The Origin of Everyday

Sunday

The wedding veil’s tradition goes back to ancient Greece and Rome, when the veil’s purpose was to confuse and discourage evil spirits that might otherwise ruin the festivities. Though their exact color is debated (red? yellow?), early veils were supposed to make the bride look like a candle flame. Veils have also symbolized reverence to God and were used in Victorian times to indicate the bride’s status by their fabric quality, weight and length. The lifting of the facial veil (which also can hide the face from evil spirits) has also indicated – in more patriarchal times – transfer of the bride’s ownership from father to husband, and in the case of arranged weddings, made sure the deed got done before the groom might show any disappointment at first seeing his bride’s face.

Monday

Proud modern brides might shudder at the historical significance of being walked down the aisle by their father. This tradition also hearkens back to when a bride was considered her father’s “property” until given to another man, sometimes also in payment of a debt, in exchange for other property, or to satisfy the dowry or bride price.

Tuesday

Opposed to kidnapping women into forced marriages? You should be, but the “best man” tradition originated to protect the groom against families coming for their abducted women. Although the disturbing practice of “marriage by capture” has gone on for centuries, it was among 16th Century Germanic Goths that this groomsman did the kidnapping, then stood by the groom, armed and ready, to fight off the bride’s relatives or keep her from running away. Fierce and capable, he was chosen as the “best man” for the job of abducting and defending. So if your wedding day drama only involves hurt feelings and not split skulls, consider yourself lucky. In centuries past, weapons were often stored in church floors for real wedding day family feuds.

Wednesday

Remember reminding your bridesmaids to confuse demons and bandits? Probably not, but that was part of their original purpose. These identically-dressed women were to confound would-be evil spirits, and also serve as decoys against any would-be thieves of the bride’s dowry. In some cases (and rather awesomely), the bridesmaids were also to protect against angry ex-boyfriends of the bride. Notably, the first mention of bridesmaids was from a Biblical three-way marriage between Jacob and sisters Rachel and Leah, where each woman brought a servant (bride’s maid) to their wedding.

Thursday

Plan to marry in the popular wedding month of June? This tradition started in part because people used to take their annual bath (yes, annual bath) in May.

Friday

Though the tradition of a wedding ring goes back to ancient Egypt, the wearing it on the left hand’s fourth finger also began in ancient Greece and Rome. This finger was believed to contain the “vena amoris” or “vein of love,” a vein which ran straight to the heart. Turns out that it doesn’t, but the convention firmly remains.

Saturday

The term “honeymoon” has roots both literal and cynical. Starting in the fifth century, a newlywed couple was given mead to drink during their first month (moon) of marriage. Mead is a honey-based alcoholic beverage reputed to be an aphrodisiac. Fast-forward eleven centuries, and “hony moone” appears in Old English, with “honey” representing the extreme tenderness and affection of newlyweds, but “moon” indicating the short-lived time before these excessive affections begin to wane.

Sunday

Enjoying those tasty nachos? You can thank the quick thinking of Ignacio “Nacho” Anaya Garcia. He was maitre’ d’ at a restaurant on the Mexican side of the Texas border in 1943 when a group of hungry American military wives came in from a nearby Air Force base. With no chefs to be found, Nacho improvised a snack by melting cheese on some tostados, popped a jalepeno on top, and served it to the delight of the ladies. Hence “Nacho’s especiales,” later shortened to just “nachos,” were born to huge success.

Monday

Ambrose Burnside was many notable things: A Rhode Island senator, a firearms manufacturer, a Civil War general, and a facial hair trailblazer. His style of sporting a clean-shaven chin and neck with bold, bushy whiskers down each cheek joined by a mustache became first known as “Burnside whiskers.” Later it was flipped and called “sideburns,” and we still use the term today for cheek whiskers, with or without mustache.

Tuesday

Dr. Franz Mesmer came up with the idea that he could cure people through their “animal magnetism,” which involved touching his patients with magnetized objects while looking into their eyes, the goal being to restore their internal “harmonious fluid flow.” This unique treatment was popular, though not exactly rooted in sound medical science (Benjamin Franklin, among others, was asked to investigate his methods). Nonetheless, many years after his death people started to use the term “mesmerize” as a synonym for hypnotize.

Wednesday

You’ve probably never looked at a cow and thought “What a maverick!” But you could have. The term came from the unbranded cows of 19th century Texan Samuel Maverick. Maverick claimed he didn’t want to hurt the animals by branding them, but some neighbors suspected this was just a trick to let him claim any unbranded cow he encountered as one of his. While this term can still describe an unbranded animal, we usually see it now applied to independent or unpredictable humans.

Thursday

Fragments flying outward from an explosion are called “shrapnel” after Henry Shrapnel, the British army officer and inventor. Shrapnel developed an artillery shell packed with smaller lead or metal fragments intended to travel a distance into enemy lines before exploding in midair and spraying the fragments at opposing troops.

Friday

The diesel engine is named for Rudolf Diesel, the German mechanical engineer and inventor who developed the more efficient combustion engine to compete with the steam engines of the day. His engine’s basic principles are still used in diesel engines to this day.

Saturday

Tupperware is named for Earl Tupper, who, in the 1940s, convinced his bosses at DuPont to sell him the company’s unused polyethylene slag. He converted that into a durable and flexible material for food storage and later developed the resealable lid. The product was not a great success until Tupper worked with saleswoman Brownie Wise, who had the products sold at home parties, usually by women who could move up through company ranks with exceptional sales.

Sunday

Something that sets a standard for quality or reliability in its field is often called the “gold standard.” For a much of money’s history before the 20^th century, currency was exchangeable for a fixed amount of gold set by the issuing government. For example, in 1834, the US government set the exchange rate of an ounce of gold at $20.67, where it remained for 99 years. Hence, “gold standard” came to convey a universal standard of measure. Money is no longer backed by precious metals, but is “fiat money,” only backed by the government that issued it.

Monday

The Golden Rule, simply stated as “Treat others as you would like them to treat you,” is a strikingly universal concept. It has been around in some variety since at least the 6^th century BC, and researchers report that the rule is “found in some form in almost every ethical religion,” and is “a concept that essentially no religion misses entirely.”

SOURCE: Pinker, Steven. The Better Angels of Our Nature, Why Violence Has Declined, New York, Penguin, 2011. (pg. 182)

Tuesday

Bling aside, pure gold is a remarkable substance. It is so dense that one ton can be packed into a cubic foot. It is the most malleable and ductile metal; gold has been pressed into a sheet two atoms thick (yes, atoms) and stretched into a one-atom wire without breaking. It conducts electricity and heat well. Plus, gold is rather immortal; it does not tarnish nor decompose in air, water, or even most strong acids and bases. This is why ocean treasure divers, tomb raiders, and other gold hunters can usually expect to find gold in good condition, regardless of its age.

Wednesday

The gold stored at Kentucky’s Fort Knox is a modern symbol of hyper-secure massive wealth, but there is one far larger store in the world. It is five stories below ground in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, where over a half million gold bars representing about 25% of the world’s known gold wealth are painstakingly guarded deep in the rock of southern Manhattan.

Thursday

An extremely valuable parson is sometimes said to be “worth their weight in gold.” However, in the metals world, at least two metals are typically more valuable than gold: rhodium and palladium.

Friday

In the US, the most famous “gold rush” began when when the shiny metal was discovered in 1848 in California’s Sacramento Valley. Over the next few years, approximately 300,000 people came from all around the world came to extract over 750,000 lbs. of gold from the land. The rush populated and developed the area, and it is why the San Fransisco NFL team is called the “49ers” (after the rush of 1849).

Saturday

“Golden handcuffs” or “velvet handcuffs” describe the good pay, vacation, retirement, or other benefits that may keep you at a job you might otherwise leave. If you’re a lucky executive, however, you may get a “golden parachute,” or a generous severance package when you’re let go from your company.

Sunday

“Make no bones about it,” meaning to speak frankly or accept a thing without objection, is an idiom which has origins in eating, with references back to the 15^th Century. Finding a bone in your soup or other food obviously slows the process of eating it, and without this hindrance you can eat it without problems.

Monday

“Got a bone to pick” with somebody? You probably have an issue to discuss or believe that they’ve wronged you. This idiom goes back to about the 16th Century and refers to a dog gnawing on, or picking clean, all meat from a bone.

Tuesday

If you did find a bone in your soup, however, you could throw this bone or some other table scrap to a begging dog to temporarily appease it. This is the origin of “throw (him/her) a bone.”

Wednesday

Despite common slang, the human male’s erection involves no bones, but is a purely hydraulic process driven by blood flow. Many other male mammals, however, achieve erections with a bone called a “baculum,” including gorillas, chimps, bears, wolves, and dogs.

Thursday

Despite their size, babies have about 94 more bones than their parents. This is because as babies grow, many of these little bones fuse together, such that they go from about 300 bones at birth to 206 as an adult.

Friday

Your “funny bone” isn’t a bone at all, but a nerve which runs from your neck to hand. It’s called the ulnar nerve, and in the elbow it particularly unshielded, surrounded only by fat and skin. This makes it vulnerable to impact and the pain, numbness and tingling your hand feels.

Saturday

Your tailbone, aka your coccyx, is one of a handful of vestigial structures on the human body, this one from when our prehistoric ancestors had tails.

Sunday

“SOS” is the international distress call, originally for ships, but does not stand for “save our souls / ship.” In fact, the letters don’t stand for any words, but the Morse code (3 dots, 3 dashes, 3 dots) to transmit the signal can be tapped out quickly and without pauses.

Monday

FBI = Federal Bureau of Investigation, though the letters also make up the Bureau’s motto of “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity.”

Tuesday

AM / PM = Ante Meridiem (Latin: before midday) and Post Meridiem (after midday).

Wednesday

EPCOT = Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. Founder Walt Disney imagined this not as a theme park, but an actual working city of people planning a better future.

Thursday

REI = Recreational Equipment, Inc.

Friday

IBM = International Business Machine

Saturday

GOP = Grand Old Party, used in the US to refer to the Republican party since the 1870s.