Uncle John's Fully Loaded 25th Anniversary Bathroom Reader (Uncle John's Bathroom Reader)

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  TALK THIS WAY

  An accent is “a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.” That’s not to be confused with a dialect, which is a specific form of a language that has its own unique lexicon (words), grammatical structures, and phonology (a fancy word for accent). So an accent can be a part of a dialect, but not vice versa. Because dialects can be traced to geographic regions, they give linguists important clues to the origins of accents. And discovering where accents came from can explain why an American says “ta-may-toe” and a Brit says “ta-mah-toe,” or why a Bostonian says “pahk the cah” and a Nebraskan says “park the car.”

  BRITISH INVASIONS

  The United States began as colonies of Great Britain, but the settlers didn’t trickle across the Atlantic at random. According to Brandeis University Professor David Hackett Fischer in his book Albion’s Seed, there are four primary American accents, which derive from the major migrations from England to the New World in the 17th and 18th centuries.

  1. East Anglia to Massachusetts (1620–40). Puritans who fled to the New World to escape religious persecution were, by and large, from the eastern counties of England. To this day, in remote parts of East Anglia, there are rural folk who speak in what is sometimes referred to as the “Norfolk whine.” When they came to New England, that accent came along with them. You may recall the TV commercials where an old fellow says, “Pepperidge Fahm remembahs…” That’s the Norfolk whine.

  There is no U.S. federal law against owning a flamethrower (but it is a misdemeanor in Calif).

  2. South and West of England to Virginia (1642–75). Immigrants who settled in the colony of Virginia tended to be wealthy Cavaliers (that is, loyal to the King) who came to the New World to become planters. Many elements of their accent can still be heard in rural Virginia, such as their penchant for elongated vowels—stretching you into “yeew,” and shortened consonants—”ax” for ask, and “dis” and “dat” for this and that.

  3. North Midlands to Pennsylvania and Delaware (1675–1725). In another flight to escape religious persecution, Quakers, largely from the northern and middle parts of England, also settled in the New World. Their speech patterns, characterized by shorter vowel sounds—a short “a” for dance, not the Yankee and East Anglian “dahnce,” or the South England and Virginia “day-ence”—formed the basis for the flat Midwestern American accent we hear today, which has since been adopted as the standard American “non-regional” accent spoken by most newscasters.

  4. Borderlands to the Backcountry (1715–75). The so-called “Scotch-Irish” fled their poverty-stricken homeland of northern England and southern Scotland, first to northern Ireland and then to America’s mid-Atlantic coast. These new arrivals were considered uncultured and unruly and didn’t mix well with the established settlers, so most kept going to settle in the backcountry of the Appalachian Mountains. Their distinctive accent can still be heard in many southern regions: “far” for fire, and “winder” for window. The Borderlands accent gave rise to the twangy “country” accent heard in poorer parts of the South—as opposed to the south-of-England “Southern gentleman” drawl heard in more affluent regions. Think Yosemite Sam for the former and Foghorn Leghorn for the latter.

  THE HUDDLED MASSES

  After achieving independence, the United States expanded westward and fresh waves of immigrants arrived in New York, New Orleans, and other port cities. The Northeast kept closer ties with Britain, which explains why Bostonians caught onto the English trend of broadening the “a” in bath, while the flatter pronunciation was used in most of the rest of the country.

  For the impact the rest of the world has had on the American accent, go to page 437.

  Thirty American towns have the word “liberty” in them. Largest: Liberty, MO, pop. 29,000.

  SILVER MEDAL SHOCKER

  After 25 years of publishing Bathroom Readers, we at the BRI are proud to claim our silver medals! But this story isn’t about us—it’s about the Olympics, where silver means second-best, not 25 years. Here’s the story of how the 1972 U.S. men’s Olympic basketball team and how they refused to accept second place.

  THREE SECONDS TO GOLD!

  Before 1972 no U.S. men’s basketball team had ever lost in Olympic play. Starting in 1936 (the year basketball became an Olympic sport), U.S. men’s teams won 63 consecutive games—and seven straight gold medals. But just after midnight on September 10, 1972, in Munich, Germany, that golden winning streak came to a screeching end, courtesy of the Soviet Union. The final three seconds of that game may be the most controversial Olympic finish of all time, because officials allowed those three historic seconds to be played not once, not twice, but three times.

  TEAM OF DESTINY

  Although the U.S. was favored to win, the Soviet team was not only good, it was seasoned, having played hundreds of games together. The American team, on the other hand, was basically a college all-star team; most of its members had played together only a few times before the Olympics. According to U.S. assistant coach John Bach, the team’s experience amounted to 12 exhibition games plus the Olympic trials. To top it off, the 1972 squad was the youngest ever to represent the United States in Olympic competition. They had two things going for them—they were tall (average height: 6'7") and they were talented (an amazing 10 members of the team went on to become first-round NBA draft choices.) “These were the two strongest countries in the world fighting for supremacy, and basketball was ours,” said U.S. guard Doug Collins, now head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers.

  Surprisingly—at least to those who believed the U.S. couldn’t lose at men’s basketball—the Soviets built a 10-point lead in the second half. They kept that lead for several minutes before U.S. guard Kevin Joyce led a furious comeback. Pressing and hustling, the Americans whittled the lead down to a single point at 49–48 with 38 seconds left. But the Soviets had the ball. Intent on running out the clock, they passed back and forth, keeping the ball away from the Americans.

  More than 1,000 bags of Cracker Jack are sold at every Boston Red Sox game.

  With just 10 seconds left, Joyce deflected a pass from Aleksandr Belov, and teammate Doug Collins scooped it up. Collins drove toward the basket to make the winning shot. “As I picked up my dribble,” Collins recalled 40 years later, “I saw the guy from Russia. He was not going to be able to get an offensive foul—he couldn’t get there. So basically he was just going to cut my legs out from underneath me.” Soviet player Zurab Sakandelidze fouled Collins so hard that he fell against the basket stanchion, which he said “knocked him woozy.” An intentional foul was called against Sakandelidze. With three seconds on the clock, Collins gathered his wits and sank two free throws, giving the U.S. a one-point lead. The score: 50–49. It looked like another Olympic championship would be theirs.

  LET THE DO-OVERS BEGIN

  After the free throws, only one second remained on the clock. A single second wouldn’t give the Soviets enough time to in-bound the ball and drive to the hoop. Game over? No. A referee blew his whistle and stopped the game. He’d noticed a Soviet assistant coach gesturing frantically that they had signaled for a time-out between Collins’s two free throws and been ignored.

  Lead referee Renato Righetto allowed the time-out. When play resumed, according to Righetto, the clock should have been reset to show one second remaining. It wasn’t. William Jones, secretary general of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), came out of the stands and ordered the time keepers to turn the clock back three seconds—the time from the whistle of the foul against the Soviet Union to when the U.S. team scored two free throws would be played again. “Jones overruled the referee and the official scorer,” said U.S. team captain Kenny Davis. “He had no power at all to do that.”

  Did he? To find out, dribble over to page 303 for Part II of the story.

  First president to be photographed at his inauguration: Abraham Lincoln. Standing near him in the photo: John Wilkes Booth.

&n
bsp; THE NEANDERTHALS

  Were they too dumb to compete with Homo sapiens—or were they the original modern stone-age family?

  WHAT MAKES A MAN?

  Neanderthals were an ancient race of hominids that developed alongside early humans. They shared almost all the same genetic classifications—kingdom (animal), phylum (chordata), class (mammal), order (primate), family (hominid), and genus (homo)—but differed in the final category, species (neanderthalensis).

  Neanderthals first appeared in Africa about 600,000 years ago and slowly migrated into Europe and the Middle East. Between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago (scientists aren’t exactly sure), Homo sapiens, migrated from Africa to the same areas. Up until that time, Neanderthals were the most successful hominids in the region, but by that time their population had dwindled, possibly because of freezing temperatures during the last Ice Age. After about 40,000 years of sharing territory, the remaining Neanderthals died out while Homo sapiens kept evolving. So why didn’t the Neanderthals survive?

  • Theory #1: They weren’t smart enough. It was long conventional wisdom among anthropologists that Neanderthals were not very smart, and were outpaced and outsmarted by their clever human cousins, fading away because they lacked survival skills. Now scientists aren’t so sure. Findings suggest Neanderthals had bigger heads and brains than humans, and probably weren’t so dumb after all.

  • Theory #2: They weren’t good hunters. It was once thought that Neanderthals might have been poorer hunters than Homo sapiens, and so when species of large game dwindled, they couldn’t survive. But it turns out that Neanderthal tools were actually more efficient than those crafted by early humans. Neanderthals are also believed by some experts to have had control over fire before Homo sapiens did and to have cooked, rather than gathered, much of their food. Aside from game, there is evidence that they dined on birds and fish, and beach-combed for mollusks. And contrary to popular belief, their diet was not dependent on meat. Researchers have recently found bits of seeds, dates, beans, peas, and cooked grains stuck in Neanderthal teeth.

  • Theory #3: They lacked mobility. There is evidence that Neanderthals took to the sea long before Homo sapiens. Neanderthal relics dating back more than 100,000 years have been found on Mediterranean islands that were unreachable other than by watercraft (evidence of which has not yet been found). Modern humans are thought to have built their first ocean-going vehicles only about 50,000 years ago, or about 50,000 years after Neanderthals would have been making theirs.

  • Theory #4: They couldn’t communicate well. More recent studies of Neanderthal voice boxes have led some scientists to conclude that Neanderthal voices were not incoherent grunts, as once believed, but high-pitched and melodic, and that their means of communicating may have been a combination of language, pitch, and song.

  A CLOSER LOOK

  Far from being the brutish creatures of cliché, Neanderthals were probably the first hominids to bury their dead, often leaving flowers on the gravesites. They also made and wore jewelry, and Neanderthal cave paintings from 42,000 years ago have been found in southern Spain. It is true that Neanderthals and humans looked different: Neanderthals were shorter and broader, with a heavier brow. But it seems there were similarities. About the same percentage of Neanderthal and human DNA includes the genetic mutation that inhibits brown pigmentation, so Neanderthals were about as likely as humans to be pale-skinned, blond, or redheaded.

  Native Africans, whose ancestors never lived alongside Neanderthals in Europe, have no Neanderthal DNA in their genomes—but pretty much all other people do. According to most studies, about 2.5 percent of most modern human DNA was contributed by Neanderthals, proving that they interbred with Homo sapiens. So when the last of them disappeared about 25,000 years ago, it’s possible they had already assimilated into the larger human population. Where did the Neanderthals go? Look in the mirror.

  If all the neurons in your brain were lined up, they’d stretch 600 miles.

  POETIC JUSTICE

  “You have an obligation as a judge to be right, but you have no obligation to be dull.”—Judge J. Michael Eakin

  BARD OF THE BENCH

  In 2001 J. Michael Eakin was elected to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court after 11 years as the Cumberland County District Attorney. Like all judges, Eakin writes important legal decisions every day. Unlike other judges, he makes his into poetry. Eakin won a second 10-year term in 2011 with 74 percent of the vote. Apparently the public doesn’t mind Eakin’s poetic judgments, but not everybody thinks it’s appropriate—his fellow justices, for instance. “It reflects poorly on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania,” said Chief Justice Stephen Zappala. In his defense, Eakin doesn’t always give a rhyming opinion, only when he feels the case is light-hearted or needs an injection of levity. Here’s a sampling of Eakin’s creativity.

  Riding Under the Influence. In 2004 it was up to Eakin and six other Justices to either reverse or uphold a lower court’s decision that a person cannot be arrested for DUI if they’re on a horse. Eakin disagreed with the lower court, and set his dissent to the theme song from the TV show Mister Ed.

  A horse is a horse, of course, of course / but the Vehicle Code does not divorce / its application from, perforce / a steed, as my colleagues said. / “It’s not vague,” I’ll say until I’m hoarse / and whether a car, a truck or horse / this law applies with equal force / and I’d reverse instead.

  Pro-Poodle Poetry. In 1999 Julia Zangrando sued Jan Sipula over veterinarian bills for her poodle, Angel. An Allegheny County Court ruled Sipula had negligently struck the dog with his car, and Sipula was asking for a re-trial. Eakin’s ruling was a 59-verse sonnet. (We’re only printing a fraction.)

  To appellee this was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster/ the wingless Angel’d taken flight and ascended quickly past her / The bill for Angel's treatment, though, was anything but small, / and appellee felt that in the end, appellant should pay it all / 15 miles an hour he claims as his maximum rate of speed / quite a cautious, prudent rate, not very fast indeed / It’s also hard to quarrel here with what the trial court said / That speed’s not fast enough to launch a poodle overhead / We must conclude the issues raised do not warrant a new trial / and all that we may offer now is this respectful rhymed denial.

  Jenga game pieces are made of alder wood.

  A Verse on Divorce. Louis Porreco’s divorce got ugly in 2000, when his wife Susan—they married when she was 19 and he was in his 40s—found out that her $21,000 diamond engagement ring was a fake. In addition to alimony, Susan sued Louis for fraud. The Supreme Court sided with Mr. Porreco; Eakin dissented:

  A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium / When his spouse finds he’s given her cubic zirconium / Given their history and Pygmalion relation / I find her reliance was with justification.

  Flightless and Fruitless. Delores Liddle wanted to breed emus, and in 2001 paid Denise Scholze $48,000 for a pair named Nicholas and Savannah. The emus failed to conceive, so Scholze offered Liddle 12 emu chicks to replace the two adults. Liddle declined, and when she later found out Nicholas was, in fact, a female emu, she sued. Eakin ruled that since Scholze had tried to remedy the situation, she was not liable for the fruitless fowl.

  The fault’s the emus’, not that of Liddle / or Scholze, or the court placed in the middle / Fruitless in Pennsylvania and Louisiana / the blame’s on Nicholas and Savannah.

  Ode to an Overhaul. In 2000 a Pennsylvania court ruled that an auto-body shop called Limerick Collision had to change its name rather than infringe on the business of nearby Limerick Auto Body. Both shops are named after the Philadelphia suburb where they do business, but Limerick Auto Body was there first. Justice Eakin upheld the earlier court’s decision, but he couldn’t resist writing—of course—a limerick about the Limerick case.

  “Limerick Auto” and “Limerick Collision” / Are so close one may clearly envision / That the two were the same / so a limerick I frame / And join in my colleagues’ decision.

 
Male western gray kangaroos smell like curry. It’s so powerful they’re called “stinkers.”

  FOOD FIRSTS

  The first thing Uncle John consumes in the morning: a handful of wasabi peas, washed down with black coffee. Here are some other landmark moments in the history of food.

  First Indian restaurant in the West: In 1810 Sake Dean Mahomed, a captain in the British East India Company, opened a restaurant in London that served authentic food from his native India. He called it the Hindoostanee Coffee House. The restaurant closed within the year…but by the mid-20th century, “curry houses” were the most popular form of ethnic food and fast food in England.

  First food eaten in space: On his orbit around the Earth in 1962, astronaut John Glenn ate applesauce.

  First food magazine in the U.S.: Gourmet, which began publishing in 1941 and closed down in 2009. The first issue contained a recipe for wild bear.

  First American culinary school: When American restaurants faced a labor shortage during and after World War II, the New Haven Restaurant Institute was founded in Connecticut to train new chefs. It’s now the Culinary Institute of America.

  First genetically engineered food: The Flavr Savr, a breed of tomato bioengineered by food scientists, who altered and combined the genes of several different tomato varieties to make one that was more resistant to spoilage. It was approved for sale by the FDA in 1994.

  First branded food: Quaker Oats became the first trademarked breakfast cereal in 1877 and uses essentially the same label today.

  First commercially available microwave oven: The Radarange, produced by Amana, went on sale in 1947. Cost: $3,000 (about $29,000 today).