The Origin of Everyday

Sunday

Globally, about 1.2% of live deliveries are twins. This number has increased dramatically in the last century, both due to improved fertility treatments, and because twins are more likely with older mothers, who are having more children these days.

Monday

Identical twins look alike because they have the same genetic info from a single fertilized egg which splits in two. Fraternal twins come from two eggs fertilized by two sperm, so genetically, they have no more in common than any other two siblings, despite arriving together. Fraternal twins are about twice as common as identical.

Tuesday

Global mythology is packed with twins, particularly Greek and Roman mythology. After all, it was twin brothers Remus and Romulus who founded Rome, and we still see the Greek twins Castor and Pollux in the night sky within the Gemini constellation.

Wednesday

Since people traveling near the speed of light experience time more slowly relative to the slower-moving, the “twins paradox” describes a situation where one twin leaves Earth to travel near the speed of light, to find upon returning that her twin has aged more than herself, despite both starting at exactly the same age. Because of their real-life space travels, twin NASA astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly are about 0.01 sec different in age.

Thursday

There is no genetic predisposition to having identical twins, since they come from an egg which splits randomly. However, fraternal twins come from multiple eggs, so women with a gene for hyperovulation, or releasing multiple eggs per cycle, are more likely to have fraternal twins. As such, fraternal twins can run in families.

Friday

The term “Siamese twins” originated with conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker, born in 1811 in Thailand (then known as Siam). After traveling with the circus and becoming known worldwide, they settled in the US, married sisters and became farmers who fathered 21 children between them.

Saturday

Some types of “twins” really aren’t. The term “Irish twins” refers to children born within 12 months of each other, and is a 19th century American idiom referring to Irish immigrant families who often had many children born very close together. The similar “Dutch twins” refers to to children born between 12 and 18 months of each other.

Sunday

In modern use, “cutting corners” means to skip some work or complete a task in a less honest or thorough way. Initially, the term meant to hurriedly drive your horsecart very close to a corner while rounding it, rather than taking a slightly longer right angle, although this tiny shortcut often meant hitting the curb and flipping the cart.

Monday

The idea of “the four corners of the Earth” representing all of Earth’s domains, especially the most remote, seems to originate in several Bible verses, with the “four corners” idea likely based on the four cardinal directions or possibly corners of a flat plane.

Tuesday

In contract law, the “Four Corners Rule” dictates that all terms of an agreement should be found within the document itself, particularly if those terms are clear and unambiguous. As such, outside evidence such as verbal or implied agreements between the parties should not be considered when enforcing the contract.

Wednesday

The “corner store” usually means a small convenience store where you can quickly find snacks or household essentials, whether or not it is actually on a street corner, where the name derived. Such stores are found around the world with a great variety of names, among them bodega, party store, deli, spa, package store, sari-sari, dep, packie, milk bar, pulperia, and mama shop.

Thursday

The corporate status symbol of the corner office began with the skyscraper boom of the late 19th century, but really solidified in the post-WWII years, when perimeter offices offered more privacy and natural light than the open, cubicled central areas, and none had more privacy and light than a corner office. However, corner offices and the status they convey have been declining in the Zoom era as they’re increasingly replaced by conference rooms and communal areas.

Thursday

The western United States has several famous corners, for reasons geographical and cultural. At the Four Corners Monument, you can have some body part in the states of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah simultaneously. In San Fransisco, the legendary corner of Haight and Ashbury Streets was the epicenter of 1967’s “Summer of Love” and much of the 1960s countercultural revolution, and Los Angeles’ intersection of Hollywood and Vine is home of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Capital Records Building (famously shaped like a stack of records) and many other buildings from the golden age of broadcast and film studios.

Friday

To “corner the market” means to control such a large amount of a commodity or stock that you can set the price for it and profit. While this illegal to do in stock trading, it is more loosely controlled (but regulated) in futures trading.

Saturday

To “turn the corner” means to be headed toward improvement. This idiom appears to have several possible origins, including medicine, when an ill patient passed a critical point and could start recovering, when a racehorse passed the final turn into the home stretch, and in the sense of an individual’s financial recovery.

Sunday

Tattoos are old. The oldest were found on Otzi the Iceman, who lived over 5,000 years ago. His well-preserved and well-tattooed body was found in a melting glacier in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Monday

Taken from the Tahitian word “tatau,” meaning to mark or strike the skin, Captain Cook introduced this word to English. Done over the course of days with a tapping hammer, the centuries-old art of traditional Polynesian tattoos he’d observed had earned respect, conveyed status, and showed genealogy on those who could afford and endure the ritual.

Tuesday

Modern electric tattoo needles can penetrate the skin up to 200 times per second while delivering ink, and the ideal depth is about 1.5 mm (about the thickness of an American nickel), where the skin’s dermis layer lives. Shallower, and the ink might fade or disappear in the ever-replacing epidermis layer. Deeper, and the ink will spread out in the subcutaneous fat layer, creating a pooled, blurred look known as a “blowout” in the trade.

Wednesday

Globally, women under age 50 are most likely to have at least one tattoo, and “honoring or remembering” something or someone is the most commonly cited reason for getting one. Tattoos are most common in Italy (47% of people) and least popular in India (3%).

Thursday

Early tattoos were overwhelmingly black because the “ink” was often just soot or charcoal mixed with water, so was readily available.

Friday

Historically, tattoos have also marked the prosecuted and persecuted. In ancient Greece and Rome, convicted criminals, slaves, and prisoners of war were tattooed, sometimes on their foreheads, and the Nazis infamously tattooed identifying numbers onto concentration camp prisoners.

Saturday

Laser tattoo removal is a very modern process that uses lasers to superheat tattoo ink, causing those ink molecules to break apart. The much smaller remaining molecules are naturally absorbed and flushed out by the body.

Sunday

Steam was original motive power of the Industrial Revolution. Before that, industry was limited to the less controlable forces of wind and flowing water to drive machinery. Steam remained industry’s driving force until it was replaced by more efficient combustion and electric engines.

Monday

Unsurprisingly, the command “full steam ahead” came from the steam-powered era, and was an order to bring a ship’s boiler to maximum pressure and hence the boat’s maximum speed. It was first used in the US Civil War’s Battle of Mobile Bay.

Tuesday

“Blow off steam” and “let off steam” both mean to release strong emotions, and also come from the steam power era, when reducing steam pressure from an engine’s boiler reduced the risk of a rupture or explosion.

Wednesday

Though essential to early industry, steam-making boilers on land and sea were extremely dangerous, particularly before standardized practices for their manufacture, maintenance, and inspection. When 3 boilers exploded on the American riverboat Sultana in 1865, over 1,600 people died, more than on the Titanic. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a boiler was exploding nearly every day somewhere in the world, killing thousands of people each decade.

Thursday

Dietitians favor cooking food by steaming. Unlike many other cooking methods which cause some loss of the food’s vitamins – particularly vitamin C – steamed food retains most of those vitamins.

Friday

The “steampunk” literary genre is a form of retrofuturism, often involving modern technology powered by steam, thus existing in an era before it actually did, with Victorian fashions to match.

Saturday

Clean, well-maintained steam rooms have been found to have several health benefits, including improved circulation, cardiovascular health, and skin health, while reducing stress, inflammation, and congestion.

Sunday

Onions are old. Current evidence suggests they’ve been grown by humans for at least 7,000 years and are among the oldest known cultivated vegetables.

Monday

Onions make you cry because of a sulfur-based compound called syn-propanethial-S-oxide. That chemical is the final product of a chain reaction which starts when the bulb is cut or bitten into, and is thought to have evolved as a deterrent against hungry animals.

Tuesday

Ancient Egyptians worshipped onions, seeing eternal life within the continuous layers and circle-in-circle structure. Onions were placed on altars, pictured with pharaohs and priests, mentioned in funeral rites, and buried with mummies.

Wednesday

Onions come from an accomplished culinary family. Close relatives in the allium genus include chives, garlic, leeks, scallions, and shallots.

Thursday

Believed to be a source of courage and later a known antiseptic, onions have played a role in military campaigns. Alexander the Great fed them to his army in quantity, believing they brought vitality, and during the US Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant told federal authorities: “I will not move my army without onions!” He was answered with 3 traincars full of onions.

Friday

Onion layers are actually modified leaves sometimes called “scale leaves.” During growth, these leaves surrounding the onion’s center bulb become more nutrient-dense and succulent. As the nutrients are used up in the outer layers, these become the papery onion skin. The number of layers can depend on water and nutrient availability.

Saturday

Among natural varieties, an onion’s tearjerking power generally ranks with yellow onions at the top, then red, then white, then sweet. However, varieties like the “sunion” have been meticulously bred to be tasty yet tearless.

Sunday

“Audio” means “I hear.”

Monday

“Aurora Borealis” AKA the Northern Lights, means “Northern dawn.”

Tuesday

“Aqua vitae,” that potent boozy drink made from fermented fruit or wine, means “water of life.”

Wednesday

“Inter alia” means “among other things.”

Thursday

“Pro rata” means “in proportion.”

Friday

“Effigy” means “likeness.”

Saturday

“Pro tempore” means “for the time being” or “for now.”

Sunday

All tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises. Tortoises are land creatures with legs made for walking, but non-tortoise turtles are water-dwellers with swimming legs (that can do some clumsy walking when needed).

Monday

You will never meet a person born in 1832, but you can meet a tortoise who likely was. Johnathan, a 194-year old giant tortoise, lives in the British territory of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, and was already an adult when given to Governor William Grey-Wilson in 1882. Twenty-eight governors later, Johnathan is still there, retaining his title as the longest-living land animal known to science.

Tuesday

Turtle shells are made up of over 50 bones and are so unique in nature that their evolution caused debate for centuries. However, more recent discoveries of “missing link” specimens show the gradual evolution of ribs and vertebrae to become longer and thicker until they became shells. One early turtle species only had a shell on the underside, suggesting these evolved before the top shell. Notably, another extinct turtle looked similar to modern turtles but was enormous; 14 feet long with a head that was a meter just by itself.

Wednesday

It’s fair to say turtles have a rough childhood. Only about 1 in 1,000 hatchlings survive to adulthood. Sea turtles which are born in nests in beach sand often must contend with seabirds, crabs, ants, raccoons, and predatory fish, often in just the few minutes between hatching and clumsily crawling into the waves.

Thursday

Turtles can’t leave their shells, and it can protect them to different degrees. Sea turtles cannot pull their head and limbs into their shells at all, while land turtles generally can. “Hinged-shell turtles,” including the common musk turtle and eastern box turtle, can actually seal themselves inside their shells for maximum protection.

Friday

Turtles may not be among nature’s famous hibernating animals, but they do a cold-blooded version called “brumation” during the winter months. They bury themselves in soil, move very little, slow their metabolism and live off of stored fat through the winter months.

Saturday

Aesop’s famous fable “The Tortoise and the Hare,” in which the slow and steady tortoise finishes the race before the faster-yet-easily-distracted hare has been recreated several times in recent history, and the tortoise continues to win!

Sunday

“Avant garde” or the derivation “vanguard” means “advance guard” referring to the first attackers in a military, but in common usage means a person or group at the forefront of art, fashion, or a particular movement.

Monday

“Faux pas” means “false step” and refers to a social blunder.

Tuesday

“Laissez faire” means “allow to do” and refers to a hands-off, unregulated approach to business, government, parenting, or any other endeavor which usually involves oversight.

Wednesday

“Cliché” began as a term for a metal printing plate used in a mass printing press, much like the English word “stereotype,” but which came to represent something familiar, common, and overused.

Thursday

“Hor d’oeuvre” means “outside of work” or “outside the main course” because it is an appetizer. It began as an architectural term for a small building on the outside of the main structure, like a gazebo.

Friday

“Au pair” means “on par” or “equal to”, referring to the equivalent status these caretakers should ideally feel with other family members.

Saturday

“Potpourri” means “rotten pot” and now refers to dried flowers and spices mixed together to smell good, but originally referred to a Spanish dish of various meats stewed together.

Sunday

The word “bus” is short for “omnibus,” which means “for everyone.”

Monday

The first public bus system began in the 1660s with horse-drawn carts in France, but was only available to nobility, so was-short lived. France again started a public bus system in the 1820s, and it was quickly followed by several US cities.

Tuesday

The growth of the school buses in the US was spurred by compulsory school attendance laws, since students needed a reliable way to get to their mandatory education. They were called “kid hacks” or “school wagons”.

Wednesday

Buses played a big role in the US Civil Rights movement. When the US Supreme Court found racial segregation in schools illegal, buses were used to transport students to now-desegragated schools. Rosa Parks famously spurred a boycott which forced desegregation on buses in Montgomery, Alabama, and “Freedom Riders” later rode buses to spotlight where segregation of interstate bus travel was still maintained.

Thursday

In the US, school buses replace about 17.3 million cars that would be needed for equivalent capacity, and buses are designed to be about 70 times safer for passengers than car travel.

Friday

The worlds longest bus route crosses about 3,920 miles across South America from the Pacific to the Atlantic from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to Lima, Peru. This five-day cross-continental route is operated by the company Transacreana.

Saturday

There is more than one way to pay for a bus (or train) ride. Worldwide, the most popular is a flat fare paid on entry or a distance-based fare paid when you leave the bus.

Sunday

Dams are old. History’s oldest known dam, the Jawa Dam in present-day Jordan, was built about 2,400 years ago. The oldest known still-operational dam is the Lake Homs Dam (AKA Quatinah Barrage), built between 1319 and 1304 BC. Remarkably, it is one of many still-working dams, mostly in Spain, Japan, and India, now nearly 2 millennia old.

Monday

China boasts both the largest and most dams on Earth, over double that of #2 United States. Fully 45% of all the world’s dams are in China.

Tuesday

Massive government-built hydroelectric dams may dominate headlines and imagination, but about half of all dams worldwide are for irrigation projects. Hydroelectric dams are a distant second at about 17%. Also, the large majority of dams are privately owned, at least in the United States.

Wednesday

Dams occasionally collapse, sometimes with tragic consequences. The worst dam breaches have killed thousands, with one especially horrific 1975 collapse in China killing an estimated 171,000 and causing history’s third largest flood. However, the structure itself is not always to blame. Often the surrounding rock in which the dam is anchored simply cannot bear such extraordinary water pressure and gives way.

Thursday

Dams, dikes, and levees all restrain water, but aren’t the same. Dikes are wet on one side and “reclaim” land, keeping water off of land which would otherwise be underwater. A levee is also meant to be wet on just one side, but is more of a flood control device than one to reclaim wet land. Dams have water on both sides, but often with a much higher level on one side than the other.

Friday

Besides humans, only beavers build dams. With their felled-tree dam and “lodge” homes, they get a cozy, insulated, two-chamber, two-exit fortress against predators and also create a pond for still water, perfect for storing food in the unfrozen water at the bottom during winter months.

Saturday

There are four basic types of dams. Embankment dams and gravity dams, built of earth and rock vs. concrete, respectively, rely on the structure’s weight to restrain the water. Buttress dams are reinforced with separate downstream supports. Arch dams are curved and comparatively thin, as they transmit the weight of the water to surrounding rock walls.