Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (15 page)

“Something”:
John Lennon and Paul McCartney controlled the Beatles’ output—George Harrison wrote lots of songs with the group, but this was his only composition with the Beatles that was ever released as a single. It went to #1.

“I Want to Hold Your Hand”:
The crowds of screaming girls during live performances were so loud that neither they nor the band could really hear the lyrics. So, when performing this song, Lennon would sing “I want to hold your gland,” meaning a breast.

“Strawberry Fields Forever”:
When John Lennon was a boy in Liverpool, he liked to play in a garden called Strawberry Field on the grounds of a Salvation Army house. His Aunt Mimi didn’t want him playing there, though, because he was technically trespassing. She often warned him, “It’s nothing to get hung about.”

“I Saw Her Standing There”:
Rights-holders wouldn’t allow Beatles songs to be used on
American Idol
until the series’ sixth season, but now a “Beatles week” is an annual feature. The first Fab Four song, performed on the 2007 finale, was “I Saw Her Standing There,” sung as a duet by Jordin Sparks and Blake Lewis.

“I Am the Walrus”:
Some of the lyrics to this psychedelic song seem to be nonsensical—who is “the eggman,” for instance? Eric Burdon of the Animals claims that it’s him. Burdon says that Lennon nicknamed him “Eggman” after he told Lennon about an intimate encounter he’d once had that involved an egg.

All toads have poison glands.

SYMBOL ORIGINS

They’re on flags, packages, street signs, trash cans, and even bathroom doors. Where did they come from?

Meaning:
Biohazard
Story:
In 1966 Dow Chemical engineer Charles Baldwin was developing medical-hazard containers for the National Institutes of Health’s cancer division. Scientists at all of the different medical facilities he visited dealt with dozens of biological hazards, such as used needles, viruses, and blood, urine, and stool samples. There was no one universal way of telling at a glance which substances were especially dangerous (or “biohazardous”). With the help of the Dow package-design team, Baldwin developed several “warning” symbols—all bold, universal, and easy to recognize. Market research meetings were held, and participants were presented with the different designs. But the one most remembered was a “blaze orange” circular symbol with sharp points. Today it’s one of the world’s most recognizable symbols. Even people who don’t know what “biohazard” means quickly grasp that it’s saying “beware.”

Meaning:
Islam
Story:
Non-Muslims strongly associate the “star and crescent” with Islam. But Islam doesn’t officially recognize it, and it didn’t even start out as a Muslim symbol. Around 342 B.C. Philip of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father) was laying siege to Perinthus, a city in Byzantium. According to legend, after months of direct attacks, the Macedonians had decided to tunnel under the city walls when a meteor suddenly ripped through the sky. The omen terrified them, and they retreated. The meteor and the crescent moon—the symbol of the Byzantines’ protector god, Hecate the Torch Bearer—became the symbols of the city of Byzantium (now Istanbul). The Ottoman Turks, who conquered the city in the 14th century, put the symbol on their flags. After the Turks adopted Islam, the symbol came to be associated with the religion as well.

Longest English word with alternating consonants and vowels: Honorificabilitudinitatibus.

Meaning:
Life
Story:
The
ankh
is an ancient Egyptian symbol that was adopted by other ancient cultures too. There are many theories on how this shape came to be associated with the idea of “life”: a mirror used for self-contemplation, a phallic symbol, or a double-bladed axe representing life and death, for example. A recent theory by bio-Egyptologists Andrew Gordon and Calvin Schwabe suggests that the ankh is a representation of a bull’s thoracic vertebra, which, when viewed in cross-section, does look like an ankh. The bone sits between the bull’s shoulders, just above the forelimbs, which Egyptians believed held the animal’s vital life-force.

Meaning:
Male and female
Story:
The conventional explanation is that the “male” symbol represents the shield and spear of the ancient Roman god Mars, a symbol of masculinity, and the “female” symbol is the mirror held by Venus, an icon of femininity. But taxonomist William Stearn says those symbols are actually corruptions of the ancient Greek letters used to spell out the names of those Roman gods. The Greek name for Mars was Thouros, which starts with the letter
theta
, or Θ. Venus was called Phosphoros, which starts with the letter
phi
, or Φ. Stearn claims that over time Greek writers shortened the words Thorous and Phosphoros into just theta and phi, which evolved into the symbols we’re familiar with today.

Meaning:
Poison
Story:
The Pittsburgh Poison Control Center created this symbol in 1971 to coincide with the introduction of their 24-hour accidental-poisoning hotline. It was designed to replace the common skull-and-crossbones symbol on poisonous materials because children equated that one with pirates, adventure, and fun, instead of danger. Among the symbols tested, children responded most negatively to a neon green, grimacing face with a protruding tongue that looks like it just swallowed something horrible. One child called it “yucky,” leading to the name Mr. Yuk. Regional poison control centers around the United States distribute over 40 million black-and-green ‘Mr. Yuk’ stickers every year.

Rough start: There were 12 honeymooning couples aboard the
Titanic
.

COOKIE CRUMBS

Trivia bits about cookies (or
bisoketto
, if you’re Japanese)
.

• “Cookie” comes from the Dutch word
koekje
, meaning “small cake.” They’re called
biscuits
in England,
galletas
in Spain, and
keks
in Germany.

• Cookies probably originated in 7th-century Persia, the first culture to cultivate sugar.

• Best-selling cookie in the United States: Oreos for three out of four quarters of the year...but in the first quarter, Girl Scout Cookies are #1. (For each $4 box of cookies a Scout troop sells, they receive about 50 cents.)

• Fig Newtons were created in the 1890s as a digestion aid. Medical “wisdom” held that many health problems were caused by poor digestion, and that fruit and bland bread could help.

• In Uruguay, Chips Ahoy! are called Pepitos!

• Flop Fig Newton flavors from the 1980s: grape, cherry, blueberry, and apple.

• The “creme filling” in Oreos is primarily high fructose corn syrup and vegetable oil.

• In the late 1800s, American cookbook writers considered cookies a lowly cousin of the more important cake, and generally included only a few cookie recipes, with odd names such as kinkawoodles, graham jakes, tangle breeches, and jolly boys. The only one that’s lasted: snickerdoodle.

• Product placement? According to the cartoon “Mickey’s Surprise Party” (1939), Mickey Mouse’s favorite cookie is the Fig Newton.

• Today you can buy Baskin-Robbins ice cream and Starbucks coffee in grocery stores. The first “restaurant-branded” item on supermarket shelves: Famous Amos, which expanded from chain stores to packaged cookies in 1980.

• June 23 is National Pecan Sandies Day.

• Shortbread cookies are believed to have originated in Scotland. That’s how Lorna Doone shortbreads got their name—she’s the Scottish heroine of an 1869 novel by British author R.D. Blackmore.

Landlocked Liechtenstein and Uzbekistan are both surrounded by other landlocked countries.

TWEET BEAT

Police work isn’t what it appears to be on TV. To prove it, in 2010 the Manchester (U.K.) police posted to Twitter every call they received over a 24-hour period, no matter how ridiculous it was. Here’s a sampling
.

“Man shouts ‘you’re gorgeous’ to woman.”

“Piece of wood on road.”

“Concern for the welfare of a relative living in Tunisia.”

“Man says he’s locked out of house. Wants police to break in for him.”

“Confused man reporting his TV not working.”

“Reports of four-foot doll or robot on Princess Parkway. Officers investigated but nothing there.”

“Caller wants advice on where 16-year-old daughter can stay while the caller is on holiday.”

“Woman reports her horse refuses to come back over bridge.”

“Youths playing football outside house.”

“Dead cat found.”

“Rat in the house. Caller thinks her cat may be responsible.”

“Report of man holding baby over bridge. Police immediately attended but it was man carrying dog that doesn’t like bridges.”

“A drunk woman asking for police officers to call her back.”