are easily bruised, battered, and burned, which can result in a loss of digits and limbs.

Leprosy is still common in developing countries. The CDC says there were 738,284 cases of the disease in 2000, largely in India, Nepal, and Myanmar. But Americans still get it, too. According to the CDC, 108 cases of leprosy were identified in the U.S. in 1999.

What are
zoonoses
? Not what you think—they’re animal diseases communicable to man.

THE ICE WORM COMETH

The BRI library has an entire wing for books and articles on hoaxes. Here are a few classics
.

K
LONDIKE ICE WORMS

Background:
In 1898 a young journalist named “Stroller” White got a job in Dawson, Alaska, with the
Klondike Nugget
. The terms of his employment were tough: he had to increase sales…or he was out in the cold. Just then, a fierce storm took hold of the area and it gave him an idea. He wrote an article about “ice worms” that had crawled out of a nearby glacier to “bask in the unusual frigidity in such numbers that their chirping was seriously interfering with the sleep of Dawson’s inhabitants.”

What Happened:
Sales of the
Nugget
skyrocketed as people began forming expedition teams to search for the noisy creatures. White got to keep his job and the ice worm story became so popular that bartenders started serving “ice-worm cocktails,” in which they added a piece of frozen spaghetti to a customer’s drink. Annual ice worm festivals became a local tradition—and are still held today.