Bob and Marcia engaged in a lively conversation, covering topics from football to Antarctica. Bob shared an interesting fact about football huddles, while Marcia provided information on the unique features of Antarctica and shared humorous quotes from historical figures. They also discussed language and culture, delving into the origins of common idioms, global oil production, and the history of satellites. Through their conversation, they highlighted the importance of paying attention to language and cultural significance of various topics.
Outline
Football history and Deaf culture.
- Paul Hubbard, a Deaf quarterback at Gallaudet University, invented the football huddle in 1894 to keep plays secret.
Antarctica, dinosaurs, and golf balls.
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about the largest animal to have existed on Earth, and Bob Smith responds with surprising facts about the blue whale.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the dimples on golf balls and how they were discovered to improve aerodynamics.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss Antarctica, including its ownership, temperature, and lack of trees.
- The top oil producers in the world are Middle Eastern countries, with the United Arab Emirates being one of them.
Idiom origins and usage.
- Marcia and Bob discuss oil production and the countries that lead the way, with Marcia providing interesting facts and Bob sharing his knowledge on the subject.
- The expression “pardon my French” is explored, with Bob explaining its origins in England during the Napoleonic Wars and how it evolved to refer to swear words.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the origins of the phrase “strike” and “spill the beans,” including their historical roots and modern uses.
- Bob Smith shares a Reader’s Digest article by Madeline Wall and Kelly Keen that explains the origin of “spill the beans,” while Marcia Smith provides words of wisdom from various media outlets and people, including Dan Rather and the Miami Herald.
Animal noises, locks, and satellites.
- Cockatoos can pick locks with no prior training, using physical manipulation.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the history of satellites and the power of the atmosphere to burn them up, as well as the symbolism of onions in ancient Egyptian oaths.
- Bob Smith reveals that the largest concert hall in America is the LDS Conference Center in Salt Lake City, which can seat 21,200 people and is big enough to store two Boeing 747 airplanes inside.
Advertising, lost items, and spices.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss popular birth months, with September being the most common (9-20).
- F Scott Fitzgerald wrote the slogan “We keep you clean in Muscatine” for an Iowa laundry service, before becoming a novelist.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the average time spent each year looking for lost items, with millennials found to be twice as likely as boomers to lose their belongings.
- Bob shares a historical example of misnamed geographic area, Eric the Red discovering Greenland and naming it so to encourage settlers, despite Iceland having more greenery.
Psychologists in Argentina and presidential ad quotes.
- Argentina has the highest per capita psychologists in the world, with 106 Psychologists per 100,000 People, according to the World Health Organization.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss trivia questions, including quotes from Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Abraham Lincoln.
Bob Smith 0:00
What famous aspect of football was invented by a Deaf quarterback?
Marcia Smith 0:06
Oh really? Yeah. Okay, what is the largest animal to ever exist on Earth?
Bob Smith 0:13
Hmm answers to those another big questions coming up in this half hour of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith
Welcome to the off ramp a chance to slow down steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, Marcia, what famous aspect of football was invented by a Deaf quarterback? Oh,
Marcia Smith 0:52
I bet I know. Oh darn. Well, maybe I don’t what is it hand signals? No, no, not per se. You know, the coach is there and he’s telling you what to do. And there’s this Aaron Rodgers is always doing this can’t hear you. So then he’s got to do all right. That wasn’t it? Hmm. Okay. Then tell me
Bob Smith 1:11
it’s a much more fundamental portion of the game. Every team does it. Okay. It’s the football huddle.
Marcia Smith 1:18
Oh, so they can get together. Kisses and talk. Well, here’s the background
Bob Smith 1:23
behind that. It was invented by Paul Hubbard, who was a Deaf quarterback with Gallaudet University in Washington DC. And fact to this day, Gallaudet has a website entitled home of the huddle. With a TM next to the word huddle. Yeah, to claim the word as a trademark. Wow, Gallaudet University. The first football huddle began in 1894. Gallaudet quarterback Paul Hubbard is credited with creating the huddle during that season, when they went up against two different deaf schools. Okay, yeah. So G went five, two and one in 1894. And they defeated the Pennsylvania deaf school 24 to nothing and the New York deaf school 20 to six. Now, Hubbard was worried that the other teams were stealing Gallaudet’s plays because his signing was out in the open. Oh, yeah, of course.
Marcia Smith 2:17
So he decided to circle up his teammates, and they do it in the huddle – that sign language. Yeah, so huddle was born there. Well, I’ll be darned.
Bob Smith 2:22
And after college, he moved to Kansas and became an instructor of the Kansas School for the Deaf. And in 1899, he again used the huddle. Soon, that system spread to football teams throughout the Midwest. I thought that was interesting.
Marcia Smith 2:35
And it is that time of season, isn’t it? Yeah. Before I do my question, let me just say a avid listener told me that Joanne Woodward is not dead. She’s very much alive. He’s very much alive. 91 years old. And last week when I was giving her great quote, I said she was the late great, but no, she’s 91. Alive. And well. Sorry, Joanne. Let’s go out for wine and chocolate. All
Bob Smith 2:59
right, but not yet late. Yeah. Okay, what’s your question?
Marcia Smith 3:03
What is the largest animal Bob to ever exist on Earth?
Bob Smith 3:08
The largest animal to ever exist on Earth? And I always think something like the Tyrannosaurus Rex or the blue whale or the white whale. One of those things.
Marcia Smith 3:16
Wow. Well, well, would you believe the blue whale? Is is big as 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex holy cow. I had no idea. I know. We’ve talked about the blue whale before and it’s the big this and big that but I didn’t know I thought dinosaurs were the biggest animal to ever roam the earth. I thought I could maybe trick you with the way I put that out there. But an adult Blue Whale can weigh about the same as 40 elephants. 30 Tyrannosaurus Rex, or 2670 average sized men? Can you believe that? That’s according to BBC Earth. They’re almost 400,000 pounds. And 100 feet long.
Bob Smith 4:03
Isn’t it funny you because you think of, you know, Jurassic Park and that big Tyrannosaurus Rex?
Marcia Smith 4:10
I thought that was it.
Bob Smith 4:10
But the blue whale is how many times bigger than that?
40 You can’t do much with that. Running across the screen. N
Marcia Smith 4:17
But the music I’m sure we
Bob Smith 4:20
are swimming across the screen
Marcia Smith 4:22
And they live in all the oceans Bob except the Arctic. So they’re in every ocean. Okay. All right. What do you got for me?
Bob Smith 4:30
How about more sports question. Oh, are you okay? Okay, here’s one. Why do golf balls have dimples?
Marcia Smith 4:38
Oh, well, gee,
Bob Smith 4:39
Come on. Tell me what
Marcia Smith 4:41
Is it something to do with aerodynamics?
Bob Smith
That’s exactly right.
Marcia Smith
All right, then I’m exactly right. Moving on.
Bob Smith 4:46
No, wait a minute. They call it aerodynamic optimization and it came across as an accident. According to Scientific American golfers started noticing in the early days, the balls that were banged up the go farther than the clean new balls. I’ll be darned. And that was because I figured it out. Yeah. Now a dimpled ball travels twice as far as a smooth one. Is that right? Yeah. That’s because the dimples produce a boundary of air around the ball reducing the wake of the air as well as the drag so the air flows more smoothly.
Marcia Smith 5:18
All right. Remember, last week, you and I were so fascinated by my Antarctica questions, you know who owns it?
Bob Smith 5:26
It’s like five or six nations claimed the land, correct?
Marcia Smith 5:29
Are we one of them? No, we’re not very good. It’s Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and not the United States. It’s not considered a country. It has no government and no indigenous populations. Yeah, military activity is banned. As his prospecting for minerals. unique in the world. It is a land totally dedicated to science, and all nations.
Bob Smith 5:55
That’s great. Yeah, that’s great. And we mentioned they have two ATMs there.
Marcia Smith 5:59
That’s right on the American base.
Bob Smith 6:01
You mentioned when we talked about that last week. We talked about the temperature in the summer. So I’m going to ask you, when is the warmest weather in Antarctica, you have an inner Yeah, I have a couple of things. One is the warm. It only has two seasons, summer and winter, summer and winter.
Marcia Smith 6:20
And so you want me to say What month is the warmer months? Yes, I’ll say July.
Bob Smith 6:26
Nope, it’s January.
Marcia Smith 6:29
That’s, oh, that’s their summer. It’s reversed. Yes.
Bob Smith 6:33
Okay. And their average temperature can climb all the way up to 32 degrees Fahrenheit on the peninsula. Yeah. That’s after the sun rises in late October, the continent pause a little tiny bit Viking Cruises there.
Marcia Smith 6:44
I don’t know. Okay. It’s a good cause some problems. Okay.
Bob Smith 6:50
And then another question. Which of these does Antarctica not have? Penguins, lakes, trees or mountains?
Marcia Smith 6:59
It doesn’t have trees.
Bob Smith 7:00
You’re absolutely right.
Marcia Smith 7:02
I am absolutely right. Remember that later on? Okay. No matter what.
Bob Smith 7:07
It does have lakes, but most of them are subglacial. So you may not see them, but it’s just too cold and icy for tree. So then another foray into the land of Antarctica? Why are we fascinated with that? Wisconsin, we have Antarctica.
Marcia Smith 7:24
Okay, who are the top oil producers in the world? 123. Who’s the top 123 was number one.
Bob Smith 7:33
It’s the Middle Eastern countries, I think are United Arab Emirates. I think one of those places is not United Arab Emirates. What is it?
Marcia Smith 7:41
They’re number two. We’re number one. Oh, no, kid, I wouldn’t have guessed that in a million. Wow. And Russia is number three. The United States does 20% of the world’s oil with about 19 million barrels a day. And the two big states are Texas and North Dakota. They’re the biggest producers, North Dakota. I got into that because I’m reading a book and it’s all about the oil fields in North Dakota and I didn’t even know there were oil fields there.
Bob Smith 8:06
Yeah, they had they had a big oil run a few years ago.
Marcia Smith 8:10
Yeah. Number two Saudi Arabia. Okay. 11%. We were 20%. They’re 11. It’s 11% and 11 million barrels a day. Oh, really? Same thing with Russia. 10 and a half percent and almost 11 million barrels a day. And the fourth one is Canada. Who has that? 6% of the world’s oil.
Bob Smith 8:29
Another country that had big oil rush not too many years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Marcia an expression. I have a question about. Okay. Where are your heart on your sleeve? Where does that come from?
Marcia Smith 8:41
Yes, yes. It had something to do with the Knights of Yore they did it did to signify their love or something? They draw a little heart on their armor.
Bob Smith 8:54
It’s very much like what we talked about a couple of weeks ago when we discussed the coat of arms. Yeah, they would wear some sort of insignia on their arm that indicated the ladies for whom they were hoping to try.
Marcia Smith 9:07
That’s what you did with me,
Bob Smith 9:10
But that’s promising their love to the world. By heart is on my sleeve. Anyway, that’s the story. Okay, I got one more here. I thought you’d find interesting. Okay, since you are partly French, where does the expression pardon my French come from?
Marcia Smith 9:24
Merci beaucoup. I do love the sound of France.
Bob Smith 9:27
This goes back to England’s dislike or the French. Oh, yeah, they always
Marcia Smith 9:31
Yeah, they are always nipping at each other. They vexed each other, don’t they about the English came up with that. Pardon my French Well, I don’t know they when they started swearing. They just think of them as dogs. So they say pardon my French just pimp up a little bit.
Bob Smith 9:50
Well, you got the spirit of it. Let’s put it that way. Back in England in the early 1800s. People would beg pardon for using French words and conversation. I Ah, and that was because most people didn’t like the French that much they, they didn’t speak French and furthermore, the Napoleonic Wars had left a lot of animosity between those two countries. Okay. So by the mid 1800s, the phrase had evolved to refer to like you said swear words. The Cambridge Dictionary defines the idiom as something to be said when pretending to be sorry for offending language. Pardon my French, but blah, blah, blah. Not really sorry. No, you’re not sorry.
Marcia Smith 10:30
That’s where it came from. Very good. Well, you know the term strike like workers going on strike, right? Yes. Where does that word come from? Why is it called Strike?
Bob Smith 10:40
I thought it came from striking tents or striking sets in the theater.
Marcia Smith 10:44
While you’re not too far away. Okay, but you’re far away.
Bob Smith 10:49
I’m far away. I’m way over here.
Marcia Smith 10:51
It goes all the way back to 1768 when British sailors refused to work, and showed this by striking or lowering the sails on their ship, oh, no kidding. Yeah. So it was sailors used in the same purpose. It is used today they go on strike.
Bob Smith 11:08
Yeah. So when you went on strike if you’re on a ship you you struck the sails. Yep. Is that I thought that always thought that was an interesting term for taking something down. Strike the set strike the tents.
Marcia Smith 11:20
Yes. kind of goes all the way back to 1768. Wow, Robert.
Bob Smith 11:24
Okay. Here’s another one. Where does the expression spill the beans come from?
Marcia Smith 11:28
Spill the beans. Spill the beans.
Bob Smith 11:32
Tell me think back to something you were talking about a couple of months ago? Sure. No, listen to me how tribes were voting in Africa. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 11:42
With marbles in in pails.
Bob Smith 11:44
Well, apparently that goes back to the ancient Greeks where people would use beans to vote anonymous. Okay. And white beans were used for positive votes. And for negative votes, black beans or other dark colored beans were used. The votes were cast and secret. So if somebody knocked over the beans in the jar, whether by accident or intentionally, they spilled the beans and revealed the results of the votes prematurely.
Marcia Smith 12:09
I’ll be darned
Bob Smith 12:10
Yeah. Spill the beans is like, Oh, she told the story. That was prematurely telling how the election was going to go. Oh, spilling the beans.
Marcia Smith 12:19
Isn’t it fascinating to go back and see the original use of these and they just get worked back into conversations? Yeah. Yeah.
Bob Smith 12:26
Well, that one comes from Reader’s Digest. Where does the phrase spill the beans come from by Madeline wall and Kelly keen. I just thought that was a cute little story. It is cute.
Marcia Smith 12:36
And now I’m going to just give you some words of wisdom Bob from various media outlets or people. This one is from Dan Rather. And now the sequence of events in no particular order. But the Detroit Daily News, weather forecast, precipitation in the morning, rain in the afternoon. Oh there you go. Orlando lawyers TV commercial. If you or any member of your family has been killed, then call us.
Bob Smith 13:09
If you’ve been killed, tricycle, the
Marcia Smith 13:11
Providence Journal man thought hurt but slightly dead. And
Bob Smith 13:17
yeah, man thought hurt but slightly dead yeah, that was right out of the story.
Marcia Smith 13:21
And finally this from the Miami Herald. Man shoots neighbor with machete.
Bob Smith 13:27
This is why journalism is going out of business. I think I thought it was just punctuation. But apparently no, we’re not even paying attention to what we’re saying. Should we take a break? Okay, we’ll take a break and come back in a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’re back and I’ve got a quick question about animals. What animals make noises in the key of F tell me this just an odd thing house flies. Really? Yeah. Thanks to their fast buzzing wings they hum in the key of F. Is that funny? Wow. Okay, another another fact about an anima. What animals are lock pickers?
Marcia Smith 14:14
Oh, really can get open a lock
Bob Smith 14:16
Think of well who might open a lock?
Marcia Smith 14:19
Well, not a raccoon. No, it’s something with claws. Right? Claws. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 14:24
Squirrels.
Marcia Smith 14:25
They’re very
Bob Smith 14:26
These animals use claws and their teeth.
Marcia Smith 14:29
Well,
Bob Smith 14:30
I don’t know if I’d call them teeth.
Marcia Smith 14:33
What would you call it? Tell me what? What beak? Oh, a beak. A bird can pick a lock.
Bob Smith 14:39
Well, certain kinds of cockatoos. Cockatoos with no prior training, or even exposure are able to pick almost any lock. Now this comes from the University of Oxford. They set a number of cockatoos a challenge pick a lock to access a nut visible behind a transparent door so there’s a there’s a nut in there. I want to get to and the birds had to remove a pin followed by a screw and a bolt before they turned a wheel to release the latch.
Marcia Smith 15:07
I’m impressed. It’s amazing. I’ll try that with you and a bowl of graham crackers.
Bob Smith 15:13
Five birds were successful after some guidance or with practice. But one of the cockatoos called Pippin broke in unassisted under two hours. He was also our Yeah, it took him two hours. He’s also the only bird to remove the screw with his foot instead of his beak. And the secret to their success using touch extensively. Rather than simply using their vision. They use physical manipulation. You talk and beak and characteristic parents say at a great advantage.
Marcia Smith 15:40
Very good Pippin. I’m impressed. I don’t know how long am I going to have to listen to that a cockatoo show. In the history of satellites out yonder. Bob? How many have been destroyed? Can you guess by meteorites?
Bob Smith 15:55
How many have been destroyed by meteorites?
Marcia Smith 15:59
I just take again, okay, I’ll
Bob Smith 16:00
say I’ll say 1001.
Marcia Smith 16:01
What? One. The European Space Agency’s Olympus satellite was the only one ever destroyed by a meteor in 1993. W
Bob Smith 16:13
Wow, well, you know, come to think of it. If there were 1,000 that had been destroyed, we’d probably have a lot of dead astronauts out there to with their spacecraft.
Marcia Smith 16:23
You know about one I was amazed at that.
Bob Smith 16:26
Well, that shows you the power of our atmosphere to burn things up. You know?
Marcia Smith 16:30
What did ancient Egyptians place their right hands on when they were swearing an oath?
Bob Smith 16:36
What did ancient Egyptians placed their right hands on to take an oath? Is this something we know about today that Oh, yeah. Oh, really? Did they put it on a sacred book or something? Like the Bible is?
Marcia Smith 16:48
No. Oh, no. Okay. Not put
Bob Smith 16:51
it on their hearts. Something
Marcia Smith 16:52
we have in the refrigerator.
Bob Smith 16:57
They put that into artichoke? No, no, what? An onion! Oh, my goodness. What are you …
Marcia Smith 17:02
An onion because it’s round, and it’s symbolized eternity. So if you were gonna take an oath and swear by something, you’d put your right hand on an onion.
Bob Smith 17:13
Wow, an onion is round. I guess it symbolizes eternity and you can keep peeling it off and it’s still round. Still. Probably magical things about that. It could be okay, think of places to go into a concert. All right. I’m not talking about a stadium. I’m talking about a concert hall and auditorium. Where is the largest concert hall in America? I’ll give you some cities. Okay. Branson, Missouri, New York City. Los Angeles. Salt Lake. Chicago. Where is the largest concert hall in America?
Marcia Smith 17:50
My first thought is courses New York I think of Carnegie or something one of those. But I have a feeling you wouldn’t have asked me if it was that obvious. So I will say I will say Salt Lake City.
Bob Smith 18:02
You’re absolutely right. The LDS conference center owned by the Mormon church. It’s 1.4 million square feet in size and it can seat 21,200 people, where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs.
Marcia Smith 18:16
Yeah.
Bob Smith 18:17
Here’s how big it is. It’s big enough to store two Boeing 747 Airplanes inside parked side by side. And it’s thought to be the largest theater style Hall ever built. It was completed in 2000. That’s big. All that comes from the World Atlas.
Marcia Smith 18:31
What’s the most popular month for birthdays? Bob?
Bob Smith 18:34
I was always thinking August or September? Well, yes.
Marcia Smith 18:38
And your son is right smack in the middle of that September. Yes. And if you scroll back 40 weeks, you’ll find yourself in the December holiday season. For winter lovers. The most common birthdays are between September 9 and September 20. What is the least common birthday – Christmas and New Year’s days?
Bob Smith 19:02
So go back nine months from Christmas. You’re in the spring I guess. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
Marcia Smith 19:07
And you’re just exhausted during the winter festivities? Sure. And, and shoveling if you’re in the Midwest,
Bob Smith 19:16
Once or twice on the show, we talked about something that a famous writer worked on. And it was advertising. Okay. So I’m going to ask you this. Who wrote this? This was an advertising slogan. “We keep you clean in Muscatine.” That was for a Midwestern laundry. That’s a town in Iowa.
Marcia Smith 19:39
Oh, is that right? Yeah,
Bob Smith 19:40
“We keep you clean in Muscatine”. Laundry in Iowa. Oh, okay. What famous writer wrote that slogan before he became a novelist? “We keep you clean in Muscatine.”
Marcia Smith 19:53
All right. It wasn’t like Mark Twain or something. Is it? Somebody I know?
Bob Smith 19:58
Oh, yeah. Love or Yeah, and it was After Mark Twain it was a 20th century writer.
Marcia Smith 20:02
A 20th century guy
Bob Smith 20:04
Before that he wrote for movies, but he was known best for writing.
Marcia Smith 20:09
All right, tell me tell me up.
Bob Smith 20:11
All right, it was F Scott Fitzgerald.
Marcia Smith 20:13
Oh, no kidding.
Bob Smith 20:14
After being discharged from the army, he became an advertising copywriter. And he wrote that and other cute phrases for clients.
Marcia Smith 20:22
Well, Bob, what’s the most expensive spice in the world? Old Spice?
Bob Smith 20:27
No, no. What is the most expensive spice in the world? Cinnamon was very, very big.
Marcia Smith 20:36
But it wasn’t – it’s not expensive.
Bob Smith 20:38
Well, what kind of spice is expensive
Marcia Smith 20:41
Saffron. Why you ask, why? It takes 75,000 crocus flowers to produce one pound of saffron. Wow. Yeah. And it’s the most expensive spice in the world. And it’s much coveted in many countries. It’s used in food, medicine and cosmetics. And two pounds of saffron can easily sell for three to $4,000.
Bob Smith 21:06
Man even today. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Another advertising question. What was the very first newspaper advertisement? What was it for? Now? This goes all the way back to 1622.
Marcia Smith 21:26
Gosh, I’m trying to think wasn’t somebody advertise way back then something that was missing? Something to do with clothes, no food, no. Pain? No, no.
Bob Smith 21:33
Historian Henry Sampson believes it was an ad for the return of a stolen horse in the early English newspaper, the first of which was the weekly news in 1622. He’s looking for his stolen horse. Oh, okay.
Marcia Smith 21:47
So once his horse is back he wants, will he pay money for it?
Bob Smith 21:51
Well, yeah, but it’s been 400 years. So I think it’s too late now on a duster.
Marcia Smith 21:55
Okay. How long does the average American or Bob Smith spend each year looking for lost items?
Bob Smith 22:05
Oh, that happens every day. Every hour, it seems. Okay. So is there a number of hours this has been given in a year in a year? Yeah. Okay, let’s see. We did one about brushing your teeth. And we assume that was like 24 hours? Every
Marcia Smith 22:21
Yeah. So I did think we spend more time Bob than looking for things than brushing your teeth.
Bob Smith 22:27
But both of us Oh, no. Okay, let’s say three days.
Marcia Smith 22:32
Very good.. Two and a half, two and a half days of the year each year looking for lost items. That’s according to one study, and the most common items, TV remotes, phone, keys, classes and wallets and purses.
Bob Smith 22:47
Thank God for cell phones because you can call them and hear them ring.
Marcia Smith 22:51
That’s right. And here’s the good news. Millennials are twice as likely as boomers to lose their stuff. Oh, that’s good. That’s great. Okay, that’s helping tell the kids not just Okay.
Bob Smith 23:05
Two more advertising questions. This is kind of advertising 101 What not to do. Okay. What explorer mis-named an area he discovered to advertise it as something it wasn’t? Hmm. What explorer misnamed an area he discovered to advertise it as something it wasn’t?
Marcia Smith 23:29
Well, that is I can you give me a little more clear.
Bob Smith 23:33
It’s a geographic question. This goes way back before advertising actually about 982 A.D.
Marcia Smith 23:39
I don’t. Okay. Is it something to do with an island? Yes, it does. Is it say is that land is Island Island, Greenland, Greenland.
Bob Smith 23:50
Eric, the red discovered a new land covered with ice and snow. He was covered with ice and snow and 982 A.D. and he tried to encourage his fellow Norseman to go there. So he named it Greenland. And shortly thereafter, 25 ships filled with eager settlers sailed for the place. That’s funny. So the funny thing is Iceland has more green than Greenland.
Marcia Smith 24:12
Yeah, I know. It makes. Yeah. Speaking of countries, what country has more psychoanalysts than any other place in the world?
Bob Smith 24:21
Oh, this will be interesting. What country has more psycho analysts? I would say the United States.
Marcia Smith 24:27
You’d think, but it doesn’t even come close to this country. What country? Argentina Oh, no. Yes. Particularly Buenos Aires. According to the World Health Organization, they rank Argentina with the highest per capita psychologists – 106 Psychologists per 100,000 People. And that compare that to the US. We only have 29 per 100,000.
Bob Smith 24:54
So what’s wrong down there?
Marcia Smith 24:55
I don’t know. But they love going and Argentina has about 81,000 I was in practicing psychologists.
Bob Smith 25:02
Gosh, it seems a lot. Crazy.
Marcia Smith 25:06
Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed Argentina. Okay,
Bob Smith 25:09
Now one more advertising question. How did Benjamin Franklin stretch the truth in his advertisements for his Franklin stove?
Marcia Smith 25:17
How did he stretch the truth while he was talking about the
Bob Smith 25:21
Old fashioned stoves. What would happen to people if they continued using those instead of his new stove? Okay, in the Pennsylvania Gazette ads for his Franklin stove, he warned people, their teeth and jaws would go bad their skin, their skin would shrivel, and their eyes would fade if they continued to use old fashioned style God. This is considered to be the first example of the modern ad technique of warning against so called inferior brands.
Marcia Smith 25:48
And Ben, Ben, you disappoint me with this.
Bob Smith 25:51
But he didn’t have to worry about the newspaper rejecting his ads. They published his Pennsylvania Gazette.
Marcia Smith 25:57
Probablywould have put marbles in the bottom of his branded soup. Oh, gosh, no, no, that is, that is funny. Okay. All right. I’m gonna close up with several presidential ad quotes. Here’s one from Bill Clinton. Politics gives guys so much power that they tend to behave badly around women. And I hope I never get into that. Oh, you said that to a woman friend when he was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. My good house. Hey, George W. Bush. I have opinions of my own strong opinions, but I don’t always agree with them.
Speaker 1 26:34
He said that about George W. Bush. Yeah. Oh, that’s unclear. Richard Nixon solutions are not the answer.
Marcia Smith 26:38
Well, what are I don’t know. And finally, our beloved Abe Lincoln. If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
Bob Smith 26:53
Well, that’s a funny one. He makes fun of himself in a lot of his writings. That’s hilarious. That’s great. Say we want to do a little addition to item that we did a week ago about George Bush, the elder the elder Bush. Remember, he did that jump at the age of 72. We want to add that one of our listeners said that he did three additional jumps after that one on his 80th birthday, one on his 85th and one on his 90th Those are all times he jumped out of an airplane. That’s amazing. To me, too, don’t we? That’s right. Okay, so that’s it for the off ramp. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:33
I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again
Bob Smith 27:34
next time when we return with more trivia questions on the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library Cedarburg, Wisconsin.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
