Uncle John's Actual and Factual Bathroom Reader

by Bathroom Readers' Institute

  There’s a Word for That: The Dutch call that uitbuiken, which literally means “stomach out.”

  Let’s Say… You want to describe a friendship so comfortable that the two of you can sit in silence together.

  There’s a Word for That: Ah-un, a wordless understanding between friends (Japanese, from the “Om” chant).

  Let’s Say… You met someone special and are feeling a dizzy euphoria.

  There Are Words for That: Bazodee is what they call it in Creole. The word is derived from the French pas solide, meaning “unstable.” If the infatuation makes you feel like there are butterflies in your stomach, that’s kilig in Tagalog.

  Let’s Say… You place shiny stones in a stream to dazzle salmon long enough to catch one. (It could happen.)

  There’s a Word for That: Éit in Gaelic.

  Let’s Say… A few months after that first burst of bazodee, you and your partner settle into a trusting, comfortable understanding of each other.

  There’s a Word for That: S’apprivoiser (literally “being tamed” in French).

  Let’s Say… You yearn for the serenity of not caring about what can’t be changed.

  There Are Words for That: The Inuit (indigenous people of the Arctic region) call that mental state ayurnamat. If you start to feel so serene you “stare blankly into space without thinking of anything in particular,” that’s the state of boketto in Japanese.

  Let’s Say… A prankster jumps out and yells “Boo!” You’re so scared that you jumped to your feet in fear and surprise.

  There’s a Word for That: You’ve just experienced what Filipinos call balikwas (Tagalog).

  Let’s Say… Someone tells a bad joke—either just a terrible joke or a funny joke that was told badly. In fact, it’s so unfunny that you can’t help but laugh.

  There’s a Word for That: In Indonesia, that kind of joke is called a jayus. (Here it’s commonly known as a dad joke.)

  Average speed of a fart as it leaves your body: 6.5 mph.

  Let’s Say… You feel really bad for the person who just bombed with that terrible joke.

  There Are Words for That: Finns call the sensation of feeling bad for someone who publicly embarrassed themselves myötähäpeä. Germans call it fremdschämen.

  Let’s Say… Something makes you smile, a private joke you might share with another or maybe just yourself.

  There’s a Word for That: The Dutch call that binnenpretje (literally “inside fun”).

  Let’s Say… You’re at a party and you just want to go home.

  There Are Words for That: You are engentado (Spanish), meaning you are over-peopled and need solitude. Sturmfrei (literally “storm-free”) is German for finding your quiet place, like having the house all to yourself. The Japanese datsuzoku means a break from the routine and conventional. Even more extreme, stushevatsya is Russian for completely dropping out of worldly concerns.

  Let’s Say… It’s been raining for what feels like years, but then the sun comes out, and everyone wants to go outside and play.

  There’s a Word for That: When Iceland’s weather turns unexpectedly pleasant, some employers tell their workers to go out and enjoy a sólarfri, literally a “sun holiday.”

  Let’s Say… Someone hurt you once, and you gave them another chance. They hurt you again, and you gave them yet another chance. Then they hurt you again! And all you want to say is “Third strike, you’re out!” But you want to say it in one word.

  There’s a Word for That: Ilunga is a word in Tshiluba—spoken by the Bantu people in the Congo—that essentially means “third strike, you’re out.”

  Let’s Say… You made a mistake (you put a fork in the microwave), and you learned from your mistake (don’t put forks in the microwave).

  There’s a Word for That: Norwegians call it etterpåklokskap (“afterward wisdom”).

  Let’s Say… You’re in a group waiting for something momentous to happen.

  There’s a Word for That: Qarrtsiluni in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit.

  Let’s Say… You just know that your friend is up to something mischievous. You don’t know what, but they have “that look.”

  There’s a Word for That: In Dutch, that look is described as pretoogjes (“fun eyes”).

  Let’s Say… There’s a proverbial elephant in the room—a topic everyone is thinking about but no one dares bring up.

  There’s a Word for That: They don’t have elephants in Papua, New Guinea, so they use the word mokita.

  The Sullivan Ordinance (NYC, 1908) banned women from smoking in public. It was vetoed two weeks later.

  Let’s Say… How come this page has two columns? What font is this? When is this article going to end?

  There’s a Word for That: Don’t ask so many questions, you pochemuchka (Russian for “someone who asks a lot of questions”).

  Let’s Say… You want a word to describe someone who is at once flashy, vulgar, and tasteless.

  There’s a Word for That: Poshlost. Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov defined poshlost as “valuing not only the obviously trashy but also the falsely important, the falsely beautiful, the falsely clever, the falsely attractive.”

  Let’s Say… You say that you love someone, but you really don’t.

  There’s a Word for That: Onsay means “pretending to be in love” in Tibet’s Bodo language.

  Let’s Say… Something hurts so good, like a deep-tissue massage that is excruciating on one level but so soothing on another.

  There’s a Word for That: Germans call it wohlweh (“good pain”).

  Let’s Say… You want to squeeze someone because they’re SO DARNED CUTE. (Please don’t.)

  There’s a Word for That: Indonesians call this annoying temptation gemas.

  Let’s Say… When a loved one returns from a trip, you’re elated to see them.

  There’s a Word for That: Gjensynsglede is how Norwegians describe the joy in seeing someone after a long absence (literally “goodbye happiness”).

  Let’s Say… You want to describe a bittersweet mix of joy and sadness.

  There’s a Word for That: Charmolypi in Greek.

  Let’s Say… You tell yourself you’re going to study up on all these foreign words and use them to impress people, but you know deep down that you won’t.

  There’s a Word for That: Germans use lebenslüge (“life lies”) to describe those falsehoods we tell ourselves just so we can stand to keep living with ourselves.

  Let’s Say… Someone from the Netherlands calls you a “party pig.”

  There’s a Word for That: Don’t worry. It’s not an insult—just the literal translation of feestvarken, a Dutch event’s guest of honor.

  Let’s Say… You have to perform a difficult task in front of a bunch of people, and you want to make it look easy.

  There’s a Word for That: Sprezzatura is Italian for the studied nonchalance you sometimes see in jugglers while making something difficult (like juggling chainsaws) look simple.

  Will it pass the sniff test? French inventor Christian Poincheval claims he has invented a pill that makes farts smell like chocolate.

  GOLDEN SLUMBERS

  This gruesome bit of history comes to us from our European correspondent, Walter Closet. It’s got everything a Dark Ages tale should have: barbarians, bones, popes, virgins, and gold. But is it just a legend…or did it really happen?

  VIEW FROM ABROAD

  From the outside, the Basilica of St. Ursula in Cologne, Germany, seems pretty ordinary by 16th-century standards. Its stone walls and bell tower are unremarkable, especially in comparison to the grandiose Cologne Cathedral that greets travelers as they exit Köln Hauptbahnhof, the city’s main train station, a few minutes away. Though you can find the cathedral on dozens of different postcards in Cologne’s gift shops, you’d be hard-pressed to find one featuring St. Ursula’s. But there’s something special about St. Ursula’s—something that makes it one of the most unique houses of worship in Europe. Within
one of its chapels (called the Golden Chamber), there’s an ornate display that has been attracting the faithful and the merely curious for centuries. Its history begins with the legend of a British princess who lived a very long time ago.

  THE LEGEND

  In the fourth century, the kingdom of Dumnonia—a large chunk of southwestern Britain—was ruled by King Dionotus. He had a daughter named Ursula. When Ursula came of age, Dionotus arranged for her to marry Conan Meriadoc, the powerful governor of Armorica, a kingdom in what is now northern France. After a delay of several years, Ursula finally set out across the English Channel to Armorica, accompanied by ten women, each of whom, like Ursula, was accompanied by 1,000 virginal handmaidens. That means Ursula was traveling with 11,000 virgins.

  As outrageous as that sounds, it gets worse: Armorica at the time was running low on fertile women. Conan had informed Dionotus about his kingdom’s predicament, and the king had sent him thousands of women…but many of the ships were lost at sea and the remainder, once they reached mainland Europe, were hijacked by barbarians. Ursula’s virginal entourage was to serve as a sort of dowry and, in exchange, Conan—a pagan—agreed to convert to Christianity.

  The princess successfully reached Armorica but had an abrupt change of heart once she sailed into port. She insisted upon being allowed to go on a pilgrimage to Rome (with all 11,000 of her virgins) before she would marry Conan.

  Most produced arcade game ever: Pac-Man. 400,000 Pac-Man cabinets were manufactured in the early 1980s; they sucked up 14 billion quarters from players.

  ROAD TRIP

  If you had to read The Canterbury Tales back in high school, you’ll know that such pilgrimages were common in Europe for centuries. In Ursula’s day, the Roman Empire had begun its decline, but Rome itself was still the largest, most exciting city on the continent. And it was the center of the Christian world.

  According to the legend, when Ursula and her virgin troupe arrived in Rome, they caught the eye of Pope Cyriacus, who became infatuated with them. When it came time for the princess to leave, he and a few other higher-ups within the Vatican decided to hang up their robes and tag along with them while they continued their pilgrimage to visit holy sites around Europe before they returned to Armorica, where Conan was waiting for them. But during this era, central Europe was a dangerous place. The Huns were besieging the Roman Empire, which still controlled large segments of what is now Germany. Ursula made the unfortunate mistake of stopping in Cologne on the eve of an assault by a large group of Huns. In the ensuing massacre, all 11,000 virgins were beheaded; the princess was executed by bow and arrow.

  TRUE, FALSE, OR SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN?

  If you find this story hard to swallow, you’re not alone. Scholars have been bickering about the veracity of this tale for centuries. According to one theory, Ursula was traveling with a much more realistic eleven virgins, or possibly even as few as two. The discrepancy might have been caused by a monk or a cleric who made the numerical error while transcribing historical records during the Dark Ages.

  There are also questions about the fate of Pope Cyriacus and his colleagues once the Huns entered Cologne. Perhaps they slipped away or maybe they too were killed. Records of Cyriacus’s time as pope are almost entirely nonexistent, possibly destroyed by church leaders who were furious that he abdicated in order to travel with Ursula. They might have considered him such an embarrassment that they wanted to excise his name from official pontifical records.

  GET REAL

  The real story of Ursula’s trek—if it ever even happened—is lost to the ages, and the lack of historical evidence led to Ursula and the virgins being removed from the Catholic Church’s official list of martyrs, the Roman Martyrology, when it was revised in 1969. Nevertheless, the story of Ursula and her 11,000 virgins became a popular legend, especially in Cologne.

  In the 12th century, a mass grave was discovered near the Basilica of St. Ursula, a church that had been built in her honor after her martyrdom led to sainthood. It was quickly determined that the bones within it must have belonged to Ursula and her entourage. That’s when church leaders decided to expand the building to house the remains. The bones were exhumed and many of the skulls were dipped in silver or adorned with gold, velvet, or other decorations. They’re still there today, lining the walls of the Golden Chamber, an ornate chapel constructed in 1643 with funds donated by Johann Krane, a wealthy member of the imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire. Some of the bones have even been put into the shapes of Latin words that spell out phrases like “Holy Ursula, pray for us.”

  When you gotta go: Shortly after he became the second man to set foot on the Moon…

  DID YOU KNOW?

  One of the most popular Catholic saints is St. Christopher, patron saint of travelers.

  Only problem: In 1970 the Church removed St. Christopher’s feast day from the official Catholic calendar because it couldn’t prove that he ever actually existed.

  A BONE TO PICK

  While it might sound macabre, chapels and catacombs filled with bones are fairly commonplace in Europe. Some of them, like the Catacombs of Paris, are even major tourist attractions that draw thousands of visitors every year. The Golden Chamber isn’t quite that popular, but the odd tales surrounding it have guaranteed it a perpetual spot in tourism guides.

  That’s not to say that scholars and others haven’t attempted to debunk the legends over the years. A local surgeon made the mistake of taking too close of a look at several of the bones on display in 1835. He determined that many of them belonged to men, children, and even one or two mastiffs. The citizens of Cologne were outraged and, reportedly, he had to hightail it out of town. As the old saying goes, when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

  DÉJÀ VIEW: PEOPLE MAGAZINE’S MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD

  1990: Michelle Pfeiffer

  1991: Julia Roberts

  1999: Michelle Pfeiffer (again)

  2000: Julia Roberts (again)

  2004: Jennifer Aniston

  2005: Julia Roberts (once more)

  2010: Julia Roberts (for a fourth time)

  2016: Jennifer Aniston (again)

  2017: Julia Roberts (the fifth time)

  …Buzz Aldrin became the first man to pee on the Moon. (He relieved himself into a special bag in his space suit.)

  BY THE NUMBERS QUIZ

  We took a bunch of famous lists and groups…and left out one of the things. Can you remember what’s missing? Answers are on page 501.

  The first five American presidents are considered the nation’s “Founding Fathers” for their role in creating it. Who’d we leave off the list?

  James Monroe, George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson

  These are the “seven deadly sins”—things you must never do. Okay, six deadly sins. Which one did we forget?

  Pride, wrath, gluttony, lust, greed, envy

  Up until 1967, the National Hockey League consisted of just six teams. Which of the “Original Six” isn’t listed here?

  Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs

  The English language is made up of eight “parts of speech.” Which one isn’t here?

  Interjection, preposition, conjunction, adjective, adverb, verb, noun

  There are four major entertainment awards in the United States. Which one got left out?

  Oscar, Emmy, Tony

  Living things on Earth are categorized into seven increasingly specific kinds of taxonomic classifications. Can you remember which one’s not listed here?

  Kingdom, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species

  Five nations have permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. Who’s not named?

  China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom

  The Magnificent Seven is a classic Western released in 1960. It starred seven top action heroes of the era. Which cast member did we forget to mention?

  Yul Brynner, Charles Bron
son, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter, James Coburn, Horst Buchholz

  When old books and sailors referred to “the Seven Seas,” they meant these six oceans…and what other one?

  Arctic Ocean, Indian Ocean, North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean

  Which book of the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Bible, did we leave off the list?

  Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Genesis

  Exactly seven months have 31 days. Which one isn’t here?

  October, January, May, December, March, July

  There are five freshwater Great Lakes in the upper Midwestern U.S. and Canada. Which isn’t represented below?

  Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario, Lake Superior, Lake Erie

  In the 1990s, “the Three Tenors” thrilled audiences with their powerful operatic voices. We only named two here.

  Who’s the third?

  Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo

  There are 10 full-fledged provinces in Canada. Can you name the one we didn’t?

  Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Alberta, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, British Columbia, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick

  Centenarians are more likely to have been born in the fall. Why? One theory: Their mothers had…

  IT’S ABOUT LYME:

  CELEBRITY EDITION

  We told you about Lyme disease on page 389. Hundreds of thousands of people suffer from it, yet it gets a fraction of the press that other diseases do. That may be changing thanks to a slew of sick celebrities who are telling their stories about life in the “Lyme light.”

  George W. Bush: The former U.S. president contracted Lyme while he was in office, but fortunately he noticed the rash and was treated for the disease right away.

  Richard Gere: Another star that got over Lyme disease quickly because he caught it early, Gere missed only a month of filming a movie in 2000—Autumn in New York—to recover from an antibiotic regimen. But the experience, he says, will affect him for the rest of his life: “This is one scary disease. I felt as though every ounce of strength had gone from my body.”