Bob and Marcia Smith discuss various trivia topics, including Dolly Parton’s participation in a drag queen contest in 2013, North Dakota’s constitutional error delaying statehood until 2012, and the origin of the term “fuss budget.” They explore the history of the $100,000 bill featuring Woodrow Wilson, the coldest inhabited place (Oymyakon, Siberia), and the world’s oldest commercial airport (Hamburg Airport). They also delve into the Inca civilization’s lack of a written language, the naming of turquoise and jalapenos, and the origins of terms like “tittle” and “tuxedo.” The conversation ends with a trivia quiz about Mario’s full name and the evolution of the letter “W.”
Outline
Dolly Parton’s Drag Queen Contest
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss a trivia question about a famous person losing a drag queen celebrity look-alike contest.
- Marcia Smith guesses incorrectly, and Bob Smith reveals the answer is Dolly Parton.
- Dolly Parton disguised herself and participated in a drag queen look-alike contest in 2013, revealing her identity later.
- Bob Smith compares this to Charlie Chaplin entering a Charlie Chaplin look-alike contest and losing.
North Dakota’s Territorial Status
- Bob Smith asks a trivia question about a state that was a territory for 123 years until 2012.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith eliminate Alaska and Hawaii, leaving North Dakota as the answer.
- Marcia Smith explains that North Dakota did not meet the technical requirements for statehood until 2012 due to an error in its constitution.
- North Dakota Senator Tim Mathur introduced an amendment to correct this oversight, which passed in 2012.
Origin of the Term “Fuss Budget”
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith discuss the origin of the term “fuss budget,” which means someone who is overly fussy or fault-finding.
- The term was popularized in the 1960s, possibly due to its association with a cartoon character in Peanuts named Lucy.
- Lucy Van Pelt was known for being a fuss budget, always finding fault with Charlie Brown.
- The term became part of the lexicon in the 1960s, adding to its popularity.
Turquoise and Jalapenos
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origin of the name “turquoise,” which comes from the French word for Turkish merchants who sold it in Europe.
- The term “jalapenos” is named after the town of Xalapa in Mexico, where they are originally from.
- In Mexico, jalapenos are known as chili gordo.
- The discussion highlights the origins of these terms and their cultural significance.
Thanksgiving Around the World
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss that Canada is one of 17 countries that celebrate Thanksgiving.
- Canada’s Thanksgiving is on the second Monday of October due to their earlier harvest.
- The hosts share a humorous anecdote about eating a large piece of pie and splitting it to save calories.
- The conversation touches on the similarities and differences between Canadian and American Thanksgiving traditions.
Inca Paradox and Knotted Cords
- Bob Smith introduces the Inca paradox, which is the fact that the Inca civilization did not develop a system of writing.
- The Inca used a system of knotted cords called quipus to record information, which some experts consider three-dimensional writing.
- The discussion highlights the technological sophistication of the Inca civilization despite their lack of a written language.
- Marcia Smith and Bob Smith explore the implications of this paradox and its significance in historical context.
Airport Codes and Vaudeville Earnings
- Bob Smith explains the origin of the “X” in airport codes, which was added when air travel grew and two-letter codes were no longer sufficient.
- The hosts discuss the popularity of vaudeville teams in the early 20th century, with Weber and Fields making $4,000 a week in 1905.
- The conversation shifts to the Singer Manufacturing Company, which sold sewing machines for $100 in 1863, a significant investment for the average family.
- Bob Smith mentions the installment plan as a pioneering method for making expensive devices more affordable.
Coldest Inhabited Place and Oldest Airport
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the coldest inhabited place on Earth, which is the village of Oymyakon in Siberia.
- The village has winter temperatures often hovering around 45 below zero Fahrenheit.
- The hosts also talk about the world’s oldest continuously operating commercial airport, which is Hamburg Airport, established in 1911.
- The conversation highlights the historical significance and challenges of these locations.
Shetland Ponies and Tuxedo
- Marcia Smith identifies Shetland ponies as being named for the Shetland Islands in the British Isles.
- The ponies are known for their stocky build and ability to thrive in harsh climates.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the origin of the term “tuxedo,” which comes from a formal dinner jacket worn by King Edward VII.
- The style became popular among members of the Tuxedo Park Club in New York City.
Sherry and Black Friday
- Marcia Smith explains that the name “sherry” comes from the Anglicized version of the town of Jerez in Spain.
- Sherry is a protected designation of origin product, and only wine from this region can be labeled as such.
- The hosts discuss the origins of “Black Friday,” with Bob Smith mentioning its use by the Philadelphia Police Department to describe the long shifts on the day after Thanksgiving.
- Marcia Smith’s source, a 1951 magazine article, describes Black Friday as a day when many people call in sick, likening it to the Black Death.
Teddy Roosevelt and $100,000 Bill
- Bob Smith reveals that Teddy Roosevelt is the only person to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor.
- Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a war between Japan and Russia and later became President.
- The hosts discuss the $100,000 bill, which features Woodrow Wilson’s face and was used by banks for transactions during the Great Depression.
- Only 42,000 of these bills were made, and they are now on exhibit at institutions like the Smithsonian.
Neptune and Language Trivia
- Marcia Smith explains that Neptune takes 165 Earth years to orbit the Sun, with Voyager 2 discovering a white triangle on its surface called the scooter.
- The hosts discuss the term “tittle,” which refers to the dot over the letters i and j.
- The term “tittle” has roots in Latin manuscripts and shares a similar origin with the word “title.”
- The conversation highlights interesting facts about language and celestial bodies.
Mario’s Full Name and Final Quip
- Marcia Smith reveals that Mario’s full name is Mario Mario, a common video game character.
- The hosts discuss the popularity of Mario, who has appeared in almost 240 distinct video game titles since 1985.
- Bob Smith shares a final trivia question about a letter once represented by two symbols of another letter, which is the letter W.
- The show concludes with Groucho Marx’s famous last words, “This has no way to live,” as a humorous note.
Bob Smith 0:00
Bob, what state was technically a territory for 125 years until 2012
Marcia Smith 0:06
12 really okay? And what famous person lost their own drag queen celebrity look alike contest?
Bob Smith 0:15
Well, that’s a little bizarre answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with
Marcia Smith 0:21
Bob and Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 0:39
Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of, well, maybe not crazy today, take a side road to sanity and get some perspective on life. Well, Marcia, what’s this about a drag queen look alike? Yeah,
Marcia Smith 0:52
come on. Guess.
Bob Smith 0:53
Tell me the question again.
Marcia Smith 0:54
Okay, what famous person lost their own drag queen? Celebrity look alike? Contest
Bob Smith 1:01
was this person a drag queen themselves? No, is this a current celebrity? Yes, is it like Elton John or somebody like that? No, somebody androgynous like David Bowie?
Unknown Speaker 1:11
No. Okay.
Bob Smith 1:12
Who was it?
Marcia Smith 1:13
Dolly Parton. Oh, tell me about this. In 2013 she was in Los Angeles, and she was promoting her book Dream more. She didn’t reveal who she was to the MC or anybody. She just strode across the stage as one of the contestants who were real kidding in the look alike contest. And she said she got the least applause when walking across the stage. They just thought I was some little short gay guy, she said one
Bob Smith 1:43
sort of like Charlie Chaplin. He entered a Charlie Chaplin look alike contest. Oh, I remember that when he was younger, and he lost the contest to someone else. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 1:52
yeah, little tramp, yeah. She said she was laughing hysterically inside the whole time. When did this happen? 2013 Oh,
Bob Smith 2:00
my goodness, that’s so funny. Okay, Marcia. Something serious now, let’s look at US history. Okay, what state was technically a territory for 123 years until 2012
Marcia Smith 2:11
is it in the contiguous state? It
Bob Smith 2:14
is in the contiguous United States. I see on the North American continent. And it was and it was either Alaska, North Dakota, Hawaii or Montana. Alaska
Marcia Smith 2:25
isn’t in the contiguous state, then
Bob Smith 2:27
you can rule that out.
Marcia Smith 2:30
Okay, what were the other two choices? Hawaii, that’s not in you can rule
Bob Smith 2:35
that out. Montana or North Dakota.
Marcia Smith 2:39
I’ll say Montana. It was North Dakota. Dakota?
Bob Smith 2:44
Yes, North Dakota didn’t fit the technical requirements for statehood until 2012 and this was due to an error in its constitution. Okay, this is one of those little things historians find, and then they point out, and either the states change them or they don’t, uh huh, like that place in Yellowstone where, yeah, we can commit a crime and get away with it, yeah? Well, the US Constitution requires executive, legislative and judicial officers to take an oath to support the Constitution, and then state constitutions are supposed to require that too. But in the section of the North Dakota constitution regarding oaths, the word executive was accidentally omitted, and that was first noted by historian John Wilson ski in 1995 but it wasn’t considered urgent. Nobody had seriously considered the state status since it joined the Union in 1889 a century earlier, even so, North Dakota Senator Tim Mathur felt the issue was important. He introduced an amendment which corrected the oversight, and the bill passed after the 2012 the election. When it did, Time magazine declared Welcome to the Union again. North Dakota,
Marcia Smith 3:51
okay. Well, we were in the car the other day and the word fuss budget came up, and we both laugh, oh yes. Said, What a silly word it was, you fast budget.
Bob Smith 3:59
And then I challenge you to find out what it was. Yeah, well, it
Marcia Smith 4:03
actually has been around since the 1700s nobody has the exact source, but it started appearing in literature, and then it kind of disappeared.
Bob Smith 4:13
Maybe some folks listening don’t know what fuss budget means. It’s usually somebody who is very picky or persnickety or difficult. They’re
Marcia Smith 4:20
overly fussy, needlessly fault finding.
Bob Smith 4:23
Like your family, okay,
Marcia Smith 4:27
it’s a good thing they don’t listen to this show. Well,
Bob Smith 4:30
that’s one of the reasons I ridicule them.
Marcia Smith 4:35
Okay, that’s what it means, needlessly fault finding, anyway. So it was around the 1700s but it really wasn’t around until the 1960s and then it kind of got into the lexicon. You know? Why?
Bob Smith 4:49
Why it became popular in the 1960s some pop culture thing was it? It became
Marcia Smith 4:54
associated with a cartoon character?
Bob Smith 4:57
Was that somebody in peanuts? Maybe? Oh.
Marcia Smith 4:59
What made you say that? Well, I
Bob Smith 5:01
don’t know. I just thought that was the one that seemed to catch the eye of most people, and
Marcia Smith 5:05
who was a fuss budget in peanuts, Lucy No, no, that Lucy or Lucy Van Pelt? Yeah, she was Charlie Brown’s nemesis, and always finding fault with him and always picking at him, picking, picking, picking.
Bob Smith 5:19
So she was referred to as a fuss budget. Yeah, wow. And that’s the first time that thing had been used in a long time. It
Marcia Smith 5:26
just became part of the lexicon. And, okay, well, that’s
Bob Smith 5:30
a good one. That’s the fuss budget. I’ve got some more word origins. Would you like to know these? These are, again, things that are named after places turquoise. Yes, not your favorite color,
Marcia Smith 5:41
no, but it looks good on me. Yeah, it
Bob Smith 5:44
does look good. I know. Where did it get its name? Then,
Marcia Smith 5:47
from the tortoise? No, from the Turks.
Bob Smith 5:50
Actually did get its name from Turks. Yes, so I’ll give you that it was originally mined in Persia, which is Iran, but it got its name from the French word for the Turkish merchants who first sold it in Europe, turkeys, the birds, they got their name for the same reason, from the Turks, from Turkey. So turquoise was named after Turkish merchants who sold that precious stone. Okay, jalapenos. What about it? Well, tell me where they come from, from, obviously, from a place in France, I know from jalapeno Mexico. Actually it is from a town of zalapa or Jalapa, J, a, l, a, p, A, that’s where they come from. In Mexico, they’re known as chili Gordo. But to the rest of the world, jalapeno, they got their name from the town, okay,
Marcia Smith 6:39
Bob is the United States the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving.
Bob Smith 6:44
No, it isn’t. I think multiple countries celebrate Thanksgiving. I think Canada was the first to celebrate Thanksgiving in North America, believe it or not. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 6:53
yes. 17 countries celebrate some form of Thanksgiving, and the most similar to our traditions is Canada. Their day of celebration is on the second Monday of October. And why you ask? Because their harvest comes earlier because they’re farther north, okay, which makes sense. They actually have the big dinner on Sunday preceding the Monday. They don’t get off on Monday. So they have their they have
Bob Smith 7:18
to go to work with those big bellies. It’s swollen bellies full of Turkey. Well, maybe it’s not Turkey there still
Marcia Smith 7:24
trying to get rid of our dessert from Thanksgiving. Oh, dear. We
Bob Smith 7:27
had that. It’s funny, Marcia and I rarely get dessert. And so here somebody said, Well, here you want some pie. And so sure, I want some ice cream on
Marcia Smith 7:35
it. Well, we said, we’ll save some calories and we’ll split a piece. We’ll split a
Bob Smith 7:39
piece. And they so they gave us a huge piece with Bob four pieces. So as soon as we got it, we went, Oh, my God, we can’t eat all of that. Well, we did. Snarfed it up like little kids.
Marcia Smith 7:48
It was so good. It was so good, Apple,
Bob Smith 7:52
Apple rhubarb, Apple rhubarb
Marcia Smith 7:53
pie in a brown paper bag. It was fabulous. Well, we
Bob Smith 7:57
didn’t eat it out of the brown paper bag, but
Marcia Smith 7:59
it was baked in Yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Marsh.
Bob Smith 8:03
You’ve heard of the Incas, one of the great civilizations of South America. I
Marcia Smith 8:07
have that in my pen too. What Inca? Yeah,
Bob Smith 8:09
that’s different. Oh, okay, the Incas, I n, C, A, S, what is the Inca paradox?
Marcia Smith 8:15
The Inca paradox? This
Bob Smith 8:17
is something that historians call the Inca paradox. Something about that civilization, any idea. It’s not about two physicians the paradox.
Marcia Smith 8:27
Oh, god, that was so bad. It went past me. All right, all right. I’ve thought more of you than that. Let’s see they go back the Incas. They were quite a civilization.
Bob Smith 8:38
They built a huge, huge system of roads in the Americas. I have no idea. The Inca paradox is the fact that the Inca a technologically sophisticated culture, the most powerful empire in South America. They’re considered the only major Bronze Age civilization that failed to develop a system of writing.
Marcia Smith 8:56
Oh, really did they have hieroglyphics? They had
Speaker 1 9:00
a system of knotted cords to record information. Why? You read that like an abacus. They would do that to send information across their empire, send people ropes with knots. And that is called the Inca paradox, the fact that they did not develop a system of writing like we do it. However, today, some experts consider the knotted cords to be three dimensional writing. So it’s just look at it in a different way. Yeah, I can’t judge everything by the way we came about. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 9:27
yeah. Oh, all right, Bob, what is the X in LA, x?
Bob Smith 9:33
You know, the x’s meant nothing. There was no meaning to those x’s in those airport names, they went from two character names to, I think three character names, but there was
Marcia Smith 9:42
a reason for it. Okay, tell me. Okay. Here’s how the x’s came about. It used to be that airports used two letter codes from the National Weather Service. Everybody had two letters. But as air travel grew, it soon became apparent two letters wasn’t enough, and in all its wisdom, the International. Air Transportation Association declared three letter codes for everybody, and if it didn’t work out, they just slapped an X on the end of Los Angeles. Made
Bob Smith 10:09
it easier because people were there with the other ones. La, yeah, and it
Marcia Smith 10:13
looks cool. Lax, Los Angeles airport. PDX, we’ve gone there a lot, to Portland, that’s right. Phoenix makes sense. PHX, so does Sioux City gateway
Bob Smith 10:23
airport. Some of those became sucks or sex, yeah.
Marcia Smith 10:26
Su X, sucks. That’s right, yeah. Sioux City gateway airport tried to get rid of it, and then they thought, no, it’s funny. It was kind of a joke. And after a while, they decided it was a good joke. So now they got all this sucks. You know, merchandise out there.
Bob Smith 10:43
And, you know, I’d always thought the X symbolized runways, two runways crossing one another. Oh, that’s
Marcia Smith 10:48
clever. I wouldn’t have thought of that. Well, thank
Bob Smith 10:50
you. Okay, Marsh, I have an interesting fact. This is just to show you that vaudeville was big stuff at the turn of the 20th century. Do you have any idea what some of the great vaudeville teams were making in 1905 per week? Well, no, the team of Weber and fields in 1905 made $4,000
Marcia Smith 11:12
a week. 1905 1905 before income
Bob Smith 11:15
tax and everything, amazing, nobody was making money like that. Yeah, in regular work, how
Marcia Smith 11:20
much did it cost to go into a vaudeville show? Probably a Penny. Penny.
Bob Smith 11:23
I’m sure it was just pennies, you know.
Marcia Smith 11:26
So that’s a lot of pennies to get. $4,000
Bob Smith 11:27
speaking of that, back in 1863 when I am singer and Edward Clark incorporated their singer manufacturing company to sell the Singer sewing machine. How much did the average family make? What year in 1863 this is the average American family in 1863 this is during the Civil War, $300 $500 only 500 a year. But you know, it was worth a lot more back then, and the first singers sold for $100
Marcia Smith 11:56
Oh, wow. 500 was the
Bob Smith 11:59
20% of your income to buy one of these machines. That was a lot of money for a family to invest. But Clark came up with an idea of $5 per month installment plan, and that’s what persuaded customers to buy the beginning of the installment plan. That was one of the beginnings, yeah, that was the first big, expensive device to go into homes. Actually, clocks were done that way too. Eli Terry came up with a plan for that in the 1840s for the clocks he was making. Okay, okay, I have a question for you. Now we know where the coldest and the hottest and the driest and the wettest places on Earth are. We’ve had these questions before. But what’s the coldest inhabited place in the world? Well,
Marcia Smith 12:40
where people actually, literally live in Siberia. That is true, but it’s not the answer, no, that’s, that’s true. It’s
Bob Smith 12:46
called, it’s the village of omia con om
Marcia Smith 12:51
so I’m right, and you didn’t even give me a right? That’s right, yeah,
Bob Smith 12:55
maybe the coldest inhabited town on Earth. But it’s, it’s got 500 hearty souls that live there.
Marcia Smith 13:01
What do they do for a living? Well, I
Bob Smith 13:03
don’t know. No hotels, despite an increase in tourism. So visitors are welcome to stay in local homes. Oh, I’ll bet they are. But the sub Arctic backdrop is scenic and other worldly. How cold is it? Winter temperatures often hover around 45 below zero, Fahrenheit. Oh, dear
Marcia Smith 13:21
God, all right. You know, we talked about the oldest continuously running airport in the world. And what that was,
Bob Smith 13:27
that was in, let’s see, is it Connecticut or upstate New York? That was the Wright Brothers field. It
Marcia Smith 13:33
was the Wright Brothers College Park Airport in College Park, Maryland. It’s over
Bob Smith 13:38
100 years old in 1909, yeah. So all this time,
Marcia Smith 13:42
but today’s question is, what is the world’s oldest continuously operating commercial airport? Because that’s not a commercial airport.
Bob Smith 13:51
Well, that’s right, that was the army took that over, didn’t Yeah, military officers
Marcia Smith 13:55
got hold of that one. But where do you think this other one was established in 1911 you have any idea? Okay,
Bob Smith 14:02
I’m gonna give you a couple of guesses. One is St Louis, because back in the 20s in the world, that’s where Lindbergh, that was one of the places he took off from. Either there in Kansas City, I would say it’s in London. I’d say it’s in London somewhere. Or Paris, maybe it’s Paris, the Bucha field.
Marcia Smith 14:19
No, you like this answer? It was Hamburg Airport. Why Bob? Because of the zeppelins. Oh, they needed a place to land. They were taking off the airships in the 1890s and everything. And they, they thought this
Bob Smith 14:34
was the future of air travel. Wow, I didn’t know they were doing that in the 1890s yep, that’s
Marcia Smith 14:38
when it started. And so in 1910 1911 1911 is when it was finished. They built the Hamburg Airport, and that’s been running ever since the airport broke the 1 million passenger mark in 1961
Bob Smith 14:53
Wow. All right, all right. Let’s take a break now. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and me. Bob.
Marcia Smith 14:59
Marsha Smith,
Bob Smith 15:01
we’ll be back in just a moment. Okay, you’re back, and we’re with the off rep for the Cedarburg Public Library, Bob and Marcia Smith, Marcia, I have a couple more of these items that I’m going to give you, what they are, and you tell me what they were named for,
Marcia Smith 15:17
Okey doke, Shetland, ponies they were named for where they came from, Shetland, England. Well, you’re close. Well, I’ll
Bob Smith 15:23
get this to you. Oh, thank
Marcia Smith 15:24
you, sweetheart. The British Isles,
Bob Smith 15:26
the Shetland ponies. They’re small ponies. They’re native to the Shetland Islands, located northeast of mainland Scotland. Their stocky build made them perfect for the harsh climate of the sub Arctic islands, subarctic where their ancestors have kept and bred them since the Bronze Age. Geez, that’s a long time ago.
Marcia Smith 15:49
Okay, Bob, what is the deepest canyon in the United States?
Bob Smith 15:53
Okay, it’s not the Grand Canyon. No, it’s not. Although that is deep, it is deep. It is. See what is it’s in Utah, I believe, isn’t it? Nope, not Snake River Canyon in Idaho.
Marcia Smith 16:04
It’s Hell’s Canyon in Oregon and Idaho. Okay, all right, so it exceeds the depth of the Grand Canyon by plunging nearly 8000 feet in some places. And the Grand Canyon is 4000 so it’s twice the depth 8000 feet in some place. That’s like a
Bob Smith 16:23
mile and a half. I
Marcia Smith 16:24
don’t know it’s amazing. It is deep. Yeah, wow. I’m trying to think, have we ever seen it? Not that
Speaker 1 16:29
one. We were certainly near some pretty rough territory between the Grand Tetons and Idaho. When you come out of the Grand Tetons and decide to head up on the west side of Yellowstone, that’s very rough. Remember that? Whoa. Take a picture of this. I remember telling you when we were going downhill. Oh, god yes, okay. Marcia, another item. And what is it named for? The Tuxedo, the tuxedo? What’s it named for? It
Marcia Smith 16:51
is named for
Bob Smith 16:55
tuxedo. Named for something, tuxedo. Junction, no,
Marcia Smith 17:00
isn’t it a song?
Speaker 1 17:01
This was a formal dinner jacket that King Edward the seventh wore. But the name is American. When an American friend of the Prince of Wales wore the new style to the tuxedo Park Club in New York City, the style club, of course, yeah,
Marcia Smith 17:18
I remember reading about that the
Bob Smith 17:19
style caught on among the members there, and the jacket became the tuxedo. Okay, all right, Sherry. Sherry, not your best friend. Sherry, the fortified wine. What’s it name for?
Marcia Smith 17:31
Ah, well, I don’t know. I don’t like it. Oh, does
Bob Smith 17:34
it matter if you like it or not? Marcia,
Marcia Smith 17:36
so I never thought about its origin. What’s it named for?
Bob Smith 17:40
It’s named for the Anglican version of the town of origin, X, E, R, E, S, cheris, Spain. But anglicizing it, they made it sound like Sherry, okay, like champagne. Sherry is a protected, designated of origin product, and only wine from that area of Spain can be labeled Sherry in Europe.
Marcia Smith 17:58
Is that right here too? Yeah. Okay, all right, okay, the day after Thanksgiving is often referred to as Black Friday. Well,
Bob Smith 18:07
I know this. I had this question too. You did, yes, what’s
Marcia Smith 18:11
the answer Black Friday?
Bob Smith 18:13
The Philadelphia Police Department?
Marcia Smith 18:16
No, yeah. Well, we had different answers then. All
Bob Smith 18:19
right, do you want me to tell you what the answer is, my answer, and you tell me your answer. Okay, my question to you is going to be, what do police have to do with Black Friday? I don’t know well. Originally, the expression was coined by police, not business people. In the early 1960s Philadelphia Police began calling the day after Thanksgiving Black Friday because there was always an influx of holiday visitors, and that meant police officers had to work longer shifts to handle all the congestion. So Black Friday meant a bad thing, like we got to work a long day. Oh, that’s my answer. That came from Britannica. So that’s a good source. Yes, it is. What’s yours?
Marcia Smith 18:56
This source is the November 1951 issue of that page turning magazine, factory management and maintenance.
Bob Smith 19:07
I remember reading that as a child in
Marcia Smith 19:09
it, our writer hyperbolically describes the day as quote, a disease second only to the bubonic plague and its effects, because so many people called in sick the day after Thanksgiving, either hungover or overstuffed. So it became Black Friday, referring, like to the Black Death in that article, and ever since then, that’s why they call it Black Friday. And I like my answer better. Well,
Bob Smith 19:34
either one is interesting, they’re both interesting because neither one refers to shopping.
Marcia Smith 19:39
Yeah, we always think of it as we made our money on that day, the common belief, but I like mine more because also it goes back farther.
Bob Smith 19:48
Yours goes back to the 50s mines to the 60s. So yeah, maybe there’s another explanation somebody might have. Okay, all right, Marcia, who was the only person to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the. Congressional Medal of Honor. Holy come only, the only person to win the Nobel Peace Prize and the Congressional Medal of Honor. I do have a hint. Okay, it was a president of the United States, alrighty. And the only person, no, not that, Roosevelt, Teddy. It was Teddy Roosevelt, yeah. Hard to believe, huh? Yeah. He was given the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a war between Japan and Russia, credited with, you know, mediating the dispute, okay? And then, of course, he later became the youngest elected President of the United States. He won the Congressional Medal of Honor too. He’s an amazing person to get all this stuff.
Marcia Smith 20:40
Yeah, he was no. Dolt, that’s for sure. No, no. Dolt, no, okay, Bob, speaking of President, whose face was on the $100,000 bill, Oh,
Bob Smith 20:51
was that grant? No, whose face is on the $100,000 bill? Is that somebody we would expect to see on something like that? And it wasn’t, it wasn’t Hamilton or somebody like that. Was it a president? Yeah, wow, I don’t know. You haven’t ever seen 100,000 No, I haven’t that. I came close to one.
Marcia Smith 21:10
According to this the $100,000 bill is Woodrow Wilson. Oh, it’s a note which featured his picture, and it was never issued for public use are circulated into the general economy. It’s used by banks. The gold certificate was created at the height of the Great Depression by the Federal Reserve banks to make transactions with one another. So there are only 42,000 made, and they can’t be held by collectors due to legal reasons. Wow. But institutions like the Smithsonian and the Museum of American Finance, I know you want to go, are allowed to exhibit them, so they are on exhibit a couple places. And there you have it.
Bob Smith 21:51
Marcia, I have an interesting one that deals with language, okay, what’s the name of the.in the letter i and a small J. You know, both of those have a little dot over them. What’s the name of that thing that.it
Marcia Smith 22:05
is called the polka. No, it’s
Bob Smith 22:09
not called the polka. Marcia,
Marcia Smith 22:10
polka.no
Bob Smith 22:11
it’s not. We had that question earlier.
Marcia Smith 22:15
Okay, no, I don’t know.
Bob Smith 22:16
It’s the tittle. You’ve heard of the dots and tittles? Yes, many other languages use a variety of accent marks above letters, but English only has a few, a couple of letters that utilize a dot. And the term tittle has been used for a long time. It first appeared in the 11th century Latin manuscripts, and it shares the same root as title, perhaps because both items appear above the top of things. Oh, tittle. Title, so now you’ll remember it that way. Remember that little dot above an IRA Jay, that’s a tittle, tittle. Yes, it’s
Marcia Smith 22:47
a fun word to say too. Okay. Bob Neptune.
Bob Smith 22:51
Neptune, okay.
Marcia Smith 22:52
It’s an intriguing little planet.
Unknown Speaker 22:54
Uh huh.
Marcia Smith 22:54
Actually, it’s not so little. It’s four times wider than
Bob Smith 22:57
Earth. Four times wider, yeah, okay.
Marcia Smith 23:00
It was discovered in 1846 My question is, how many orbits around the Sun has it had since its discovery in 1846
Bob Smith 23:09
oh, I think it takes like 200 years to go around the sun, doesn’t it 230 years for Neptune? Yeah, that’s
Marcia Smith 23:15
crazy. It’s 165
Bob Smith 23:18
65 years to go around the sun. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 23:21
one Neptunian is equal to 165 Earth years because it’s so far away from the Sun it takes longer to orbit. In 1989 when Voyager two visited Neptune, it filmed a small, irregular, white triangle that zips around Neptune’s surface every 16 hours or so. It just just little. I looked at it. It’s just a white triangle thing. Okay, goes around. They gave this white light the name the scooter, the scooter, yeah. And still, nobody knows what it is or what causes it, but if you look at Neptune there, you’ll see scooter scooting around the planet. So
Speaker 1 23:58
there are scooters on Neptune. Now we know the answer. All right. Marcia, another word question. Back in the day, why would you not want to be called Nice? She’s a nice girl. You’re a nice person. You
Marcia Smith 24:10
never had a nice girl with me, did you? You are a nice
Bob Smith 24:13
girl. Marsha, okay,
Marcia Smith 24:16
why wouldn’t you want to be called Nice? Yes, why not? Obviously, it meant something like the opposite. Yeah, something bad. Bad, sad, a lady of different
Bob Smith 24:24
No,
Marcia Smith 24:25
not at all. Okay,
Bob Smith 24:26
today’s word for nice comes from the Latin word Messias, which means ignorant.
Marcia Smith 24:33
Well, that makes sense to me.
Bob Smith 24:35
It’s almost like you’re on Neptune. Give me a day to think about that, and 165 years later, you come back with it, call somebody nice because you think they’re stupid, not stupid, just uninformed. All right. And what fruit is named after the word for a scary mask? I found this out on Britannica the other day. It’s funny, there’s a fruit It’s named after the word for a scary mask to scare children the ugly. Fruit? No, it’s not an ugly fruit. It’s
Marcia Smith 25:02
called ugly fruit. No, it’s
Bob Smith 25:03
not called an ugly fruit. Marcia, what fruit is named after, the word for a scary mask.
Marcia Smith 25:12
Don’t know, Coco
Speaker 1 25:13
nuts, okay? Coconuts, they have those three round spots. They resemble a face. That’s true. Coconuts were named for Cocoa, a Spanish, Portuguese word for a mask used to frighten children. Oh, okay, a CoCo nut because it looks like the mask.
Marcia Smith 25:29
I’m gonna finish up with my question, okay, the most common video game character is, who? Most
Bob Smith 25:35
common? Yeah? You mean the one that everybody remembers? Yeah, Mario, Super Mario.
Marcia Smith 25:40
That’s right, Mario the plumber, okay, he appeared in almost 240 distinct video game titles since his introduction in 1985
Bob Smith 25:48
I had no idea that there was only a couple that. Yeah, no, there’s 285 Wow,
Marcia Smith 25:53
Nintendo. I think they’re all Nintendo. Yeah. So here’s the question, What’s Mario’s full name?
Bob Smith 25:58
Wow. Mario’s full name,
Marcia Smith 26:01
he and Luigi, I assume have Mario Nintendo, Sobin ski, no,
Bob Smith 26:06
I don’t know what his full name is. Who
Marcia Smith 26:08
knew it’s Mario, Mario. There you go. Take
Bob Smith 26:14
that to the that’s a bad one to end the show on. That’s kind of stupid. It is stupid,
Marcia Smith 26:18
Mario, Mario. Why would you name him? Mario? Mario? Maybe
Bob Smith 26:22
you’ll think this is stupid too. What letter was once represented by two symbols of another letter. Now think about this. One letter that we use was once represented by two symbols for another letter. Ah, originally, that’s what it looked like. It’s changed its shape.
Marcia Smith 26:40
I don’t know, the H, no, the K,
Bob Smith 26:43
no, the W, that’s the reason it’s pronounced W, that’s whatever, because it was, it was originally 2u next to each other. Oh, the Latin alphabet had no symbol to represent the what sound. So old English writing utilized 2u for the sound. And in the 11th century, the symbol that we know today, which looks like 2v together, was born. But for years it was 2u W
Marcia Smith 27:09
now that I find very intriguing. Thank
Bob Smith 27:11
you very much. And to wrap things up, Marcia, I’ve got a quote one of those famous last words, uh huh. When Groucho Marx was dying, he let out one last quip, okay, this has no way to live. And with that, we wrap up the show today on the off ramp. I’m Bob Smith, I’m Marcia Smith. Join us again next time when we return with more fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia here on the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin, the.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
