A range of astounding information is to be found in new book The Secret History of Everyday Stuff by Benedict Le Fay.
Whether it’s food and drink, household appliances, medicines, homes or transport, the answers will amaze you.
LIES AND WONDER
William Moulton Marston, who invented the lie detector test, also created Wonder Woman, the cartoon character who later became a TV icon.
PAINLESS AND STAINLESS
Harry Brearly was trying to make better rifle barrels in Sheffield in 1913 when he noticed his new mixture, with added chromium, didn’t rust. He’d accidentally created stainless steel with a host of peaceful uses.
BOXING CLEVER
There is no reason why DVD boxes need to be bigger than CD cases because the discs are the same size.
But because they replaced VHS videos, the boxes were made the same height so they could be displayed side by side with videos during the changeover.
STRINGING ALONG
Catgut, formerly widely used for stringing tennis racquets, never contained real cat guts. The material, also used for violin strings, hanging weights in grandfather clocks and suturing wounds, was made from sheep, goat, pig or donkey guts. The word was a shortening of cattle gut.
WINNIE THE BREW
Carlsberg Special Brew is a lager so strong it is ideal for those who want to get canned. But its origins are grander. It was created for Winston Churchill as Denmark’s thank you for Britain’s fight for freedom in the Second World War.
GOING ROUND THE BEND
A British expression for becoming insane. Few people recall its origin – that the huge 19th century lunatic asylums were built with a curve in their approach drives so the passing public were spared the sight of the inmates. So if you went round the bend, you had indeed gone mad.
END GAME
People commonly say there isn’t a word for the plastic cover on the end of a shoelace. There is. It’s an aglet.
UNDIE FIRE
One in 50,000 penguins is hatched with brown not black plumage. These are called Isabelline penguins. Lovely name? Er, no. It is a reference to Archduchess Isabella of Austria who vowed not to change her underwear until her husband united the northern and southern Low Countries by taking Ostend. It took him three years.
GROUT EXPECTATIONS
Grout, today used for the white gunge that goes between tiles, is the Anglo-Saxon word for a rough porridge, which it resembles.
HOLE IN THE WALL
The first modern ATM machine was launched by British comedian Reg Varney in Enfield, North London, in 1967 but it used coded strips of paper you had to buy in advance.
THAT’S JUST DENTAL
Flossing your teeth can prevent a heart attack. No one knows why.
CAST IRON ICON
The pillar box was invented by novelist Anthony Trollope. They are now viewed as a British icon, a literally cast iron assurance that your post was safe, the mouth that took all the milestones of your life before emails were invented.
WRONG NAME
Canada is a mistake – it means village in Iroquoian. When asked what the land was called by an explorer in 1534, the locals said this is our village.
CAULIFLOWER CREAK
Campers in Cornwall are sometimes kept awake by “cauliflower creak” – the noise the vegetables make at their peak growing season.
THE SLUSH FUND
The poor-quality meat, such as salted beef or cheap pork, which was boiled up in large tureens by cooks on ships, caused a fatty scum known as slush to float to the top. This was skimmed off and kept in a barrel. Ashore, the fatty slush was sold to make soap. The resulting slush fund was divided up among the crew.
THE WRIGHT STUFF
A Boeing 747-400 has six million parts, 147 miles of wiring and a wingspan about twice as long as the Wright Brothers’ first flight.
THE GIFT OF GUM
Wrigley, the chewing gum firm, originally made baking powder and started giving away free sticks of chewing gum with it. The customers preferred the gimmick to the original product and so a multi-million dollar global business was born.
SHOE SIZE
Where do those strange numbers originate? In Britain, shoe size is measured in barleycorns – a medieval unit which defines an inch as three barleycorns.
CHINESE FORTUNE COOKIES
Were not Chinese but Californian, created by local Chinese in the Gold Rush of 1849. When they were introduced into China in the 1990s they were sold as “Genuine American Fortune Cookies”.
GREAT KINGS
Each playing card king is said to show a great historic ruler. Spades - King David, Clubs - Alexander the Great, Hearts – Charlemagne, Diamonds – Caesar.
WHAT SOUND OF MUSIC?
When all-time hit musical The Sound of Music first arrived as a film in South Korea, one cinema owner found it too long for his programme.
So he shortened it by cutting out all the uninteresting (to him) musical scenes, keeping the story line about the escaping nun and family intact.
APT AFTERLIFE
Fredric John Baur, who designed the Pringles can for crisps, had his ashes buried in one in 2008.
AND FINALLY...
What creature did the worst damage to the atmosphere since the beginning of the Earth?
A man called Thomas Midgley Jnr. (1889-1944). The US chemist not only developed the lead additive to improve engine performance but also the first chlorofluorocarbon for refrigeration which he called Freon.
* The Secret History of Everyday Stuff by Benedict Le Vay is available on Amazon for £8.95 in paperback and £3.83 for Kindle.
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