Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Extraordinary Book of Facts: And Bizarre Information (Bathroom Readers)

by Bathroom Readers' Hysterical Society

  Five percent of Americans never get married.

  Forty percent of Americans say they believe in love at first sight.

  Fifty-two percent of soon-to-be grooms and 39 percent of future brides say they’ll include the phrase “to honor and obey” in their wedding vows.

  Average age of a first-time American bride in 1970: 20.8. In 2003: 27.

  States with the three highest divorce rates: Nevada, Arkansas, and Wyoming, in that order.

  Myth-Spoken

  Line: “That government is best which governs least.”

  Supposedly Said By: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

  Actually: William F. Buckley used this quote in a 1987 newspaper column. He probably took it from Henry David Thoreau, who used it in his 1849 essay “Civil Disobedience.” But Thoreau didn’t attribute it to anyone in particular. Why did Buckley attribute it to Jefferson? Who knows. Anyway, it was first said by the early American pamphleteer, Thomas Paine.

  Line: “Here I stand—warts and all.”

  Supposedly Said By: Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

  Actually: Vice President George Bush “quoted” this line in a 1988 campaign speech, but Lincoln never said it. When the New York Times called Bush headquarters to question the reference, one of Bush’s speechwriters admitted having made up the quote.

  Line: “Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.”

  Supposedly Said By: Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), American essayist, philosopher, and poet

  Actually: Sarah Yule, a writer, took it from an Emerson lecture and included it in her 1889 book, Borrowings, but she got it wrong. What Emerson actually said: “If a man has good corn, or wood, or boards, or pigs to sell, or can make better chairs, or knives, crucibles or church organs, than anybody else, you will find a broad, hard-beaten road to his house, though it be in the woods.”

  Line: “I can answer you in two words, ‘im-possible.’”

  Supposedly Said By: Sam Goldwyn (1882–1974), movie mogul

  Actually: This is often quoted as one of his famous “Goldwynisms,” but he didn’t say it. Charlie Chaplin did.

  Line: “I wish I’d studied Latin at school so I could talk to you in your own language.”

  Supposedly Said By: Vice President Dan Quayle to a group of schoolchildren, on a tour of Latin American countries

  Actually: It was invented by Democratic congresswoman Pat Schroeder as an attack on Quayle. Even though she publicly apologized to the former VP for the remark, it lives on as a “genuine quote” in popular mythology.

  Line: “Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

  Supposedly Said By: Mark Twain (1835–1910)

  Actually: Twain was so prolific and so clever that a lot of good quotes are mistakenly attributed to him. But journalist Charles Dudley Warner was the real author of this line. To his credit, Twain never claimed it as his own.

  Line: “You can’t be too rich or too thin.”

  Supposedly Said By: The Duchess of Windsor, Wallis Simpson (1896–1986)

  Actually: Aside from the fact that the king of England abdicated his throne in order to marry her, this is the only thing the duchess is remembered for. Too bad she didn’t say it. Truman Capote said it in 1950 on David Susskind’s TV talk show.

  RODENTS

  Rats can live longer without water than camels can.

  A squirrel can fall as much as 600 feet

  to the ground without injuring itself.

  The harvest rat spends 22 hours a day looking for food.

  Hibernating, a woodchuck breathes 10 times

  per hour. Awake, 2,100 times per hour.

  Moles are able to tunnel through 300 feet of earth in a day.

  On the Small Screen

  The Merv Griffin Show’s director was Dick Carson, Johnny Carson’s brother.

  Paul Anka wrote Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show theme song.

  Big Bird’s address: 123 1/2 Sesame Street (zip code unknown).

  Gilligan’s first name on Gilligan’s Island was Willy. The skipper’s name was Jonas Grumby.

  The average Jeopardy! winner takes home $11,500 per show.

  Sixty percent of the U.S. television viewing audience watched the last episode of M*A*S*H in 1983.

  As of 2005 Steve Martin has hosted Saturday Night Live the most times: 13.

  Jay North, star of TV’s Dennis the Menace, was also the voice of Bam-Bam Rubble.

  The TV show The Love Boat was based on a novel.

  Nancy Reagan appeared in Diff’rent Strokes to tell kids to “Just Say No.”

  In Arabic countries, Sesame Street is known as Iftah Ya Simsim.

  In 1986, in the very last scene of Search for Tomorrow, after 35 years on the air, Stu asks Jo what she is searching for. “Tomorrow,” she replies.

  TOO MUCH TV?

  According to the A.C. Nielsen Co., the average American watches more than four hours of television each day (that’s 28 hours per week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent nine years glued to the tube.

  9 to 5

  Seventy-five percent of industrial accidents happen to people who skipped breakfast that morning.

  Corporate double-talk for layoff: “career-change opportunity” and “schedule readjustment.”

  Eighty percent of Americans will be fired from a job at least once in their lives.

  Business travelers gain an average of five pounds every year they’re on the road.

  The top six reasons for being late to work: traffic, oversleeping, procrastination, household chores, car problems, having sex.

  Odds that an American worker won’t tell his or her spouse after they receive a raise: 36 percent.

  One in three companies monitor the e-mails of at least some employees.

  Word Origins

  £ or lb.

  Meaning: Pound

  Origin: The abbreviation originates with the Latin phrase libra pondo, which means “a unit of measurement by weight.” The Romans shortened the phrase to pondo, which ultimately became pound in English, but the abbreviation of the first word—lb., for libra—endured. The symbol for British currency is a stylized L, or £, which comes from the same source. The value of the British pound was originally equal to one pound of silver.

  V.I.P.

  Meaning: Very important person

  Origin: This frequently used abbreviation was created during World War II by a British officer in charge of organizing flights for important military leaders. In order to conceal the names from enemy spies, each of these were referred to as a V.I.P. in the flight plan.

  Mrs.

  Meaning: A married woman

  Origin: Originally, Mrs. was a shortened version of mistress, a word that used to mean “wife” but has since acquired a very different meaning. Strictly speaking, because the word it once abbreviated has changed its meaning, Mrs. is no longer an abbreviation—unlike Mr., its male counterpart, which can be spelled out as Mister.

  K

  Meaning: A strikeout in baseball

  Origin: In the 1860s when a batter struck out, it was proper to say that he “struck.” It was during this era that a newspaperman named Henry Chadwick created symbols for use with his new invention—the box score. He gave each play a letter: S for sacrifice, E for error, and so on. Since S was already taken, he used the last letter of struck instead of the first to abbreviate it: K.

  Rx

  Meaning: A drug prescription

  Origin: Actually, there is no x in Rx. In medieval Latin the first word in medicinal prescriptions directing one to take a specific quantity of a concoction was recipe, meaning “take” or “receive.” This was later symbolized as an R with a slash across its leg. The spelling Rx is an attempt to represent this symbol in English letters.

  B.O.

  Meaning: Body odor

  Origin: In 1933 the Lifebuoy Health Soap Company ran a series of radio advertisement
s containing their new slogan: “Lifebuoy stops B--- O---.” A heavy two-note foghorn warning was synchronized with the B.O., giving the phrase a negative spin it has retained ever since.

  D-day

  Meaning: June 6, 1944, the day Allied forces invaded France during WWII

  Origin: The D in D-day does not stand for designated or defeat, as many believe, but simply for day. D-day actually means “day day.” The redundancy comes from the common practice in army correspondence of referring to a top secret time as H-hour or D-day.

  XXX

  Meaning: Marking on bottles in cartoons to indicate that they contain alcohol

  Origin: According to one theory, during the 19th century, breweries in Britain marked their bottles X, XX, or XXX as a sign of alcohol content. The number of Xs corresponded to the potency of the drink.

  THE PEPPER

  What’s the botanical difference between green peppers, yellow peppers, and red peppers? Only the difference in age. They start out green, then turn yellow, then red, then purple, then brown. As they mature, they get progressively sweeter (until they spoil).

  Penny Wise

  The first U.S. cent, which was the size of today’s 50-cent piece, was coined in 1793. In 1856 the mint produced the first penny of today’s size.

  Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be depicted on a U.S. coin, a penny issued in 1909. The penny is the only U.S. coin where the person faces right instead of left.

  The 1921 Alabama Centennial half-dollar was the first U.S. coin designed by a woman, Laura Gardin Fraser.

  When the Citizens Bank of Tenino, Washington, closed on December 5, 1931, the town was without ready cash to do business, so denominations of 25¢, 50¢, and $1 were printed on three-ply Sitka spruce wood, the first wooden money issued as legal tender in the United States.

  In 1932 Congress issued a commemorative coin—the Washington quarter—to celebrate the 200th birthday of George Washington. The quarter was intended to be used for only one year, but it was so popular that it was continued as a regular-issue coin from 1934 on.

  Booker T. Washington was the first African American to be depicted on a U.S. coin, a half-dollar issued in 1946.

  During World War II, the United States minted pennies made of steel, to conserve copper for making artillery shells.

  Until 1965, pennies were legal tender only up to 25¢. A creditor couldn’t be forced to accept more than 25 pennies in payment of a debt. Silver coins were legal tender for amounts not exceeding $10 in any one payment.

  If You...

  IF YOU are brushing your hair, it’s best to stop after about the 25th stroke. That’s the right number for the best distribution of your hair’s natural oils. Much more brushing than that can cause damage.

  IF YOU have hair growing out of your armpit, you’ve got hirci. That’s the fancy word for armpit hair.

  IF YOU are stuck in the grip of a crocodile’s jaw, jam your thumbs in its eyeballs. (Good luck.)

  IF YOU get a “mustache” from drinking grape or cherry juice, you can quickly wipe it off with a bit of toothpaste dabbed on a washcloth.

  IF YOU are an average American, your butt is 15 inches long.

  IF YOU sneeze your most powerful sneeze, it’ll come flying out of your face at a little more than 100 mph.

  IF YOU have to choose between total lack of sleep or food for the next 10 days, go with lack of food. You’ll die from total lack of sleep sooner (in about 10 days) than from starvation (a few weeks).

  IF YOU are the electrician in charge of the lighting on a movie or TV set, you’re a gaffer. If you’re an assistant to the gaffer, you’re known as the “best boy.”

  IF YOU weigh 120 pounds on earth, you’d weigh about 20 pounds on the moon.

  IF YOU listen to a cricket chirp, you can figure out the temperature. Count the number of chirps per 15 seconds and add 40. That’ll give you the temperature (Fahrenheit).

  IF YOU are trying to find a tiny object on the floor, put a bare light at floor level. The light will cause the object to cast a shadow, making it easier to spot.

  Looney Laws

  Swedish law prohibits trained seals from balancing balls on their noses.

  In Athens, Greece, you can lose your driver’s license for being “poorly dressed” or “unbathed.”

  Penalty for stealing a rabbit in 19th-century England: seven years in prison.

  It’s OK to duel in Paraguay as long as you’re a registered blood donor.

  It’s against French law to reveal the true identity of a member of the French Foreign Legion.

  It’s against the law to slam your car door in Switzerland.

  Wearing a necktie in some parts of Iran can get you thrown in jail.

  Paris law forbids spinning tops on sidewalks . . . and staring at the mayor.

  Nineteenth-century Scottish law required brides to be pregnant on their wedding day.

  The law in Teruel, Spain, forbids taking hot baths on Sunday. (Cold baths are OK.)

  If you curse within earshot of a woman in Egypt, the law says you forfeit two days’ pay.

  In Equatorial Guinea, it’s illegal to name your child Monica.

  In England it’s against the law to sue the queen—or to name your daughter Princess without the queen’s permission.

  In Israel, it’s illegal to pick your nose on the Sabbath.

  Busy as a Bee

  Honeybees are not native to North America. They were introduced from Europe in the 1600s by the Puritans.

  Bees have different dialects. A German bee cannot understand an Italian bee.

  Honey never spoils. In fact, honey placed in tombs in Southampton, England, over 400 years ago, was still good when the tombs were opened.

  Bees use ultraviolet vision to see which flowers have the largest amounts of nectar.

  A typical American consumes about a pound of honey per year.

  A typical worker bee lives for one month and in that time collects enough nectar to make about 1/12 teaspoon of honey.

  Honey comes in different colors and flavors—there are more than 300 unique kinds of honey in the United States alone. Why? Honey is made from diverse flower sources—clover, eucalyptus, or orange blossom, for example—and soil chemistry and honeycomb quality also influence how it tastes and looks.

  An experiment: Will bees feed from water that’s been artificially sweetened with Sweet’N Low? No.

  WHY DO WE FLY FLAGS AT HALF-MAST?

  In the days of sailing ships, when someone died on board or a national leader died, ships slackened their rigging, which gave the ship a disheveled look that was supposed to symbolize mourning, “the nautical equivalent of walking around in sackcloth and ashes.” Lowering flags partway down the mast was another part of the practice, the only part that survives to this day.

  The Lighthouse

  No one knows for sure when or where the first lighthouse was built. Early lighthouses were too simple to be recorded; some were little more than candles placed in the windows of tall buildings at night. Others were hilltop structures on which large fires could be built. The earliest known lighthouses were built on the Mediterranean Sea in the 7th century B.C.

  The Great Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt, was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Completed around 280 B.C., it stood about 450 feet high on the island of Pharos in the Alexandria harbor. Still in operation as late as 1115, it was destroyed by earthquakes in the 1300s.

  The oldest working lighthouse in the world is Spain’s Tower of Hercules, built by the Romans in 20 B.C.

  The oldest American lighthouse is the Boston Light, in Boston’s outer harbor. Built in 1716 on Little Brewster Island, it was destroyed by the British during the American Revolution. It was rebuilt in 1783 and still stands today.

  Before electricity, lighthouses provided light via wood or coal fires, or even candles. These were replaced by whale-oil lanterns, which gave way to kerosene lanterns in the 1800s. Keeping such a light continually lit wasn’t easy. In the U
nited States, most lighthouses had a full-time keeper (nicknamed Wickies because they kept the lantern wicks trimmed), who lived at the lighthouse and made sure it stayed lit.

  First American lighthouse to use electricity: the Statue of Liberty, which served as a lighthouse in New York Harbor until 1902.

  Every working lighthouse in the United States is automated. The last manned lighthouse, Maine’s Goat Island Light, became automated in 1990.

  No Sweat

  In an average day, Americans sweat enough moisture to provide the city of Pittsburgh with a 24-hour supply of water.

  When you exercise strenuously in hot weather, you can sweat away as much as two quarts of water in an hour, enough to cause your weight to drop during the workout. But this weight loss is only temporary. Since the weight you lose is all water, you gain it back as soon as you drink liquids and your fluid levels return to normal. Note: Many serious athletes measure their weight immediately before and after their workouts to determine how much water they need to drink to rehydrate themselves. It’s about one pint per pound of weight loss.

  On average, women can tolerate a body temperature of 1°F higher than men before they break into a sweat. But once they start to perspire, women produce just as much sweat as men do.

  Where on your body you sweat the most depends on the reason why you’re sweating: Are you hot or nervous? Cooling sweat shows up most on your forehead, upper lip, neck, and chest; nervous sweat appears most in your palms, feet, and armpits.

  What is it like to sweat in the weightlessness of space? It’s pretty gross . . . at least according to Rhea Seddon, a NASA doctor and astronaut who has flown on the space shuttle Columbia. “It pools on your skin and balls up into large, fist-size globules of sweat that sort of land on you. It’s kind of yucky.”