Author: Headlight

Sunday

If an authentic thing is said to pass an “acid test,” it is because real gold also had to pass one in the gold rush days. Gold’s non-reactivity to nitric acid distinguished it from lookalike iron pyrite, aka “fool’s gold.”

Monday

“The proof is in the pudding” derives from “the proof of the pudding,” a shortened “the proof of the pudding is in the eating.” This expression just meant you have to try food to learn whether its good. When the term began, however, “pudding” was a dish made of animal intestines stuffed with meat and other foods.

Tuesday

“Bona fide” also conveys that something is authentic, and is Latin for “in good faith.”

Wednesday

There many possible origins of the term “The Real McCoy,” which indicates an authentic. It could have first referred to the automatic train engine oiling system patented by inventor Elijah McCoy in 1872, as opposed to an inferior knock-off device. It could be a mispronunciation of the advertising slogan “A drappie (drop) o’ the Real MacKay” used in 1856 by the G. MacKay and Co., Ltd. whiskey distillery. It could come from 1930s radio host George Brainwood McCoy, who would sign off by saying “This is Sergeant George (The Real) McCoy folding his microphone and silently stealing away.” A dispute over the rightful leader of the Scots Clan McCoy could also be the origin, and there are even more possibilities.

Thursday

Someone who is “dyed in the wool” is thoroughly attached to a position or belief. This term originates from the practice of dying wool when it is raw and before it is spun, meaning the color permeates the fiber itself and not just the surface, thereby lasting longer.

Friday

“On the level,” indicates an honest and fair person or transaction. This appears to be a Freemasonry-inspired term, since level surfaces and buildings are more solid and sound, a level is a mason’s tool, and, like with a “level playing field,” equality for all parties is implied.

Saturday

“Honest to goodness,” the description of something simple and genuine, is a variation of “honest to God,” the last word’s swap being a safety against blasphemy.

Sunday

7-Up first arrived in 1929 with the less catchy name of “Bib Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda.” A mouthful, but note the third word; the drink contained the mood enhancer lithium until it was federally banned from beer and soft drinks in 1948. Coincidentally, the drink appeared just weeks before the The Great Depression began in the US, when most people needed all the mood lightener they could get.

Monday

Heroin was developed by drug giant Bayer in 1895 as a painkiller and cough suppressant, was promoted as safer than morphine, and was even recommended for children. The name derives from “heroisch,” German for “heroic,” but the company quit selling the syrup 15 years later when its addictive properties had become obvious.

Tuesday

From 1886 until 1903, Coca-Cola indeed contained real cocaine, and the “Cola” part is from the kola nut, the extract of which supplied caffeine in the first recipe. The original drink was promoted as a type of faux wine in response to a short-lived 1886 alcohol ban in Atlanta, where the company is still headquartered.

Wednesday

While they eschewed cocaine, opium, and morphine, Nazi soldiers fueled many of their battles with pills of a methamphetamine-based drug known as Pervitin, developed in 1937 by German chemist Fritz Hauschild. Also known as “pilot’s salt” and “tank chocolate,” Hitler himself was given frequent injections of this early crystal meth, though Allies’ tests with the drug were stopped when the side effects were judged as too severe.

Thursday

Before federal statutory bans and enforcement of the 20th century, medical and recreational opium use was common in the US. It was used to treat wounded soldiers in the Revolutionary War and Civil War in the form of powders and solutions, and Asian immigrants brought with them the practice of smoking it. A very common medicine of the time was laudanum, which was opium dissolved in alcohol. Unfortunately, this wide-scale use led to an opioid epidemic which predated the current one by well over a century.

Friday

Cocaine used to be common to numb the mouth for otherwise-painful dental procedures, and was sold as droplets and chewables. Modern dentists use novocaine (novo = new, and the last part of cocaine), but this chemically-different anesthetic works without the addiction risk of the original. Also note that several other modern anesthetics use the -caine ending, such as lidocaine (aka xylocaine) and benzocaine.

Saturday

While now more known for psychoactive effects, marijuana was historically grown for the production of paper, rope, sails, canvas, and clothing from the hemp fiber. The Mayflower sailed with hemp in its sails and caulk, British colonies were ordered to grow it, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson raised it and encouraged others to. In fact, the US government accepted tax payments in hemp, and Virginia farmers were legally required to grow it. There was more government-encouraged hemp growing during WWII’s “Hemp for Victory” program, but the plant was largely discouraged and prohibited in the US until more recent legalization efforts. While all the same plant, the sticking point is often THC content, the chemical that gets you high. Legally, hemp must by bred to have less than 0.3% of this by dry weight to avoid the more stringent regulations applied to hemp which can produce psychoactive effects.

Sunday

Glass is basically melted sand. Modern commercial glass recipes have some other things thrown in, including recycled glass, but it starts with sand, which is mostly silicon dioxide.

Monday

Steel is basically iron with a hint of carbon. To get the properties which give steel its advantages over iron, though, the carbon must be added in just the right amount and conditions.

Tuesday

Concrete is basically a mixture of rocks, cement, air, and water. Cement, in turn, is a mixture of lime, silica, alumina, and gypsum, almost all from natural sources like limestone, chalk, coral and shell deposits.

Wednesday

Plastics typically come from oil. Oil is packed with carbon, the basic building block of the polymers in plastic, and the great varieties of plastic types which can be synthesized. However, because plastics don’t react chemically with most substances, they also do not decompose or decay easily, causing environmental problems.

Thursday

Asphalt is combination of a little “asphalt cement,” (a viscous petroleum tar-like substance which binds together the aggregate) and gravel aggregate. This slurry is then usually flattened smooth, as for roads.

Friday

Traditionally, bricks are wet clay from the ground heated and dried in a hot kiln. Modern bricks can have different ingredients depending on their purpose, and may contain sand, lime, concrete, aluminum oxide, and fly ash (a coal burning by-product).

Saturday

Plaster is typically made from lime or gypsum with sand and water, and it has been used in building and sculpting since antiquity.

Sunday

Raise your glass for a toast, which is named for…toast. Long ago, spiced and charred bread was put in the shared drink before speeches of praise or congratulations were said, and the bread made the often-bitter wine more palatable. The celebrated person might then eat the wine-soaked bread, and was then called “the toast of the town.”

Monday

Wine and beer are very old drinks, indeed. The earliest confirmed alcoholic drink of any kind was brewed about 9,000 years ago in China, and solid evidence of beer production goes back 5,000 years in Mesopotamia. There is evidence of wine production as far back as 7,400 years ago found in jars in modern-day Iran.

Tuesday

Referring to people as “dregs,” such as in the “dregs of society,” is a pejorative term that likens them to the useless solid residue which settles to the bottom of many drinks, like coffee and wine. However, the ancient Greeks made great use of these “useless” solids with a lively and challenging drinking game called “kottabos” in which wine dregs were launched at bronze or clay targets.

Wednesday

The practice of labeling hard alcohol content by “proof” arose from a crude Middle Ages test for taxation. Higher-alcohol drinks were taxed more in England, so a drink’s potency was tested by soaking a gunpowder pellet with the booze to see if it was strong enough to then ignite. If it proved to be so by burning, it was called a “proof spirit” and taxed more. Fortunately, alcohol content measurements are more standardized and accurate nowadays, but the name remains.

Thursday

Bourbon is named for the street, not vice versa. Early New Orleans whiskey sellers, aware of the town’s large French population, put the stuff in oak barrels so the taste would remind residents of congac, aka “French brandy.” “That whiskey they sell on Bourbon Street” eventually became called “bourbon whiskey.” Bourbon Street itself was named for the French royal family in power when the city planner plotted and named the streets in 1721. But despite the European name origins, authentic bourbon must, by definition, be made in the US.

Friday

Another spirit native to North America is tequila, though the drink predates bourbon by centuries. However, authentic tequila must come from Mexico, since the Mexican government declared the drink its intellectual property in 1974.

Saturday

The name “brandy” comes from “brandewijn,” meaning “burnt wine” in Dutch. A 16th Century wine-shipping Dutchman realized he could save a lot of cargo space by evaporating water from the wine before shipping and adding it back at his destination. The fruit wine concentrate he delivered became known as bradewijn.

Sunday

“Champing at the bit,” often mispronounced as “chomping” (champing means to grind or chew) refers to a racehorse impatiently chewing the metal bit in his mouth as he eagerly waits to start his race.

Monday

A trained eye can gauge the age of a horse by its teeth, so the saying “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth” reminds those who receive gifts not to over-scrutinize them and seem ungrateful.

Tuesday

In politics and other fields, a “dark horse” candidate is comparatively unknown. The term began in 17^th century horse racing and applied to little-known and hard-to-put-odds-on horses which were entered into races.

Wednesday

Who is this horse named Charley and why is your cramp named for him? At one time, “Charley” was a name for lamed racehorses. Many of these animals, however, got a second career dragging the dirt smooth at baseball games. According to one common origin story, players whose muscles cramped during play were compared to the limping equines, that is, the “Charley horses” and, by some accounts, it was one Charley in particular that worked for the Chicago White Sox.

Thursday

Royalty, noblemen, and knights historically rode on tall horses, looking down on common people both figuratively and literally. Hence, telling someone to get of their high horse reminds them to stop acting superior.

Friday

Needless to say, beating (or flogging) a dead horse won’t get you more effort from the animal. However, there seem to be some surprisingly nautical connections for this idiom, too. British sailors were historically paid in advance, but often spent the money quickly, sometimes before their ship even left port. They got no more pay until the already-blown advance was worked off, or until “the dead horse was flogged.”

Saturday

Horse traders were famously shrewd in their dealings, so the term “horse trading” for exchange and negotiation in politics came about in the early 19th century.

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” went 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 stored in church floors for real wedding day family feuds.

Wednesday

Did you remind your bridesmaids to confound the demons and bandits? Probably not, but that was part of their original purpose. These identically-dressed women were to confuse would-be troublesome demons, 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 dates back to ancient Egypt, wearing it on the left hand’s fourth finger 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 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 this 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 metal. 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 stash. 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 person 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 you may have 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. It 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 is 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 leftover 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.