071 Button Trivia

Bob Smith 0:00
What made your university can trace its origins to the Telegraph?

Marcia Smith 0:05
Why is a self employed professional called a freelancer? answers

Bob Smith 0:11
to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith?

Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy. Take a side road to sanity and enjoy some fun with trivia. So, welcome to button trivia. We only have two button questions, but we’ve got some interesting trivia beyond just

Marcia Smith 0:49
been asked to the other person. We both had it we do that often, don’t we? Yeah. Similar quest

Bob Smith 0:55
pair notes. Right before we go on. It’s like, oh, I got a button question. Okay, good. All right. Well, we’ll get to those a little later. But first, what major university can trace its origins to the Telegraph. We have all these universities that have been, you know, born over the years, and some of them came from fortunes that were from specific businesses. This is one I didn’t know had anything to do with the telegraph.

Marcia Smith 1:19
Well, then I don’t either, Bob. I have no idea. Well, just think of some university names. Well, I am there’s Harvard and Yale and Columbia and Cornell. You did it. You said it Cornell Cornell

Bob Smith 1:30
University. Founded by Ezra Cornell in Ithaca. He was instrumental in the success of Samuel Morse, his telegraph. Did you know that? No, I didn’t. I didn’t either. Because he came up with something that helped the first telegraph lines, they were not hanging overhead. The first telegraph lines were buried in the ground in lead pipes. That’s how they thought they would lay the network would be underground. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. So he sold plows, he invented a special plow that would dig a ditch two feet six inches deep, lay the pipe, lay the pipe and the telegraph wire in the ditch and then cover it up as it went, when it was discovered that pipe moisture and poor insulation was shorting out wires. Then he invented a way to string the telegraph wires from tall wooden poles. So he was there to help it every step of the way, with the telegraph, how they were going to do this because this was before electrical lines or anything else. So he came up with the idea of stringing wires from pole to pole. That was his idea. And he even invented the glass insulators used to this day to connect wires together on telephone.

Marcia Smith 2:32
And then he made a fortune from that he made a fortune University. He

Bob Smith 2:36
founded Western Union after that, and he founded Cornell University, which he endowed with his investments in federal land. It’s

Marcia Smith 2:42
good to be endowed. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 2:45
I thought that was interesting. It is

Marcia Smith 2:47
speaking of interesting, you and I have both been freelancers in our life and still are sometimes. So Bob, why is a self employed professional called a freelancer?

Bob Smith 2:59
Well, my understanding is it goes back to those medieval days the knights who were dharna they were mercenaries they were freelancers so they you could hire them to come and fight your battles. Yes,

Marcia Smith 3:09
I found that fascinating, but you knew damn well.

Bob Smith 3:14
Wow, that’s pretty strong Marsh to me.

Marcia Smith 3:18
Oh, no, that’s who it’s from that monkey movie. That was the guy said that. You know, oh,

Bob Smith 3:26
Charlton Heston Planet of the Apes. Yeah, mute. Hell yeah.

Marcia Smith 3:30
When he saw the Statue of Liberty. That’s right. It was quoting Charlton Heston, Charlton Heston.

Bob Smith 3:35
Okay. All right, thank you. I’m glad to know that because I thought Well, that’s pretty strong. Oh, it

Marcia Smith 3:40
was but I found that interesting. And the word freelance came out of the period between the 14th and 16th centuries, when mercenary knights with no particular allegiance and they take their Lance’s into battle for the prince or state that paid the most money. They were referred to as freelancers by authors in the 19th century. Oh, so back

Bob Smith 4:03
then they didn’t call themselves that was 19th century invention. Yeah, call these mercenaries Freelancer

Marcia Smith 4:09
in their literary works, okay? And they operated much like the gunfighters in the American West like Paladin, yeah. Oh, yes.

Bob Smith 4:18
Yes. Have Gun Will Travel. Yeah.

Marcia Smith 4:20
And of course now a freelancer is anyone who works independently and is probably poor.

Bob Smith 4:27
Well, that is true. And I always I knew that. But I always liked the lens thinking the Lance was my pen when I was a freelance writer.

Marcia Smith 4:34
Oh, okay. So I looked at Yeah, I didn’t know that. And I found that very interesting.

Bob Smith 4:39
Well, here’s another expression Marcia, I want you to tell me the answer to this. This comes from the musical we both liked Oklahoma. The corn is as high as an elephant’s I remember that line, of course. Okay. How high is that? 13 feet 13 feet tall. Let’s be that where the eye is? Ya know? Oh, wow. All right, let’s go back here. What is how tall does corn actually grow? But the full grown corn

Marcia Smith 5:07
Oh wow. Average five,

Bob Smith 5:09
six feet seven feet. Okay seven feet is where full grown corn usually stops but the Bronx Zoo says the average elephant shoulder is seven feet, eight and a half inches high. So an elephant’s eye is well above seven feet eight, it’s probably about eight feet high. So the corner will not be as high as an elephant’s eye. Just so you know.

Marcia Smith 5:33
You’re the kid in the front row. Aren’t you with his hand up in the air? Throw spitballs at people like okay, here’s

Bob Smith 5:41
what I got another one. Oh, God, slow as a snail’s pace. How slow is a snail’s pace?

Marcia Smith 5:47
Okay, we’re talking. mph. We’re

Bob Smith 5:49
talking about inches per hour. How far does this nail go?

Marcia Smith 5:54
I’ll say four inches per hour. Yeah.

Bob Smith 5:57
Wow. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, a snail’s pace varies from 23 inches an hour to 198 inches.

Unknown Speaker 6:07
Wow. Well, they’re pretty frisky 23 inches

Bob Smith 6:10
an hour to 190 I would have guessed all that. Even so at that rate, it’s a long way to Tipperary.

Marcia Smith 6:18
Where is Tipperary? Bob? Yeah.

Bob Smith 6:21
Next question, Mark.

Marcia Smith 6:22
Okay. Well, let’s do a little sports question here, Bob. This woman is a three time winner of the Laureus World Sports award for sports Woman of the Year three times she How do

Speaker 1 6:35
you spell Laureus, L A U R E U S,

Marcia Smith 6:39
I looked up the pronounciation. And it looks like Laureus. Okay. Never heard of that. Yeah, I’m either. In 2019 at the US National Gymnastics Championships, she performed the first ever performed double double dismount on a beam and the first triple double in competition.

Bob Smith 6:57
I don’t even know what that means. The double double dismount on the triple double

Marcia Smith 7:02
member I was playing out in the yard the other day.

Bob Smith 7:05
Who is she sounds painful. It does. She don’t know. I have no idea. She’s

Marcia Smith 7:09
the amazing 23 year old Simone Biles, and she’s become one of the all time sporting greats. She won her first gold medal at age 16 and holds the world’s record for most medals overall in World Championship history 25 up on those are just

Bob Smith 7:27
amazing records and somebody like that has really been very, very dedicated to one thing for years and

Marcia Smith 7:33
years. That’s from the time she was 16. Now she’s only 23 Wow, has all those accolades.

Bob Smith 7:39
Well, this is a this was a tragedy and out of it came something good, Marcia. So tell me what advance in modern medicine came from a mustard gas accident. Oh, geez. What advance in medicine?

Marcia Smith 7:52
The gas mask? No. Donor chemotherapy?

Bob Smith 7:58
Really? Yeah, now, and it’s from a mustard gas accident in World War Two. That’s where the anti cancer drugs have their origins in toxic chemicals that were designed for warfare. Now. I think we all know that mustard gas was first deployed by the Germans in the first world war that was controversial, very criticized, and it was outlawed by the Geneva Conventions. Well, this was the secret thing we didn’t know about for years till after World War Two. I didn’t know about this. But by World War Two, the Allies had their own secret stockpiles of mustard gas, just in case, just in case the Germans did it again. Yeah, do it back then. Well, yeah, and the those supplies were secretly sent to Europe and here’s what happened. The plan went wrong in December 1943, when Germany bombed the Allied port of Barrie, Italy, they suck 17 ships, including a secret cargo of mustard gas, that God is a port to water and more than 1000 servicemen died 800 Others were hospitalized and many of the victims were victims of oily sludge in the water that inflicted burns, blisters and internal injuries. The army didn’t know what the hell happened. So they sent a military doctor Stuart Alexander to investigate. He discovered the culprit, but it was too late because men were dead or dying because first responders had not been informed there were toxic agents there. So they weren’t washed or decontaminated the way they should have been. And the allies demanded at Whole thing remain a secret because they didn’t want to be known that we had mustard gas. Yeah, we hadn’t planned to use it less. The Germans did have if but if we had it there, and it became known that was going to be very bad publicity for the allies and World War Two. But Dr. Stuart Alexander went on to study what happened and he discovered that the nitrogen mustard attacked white blood cells. And the first of disappear were the white cells in the lymph organs that gave him the idea that the poison could be harnessed to target cancer cells, which are white blood cells running wild than the body, then that led to a whole generation of post war chemotherapy drugs to treat cancer. Chemotherapy came out of basically looking into how mustard gas killed people. All

Marcia Smith 10:12
right, Bob, why does men’s fashion dictate that the bottom button of your vest should always be left on button

Bob Smith 10:21
that I think had to do with riding on a horse that if you had that there, it would buckle and it would make it look bad. So they said, Well, when you’re riding a horse, you keep that your bond or your jacket unbuttoned. Ah,

Marcia Smith 10:31
no. Oh, okay,

Unknown Speaker 10:32
what’s

Marcia Smith 10:34
possible, but who rides a horse with a vest on?

Bob Smith 10:37
Well, people rode horses with jackets and vests when they hunted in a well in ear, right. That’s where a lot of stuff comes

Marcia Smith 10:43
from. Oh, those frisky Englanders. Yes. Once again, we have to go back to British royalty. Okay. Edward, the seventh in the 1800s was a large fellow with a gut to match. He often would overeat and he would undo his bottom button because he was bulging out. And his fellow diners didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 11:07
Don’t let one of the members of royalty, right vertebral so they did this.

Marcia Smith 11:10
They did the same cool to make him feel fine about it. And so it became fashion of the day right down to this day.

Bob Smith 11:19
Right done to this day. Yeah. Crazy. Oh, to get a suit tailored or something. I remember when guy says no, you don’t button the bottom. Yeah,

Speaker 1 11:28
but that’s what it goes back to this so funny. Yeah, crazy. Yes. Okay, Bobby,

Marcia Smith 11:33
what do you got next?

Bob Smith 11:34
I’ve got something that deals with movies we’ve all seen the clapboard, you know, we’re like, Oh, Jake one. Okay. What’s the origin of the clapboard? Where did that come from? What was the need for that?

Marcia Smith 11:47
Well, didn’t Charlie Chaplin need one to keep track of everything when he was rolling out movies?

Bob Smith 11:53
What’s the slight difference?

Unknown Speaker 11:54
This is the LabCorp used How’s it different? Well, the

Bob Smith 11:57
clapboard is a combination of a slate and the clapboard slate is for people listening is basically like it was a blackboard. And then you would chalk in the scenes and the directors and all that. But the clapboard is a combination of that plus these wooden blocks it snapped together. What was the origin for that? What was the reason I don’t know about that’s to synchronize the sound and the picture. It only came into play when sound came in. But putting them together was the sound man who got tired, he was lazy. Now that’s good. The guy who invented the the idea of two wooden blocks snapping together that was done in Australia by the head of F tree studios FW Thring. He came up with that in the early 30s. But combining those two came up because of a guy named Leon De Leon. Yes, that was his name. He died in 1998. But he came from the silent days, he was a gag man and a prop man. And then when the sound came, and he became a sound, man, and so he had, this lady had to handle and he had these two wooden blocks. And it was like, I have to carry these three things into the set. And he didn’t like it. So he said to one of the carpenters was just hinged these two blocks together. So he did. He liked that. But then he still had the slate. He says, Why don’t you just nail it all together. So they did nail it together. Okay, and one more thing he invented as a result of that, they noticed that on camera, it was hard to see when those blocks actually hit each other. Sometimes you’d hear it clap, but couldn’t see it. So we decided to wrap electrical tape black electrical tape around the two wooden blocks, and then cut them with a knife. So that’s where you get the hash mark design you see on clapboards, those diagonal lines. This was done with black tape on white blocks of wood. That’s where it came from.

Marcia Smith 13:38
And he died in 9990 98. Yeah, he

Bob Smith 13:41
said one day I just told somebody nail those together while you’re the rest was history. And he actually in 1990 was officially recognized for his many industry contributions, including the clapboard slate. He also invented the fish pole microphone when they were having to use microphones and they didn’t want to be in scenes. Yeah, he hung one from a fishing pole. And that was the beginning of the boom mics.

Marcia Smith 14:02
Mic. Very cool. Well, here’s another Why is the use of behind the scenes influence called pulling strings,

Bob Smith 14:10
pulling strings. I always thought it was like a puppet thing was like Well, here’s a puppet. He’s pulling the strings on things he’s marionettes which is what I thought,

Marcia Smith 14:19
well, not a bad thought. What’s the answer marionettes? Oh, okay, are puppets controlled by strings and were popular at the courts in the French monarchy. The Puppet shows used to satirize gossip and could be embarrassing to anyone involved in a scandal because apparently they’d reveal all in the puppet show. When money was slipped to the puppeteer to keep him quiet, or to influence him to embarrass someone else. It was said that the person offering the bribe and not the puppeteer was the one pulling the strings. Oh, well, that’s fascinating. So it’s totally actually opposite of what you’d think

Bob Smith 14:58
so the puppeteer might do something And the puppet show that would embarrass the important people in the audience. And that somebody would bribe him and say, you know, pull the strings and

Marcia Smith 15:06
here’s a hard link don’t bring up my affair. Or bring

Bob Smith 15:10
up sir. So and so’s affair or it’s bad breath or who knows what, you know? Yeah, somebody’s pulling the strings. Isn’t that a great, that’s a great expression and a great explanation for too. Let’s take a break. Let’s take a break. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob

Marcia Smith 15:25
and Marsha Smith. Time for a little glass of wine here. Wow.

Bob Smith 15:32
We’re back and you really did take a glass of wine there. I’m surprised it didn’t take long either. It

Marcia Smith 15:37
was not five in the morning.

Bob Smith 15:39
Okay. All right. Okay. I don’t know if you remember the old airline Pan American Airlines. They were very, very big. They were very, very powerful. And back in 1968, they offered tickets for a certain flight coming up. What did they offer? For a certain special flight? Yes, a special kind of flight that they assumed they would be in charge of people going on?

Marcia Smith 16:00
Or it wasn’t like balloons. It was just on the on that special

Bob Smith 16:04
kind of flight Marsh that they had planned for it. They actually sold tickets for

Marcia Smith 16:08
us the ocean. I don’t know. What was it. They

Bob Smith 16:11
started taking reservations for the first commercial flight to the Moon. Oh,

Marcia Smith 16:17
I wouldn’t have guessed that melt

Bob Smith 16:18
because they knew that the moon flights were coming up because the Apollo missions were going on. And so they started taking reservations for the first commercial flight to the Moon in 1968. And how many people signed up 90,000. Now at the time, Pan Am said we’re the world’s most experienced airline. They had 6.7 million passengers 150 jets went to 86 countries on every continent. They were feeling their hubris. They were powerful. So they thought well, we’ll just sign up for the first trips to the moon will be in charge of that.

Marcia Smith 16:50
Did you have to pay for it?

Bob Smith 16:51
I don’t know. 52 years ago, those people if they’re still alive are still waiting to go on that trip. Right

Marcia Smith 16:56
and then you have to wear a mask if you go today. PNM

Bob Smith 16:59
went out of business in 91. Yeah,

Marcia Smith 17:03
it seems longer than that, doesn’t it? And here’s a question I stole from NPR this morning on one of their quiz shows. What land animal has the longest tail? The

Bob Smith 17:15
land animal has the longest tail which animal trying to think of like an Aardvark or something like that, like have kind of a rodent style.

Marcia Smith 17:22
And yeah, you think of those long, some crawly animal with a long spindly tail

Bob Smith 17:27
but Rollie animal. This is a scientific slithering, slithering

Marcia Smith 17:32
with a with a tail. But who has the longest neck in the animal kingdom? Well, the giraffes and his tail matches his neck. Just You’re

Bob Smith 17:40
kidding. No, isn’t it? So it’s hiding in plain sight? Yeah. So we’re noticing the neck. We’re not noticing anything else. Right.

Marcia Smith 17:46
And they’re both the neck and the tail are about the same size. And that’s Wow,

Bob Smith 17:50
eight feet. Holy cow. I had no idea. Yeah. And you think of their legs being long. And boy, they are extraordinary animals and the longest tail and the longest neck? All right, here’s a question I have. This is the least used letter in the English language. What is it? And here’s a hint. It’s the only letter not used in a state’s name. Okay,

Marcia Smith 18:13
I should know this. I’m a crypto grammar, the

Bob Smith 18:16
least used letter in the English language. And the hint is it’s not in any state’s names. I don’t know, Bob. Well, it’s not a z because you can find a z in Arizona. And it’s not a J. J You can find in New Jersey. And about exes. You can find those in two states,

Marcia Smith 18:34
New Mexico.

Bob Smith 18:37
Big, big big state, big state, Texas. Oh, I’ve heard that. But there’s not a single queue in any states name. And that’s the the least used letter in the English language is thank you.

Marcia Smith 18:49
I should have thought Yeah, I should have had that. Okay, but I didn’t know especially when we played very disappointed.

Bob Smith 18:57
Surprised. Okay, and disappointed. Okay.

Marcia Smith 18:59
Okay. Well, Christmas is coming. And I thought we’d pepper in our Christmas question. Once a week or so. That’s the next step. Okay. For weeks. What year was the first recorded date of Christmas being celebrated? Roughly?

Bob Smith 19:16
I’m saying Constantinople in 323 ad.

Unknown Speaker 19:21
Oh, for God’s sake. What is it? It’s

Marcia Smith 19:24
Constantine. Constantine. Yeah. Yeah. The Roman Emperor Constantine. He was the first Christian

Bob Smith 19:31
that’s why I picked him Roman, even though I got his name, right. Yeah. And depending

Marcia Smith 19:35
on what you read, it was either 333 or 336 that he celebrated it. They didn’t do the big festival and everything. And it was

Bob Smith 19:44
an official celebration of Christmas and Christmas.

Marcia Smith 19:45
In 333. That’s

Bob Smith 19:48
my deductive reasoning.

Marcia Smith 19:50
Well see and you excelled at that moment? That’s my mighty meat

Bob Smith 19:54
at that moment. Like I’m a huge idiot most of the time. No, you can always hit me you know lots more than I do. Give these very qualified praises to me on this show. Like I’m just the biggest idiot most of the time.

Marcia Smith 20:06
I do deductive reasoning, but you have innate understanding and logic and

Bob Smith 20:13
Okay, you’re piling in.

Marcia Smith 20:17
And knowledge you have you have basic knowledge. Okay, well,

Bob Smith 20:20
let’s go back to the basic knowledge of what was the last letter added to the 26 Letter alphabet. The last letter add and it’s not Z. The last letter added, and it didn’t exist on its own until 1524. I’m sure that narrows it down.

Marcia Smith 20:35
Does I was just gonna say I thought it was 1523. But

Bob Smith 20:40
last letter edit.

Marcia Smith 20:42
Alright, I’ll say B. No, I’ll say

Bob Smith 20:47
a no C. Geez, just just make a guess. Put us all out of our misery Marsh. What is the letter?

Unknown Speaker 20:55
F No.

Bob Smith 20:58
No, you’re, you’re you’re effing wrong. Okay, it’s J. J, which did not exist as a letter on its own until 1524. This is kind of interesting. Prior to that time, any letter with the J shaped symbolizes the sound of the letter i in igloo. It was the J letter for summer. Oh, really? Then in 1524 and Italian grew Marian named John Grisey. No, wrote an essay identifying i and j is two separate letters. I became a vowel J became a constant associated with the jet sound as in Beijing.

Marcia Smith 21:31
Okay, so that’s where you jump into office and

Bob Smith 21:35
by the way, Marcia the alphabet used to have six more letters that were eventually dropped. What are they? I don’t know what they gave me that look like. If looks could kill what? Six letters were dropped from the alphabet. Gotcha. What are they? How would I know? B?

Marcia Smith 21:52
O, B?

Bob Smith 21:54
Three.

Unknown Speaker 21:56
B and BB? Why

Bob Smith 21:57
there’s five of them. Okay. All right, but our OB er t there is six of them.

Marcia Smith 22:03
Let’s get let’s get fancy animal dung products might be a great Christmas gift this year for our daughter. She’s

Bob Smith 22:13
well that shows how much you think of our dog. She’d love it. I think I know the answer because we we talked about this once before this summer it’s it’s a paper made of made of animal dung. That’s right. It’s actually makes great paper it

Marcia Smith 22:27
beautiful paper and the one of the early adopters of this is a is a company called poopoo paper. Appropriate it is and they make unique handcrafted tree free eco friendly odorless Of course. Paper gift and stationery products made from Elephant donkey horse and cow poop. Also known as poop poo dung turds and stew Oh,

Bob Smith 22:56
boy know anybody listening to this? I hope they’re not eating lunch or something. Well, I’m

Marcia Smith 23:01
just saying and they’re really quite lovely. You can buy journals, notepads, sheet stationery and gift products that are a statement to the kind of world we live in eco friendly.

Unknown Speaker 23:11
Very Those are good. That’s

Bob Smith 23:12
that’s a good that was a good set of information. That was great. I loved it. Did you really you are Oh, you’re so good at these questions. Sometimes you want okay, I’ve got I’m gonna go back to one more item and it’s a clothing item as well. Okay, sure. Okay, this comes from our friend Paul Hoffman out in Pebble Beach, California. Why do men’s clothes have buttons on the right, well, women’s clothes have buttons on the left?

Marcia Smith 23:40
Well, geez, I’ve often wondered that. I guess I don’t know. Okay,

Bob Smith 23:47
well, when buttons were invented, they were expensive. They were worn primarily by the rich. And since most people are right handed, it’s easier to push buttons on the right through holes on the left, right. That’s just a normal thing. But wealthy women were dressed by maids Oh, sure. dressmakers put the buttons on the maids. Right. And that’s where women’s buttons have remained ever since. That’s,

Marcia Smith 24:09
that’s really interesting. According to Paul Hoffman, oh, why didn’t you send that one to me?

Bob Smith 24:15
I like Thank you, Paul. Thank you so much for helping us with the off ramp today.

Marcia Smith 24:20
It’s boy power. All right. I’m gonna wrap it up with a few modern day bumper stickers that amuse me okay. All right. All right. Sex on television can’t hurt you. Unless you fall off

Unknown Speaker 24:36
that’s a long bumper sticker. Beer

Marcia Smith 24:38
helping white people dance since 1837. Last headline, suicidal twin kill sister by mistake

Bob Smith 24:54
Oh, that one’s insane. Oh my goodness. Isn’t it funny and makes you First you’re going What’s the meaning of it? Oh, I got suicidal twin kill sister by mistake.

Marcia Smith 25:06
Got that a little quicker Bob but Okay, here we go again with the comments. Thanks

Bob Smith 25:10
a lot. Well, that’s it for today. I’m Bob Smith and

Unknown Speaker 25:14
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next

Bob Smith 25:16
time with more fun on the off ramp.

Marcia Smith 25:19
You want to go get pizza?

Bob Smith 25:22
Always me I always have to drive out and get that

Unknown Speaker 25:25
call though. Okay,

Bob Smith 25:26
I’ll order it. Now remember what we like on the top? How’s it see? Sausage, pepperoni, green peppers, onions. You like those green olives green olives, but only on half the pizza because I can’t stand those things. That ruins the flavor. I mean, it does ruin the flavor of the pizza. You’re wrong. No, no, no,

Marcia Smith 25:45
no, you’re Oh,

Bob Smith 25:47
by by everybody by the off rip is produced in association with CPL radio and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai