What word was removed from the dictionary as archaic one year – then added as modern the next? And what famous artist had brushes tied to his hands so he could paint in his old age? Hear the Off Ramp with Bob & Marcia Smith. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Bob and Marcia discuss various trivia topics, including the word “wireless,” which was removed from the dictionary in 1996 and reinstated in 1997 due to Wi-Fi technology. They learn that Renoir tied paintbrushes to his hands due to arthritis. Volleyball, initially called mintonette, was created in 1895 for businessmen. NBA MVP trophies are bronze sculptures of Michael Jordan, symbolizing his jersey number 23 and six championships. Basketball hoops are 10 feet high due to their origin in a YMCA. Queen Victoria survived eight assassination attempts. The Delaware Aqueduct is the world’s longest tunnel, delivering water to New York City.
Outline
Words Added and Removed from the Dictionary
- Bob Smith mentions a word that was removed from the dictionary in 1996 and added back in 1997.
- Marcia Smith asks if the word changed definition or usage.
- Bob Smith reveals the word was “wireless,” which was deemed archaic in 1996 but reinstated as a high-tech term in 1997.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the historical context of the word “wireless” and its relevance to early radio technology.
Famous Artist with Paint Brushes Tied to His Hands
- Marcia Smith asks about a famous artist who had paint brushes tied to his hands.
- Bob Smith initially guesses Michelangelo, but Marcia Smith corrects him.
- Marcia Smith reveals the artist is Renoir, who tied paint brushes to his hands due to severe arthritis in his last years.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss Renoir’s life and work, noting his transition to Impressionism and his death in 1919.
Indoor Sport Designed for Businessmen
- Marcia Smith asks about an indoor sport designed for businessmen.
- Bob Smith reveals the sport is volleyball, which was developed in 1895 by William Morgan in a YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
- The sport was initially called mintonette but was later renamed volleyball by players.
- Volleyball gained popularity during World War I and became an Olympic sport in 1964.
NBA MVP Trophies and Basketball Trivia
- Marcia Smith shares that NBA MVP trophies are made in Milwaukee and are bronze sculptures of Michael Jordan.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the significance of the trophy’s dimensions: 23.6 inches tall and 23.6 pounds.
- They discuss why basketball hoops are 10 feet high, referencing the game’s origins in a YMCA where hoops were hung on railings.
- Bob Smith explains early basketball rules, including the use of peach baskets and the game’s initial nine-player format.
Famous Person Shot at Multiple Times
- Marcia Smith asks about a famous person who was shot at multiple times but never hit.
- Bob Smith initially guesses General George Custer or Napoleon, but Marcia Smith reveals the answer is Queen Victoria.
- Marcia Smith shares that Victoria was shot at by seven different people but was never hit by a bullet.
- They discuss the concept of destiny and how it relates to historical figures.
Information Highway and Fastest Talkers
- Bob Smith asks who called the information highway a modern term.
- Marcia Smith reveals that AT&T described its telephone network as a highway of communication in 1909.
- They discuss the fastest and slowest talkers in the United States, with Marcia Smith noting that the slowest talkers are in Illinois and the fastest in Minnesota.
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith share their opinions on fast and slow talkers, with Marcia Smith preferring fast talkers.
US States with Smaller Populations than Washington, DC
- Marcia Smith asks about US states with smaller populations than Washington, DC.
- Bob Smith reveals the states are Vermont and Wyoming, with Vermont having a population of 623,989 and Wyoming having 578,759.
- They discuss the implications of Washington, DC not having representatives in Congress despite having a larger population.
- Bob Smith explains that DC’s status as a federal district was not anticipated when it was created.
ASPCA and Animal Perception of Time
- Marcia Smith asks about the inspiration for the ASPCA.
- Bob Smith reveals that the ASPCA was established in 1886 to prevent cruelty to carriage horses.
- They discuss how different creatures perceive time differently based on their environment and hunting habits.
- Bob Smith shares a study by the British Ecological Society, noting that dragonflies detect changes the fastest, followed by birds and dogs.
Dangerous Professions and Nachos
- Marcia Smith asks about the most dangerous professions.
- Bob Smith lists loggers, commercial fishermen, and pilots as the top three most dangerous professions.
- They discuss the high fatality rates in these professions and the challenges they face.
- Bob Smith shares the origin of the word “nachos,” named after Ignacio Anaya, a Mexican chef who created the dish in 1943.
Photography and Tupperware
- Marcia Smith asks about the most common use of photography in the beginning.
- Bob Smith reveals that professionally shot photographs of dead family members were common.
- They discuss the emotional significance of these photos and how they were used to remember loved ones.
- Bob Smith shares the story of Earl Tupper, a former DuPont chemist who developed Tupperware, and how it was initially sold through home demonstration parties.
Breathing Frequency and Cheese Stockpile
- Marcia Smith shares a factoid about breathing frequency, noting that people breathe roughly 25,000 times a day.
- They discuss the marvel of the human body and its automatic functions.
- Bob Smith shares his cheese stockpile, noting that the United States has a strategic cheese reserve of 1.4 billion pounds.
- They discuss other countries’ stockpiles, including Canada’s maple syrup and China’s pork.
Colorblindness in Newborns and Naming Inventions
- Marcia Smith asks if new babies are born colorblind.
- Bob Smith confirms that newborns are colorblind for the first four months due to the development of rods and cones in their eyes.
- They discuss the prevalence of color blindness in men and women, with one in 12 men and one in 200 women being colorblind.
- Bob Smith shares a question about a weapon of war named after a British artillery officer, revealing it is the shrapnel.
Shakespeare’s Influence on Names
- Marcia Smith asks if William Shakespeare invented a modern name.
- Bob Smith reveals that Shakespeare invented the name Jessica, which he used in his play “The Merchant of Venice.”
- They discuss the popularity of the name Jessica between 1976 and 2000 and its origins in the Hebrew name Ishka.
- Bob Smith shares another name Shakespeare influenced: uranium, named by German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth after the planet Uranus.
World’s Largest Tunnel and Final Thoughts
- Bob Smith asks about the world’s largest tunnel and what it delivers to a city.
- Marcia Smith guesses New York City, and Bob Smith confirms it is the Delaware Aqueduct, which delivers drinking water from the Delaware River.
- They discuss the length of the tunnel, which is 85 miles.
- Marcia Smith ends with a quote from Carrie Bradshaw, “I like my money where I can see it hanging in my closet,” and they wrap up the episode.
Bob Smith 0:00
Bob, what word was removed from the dictionary as our cake one year and added as modern the next, really Yes. And
Marcia Smith 0:08
what famous artist had paint brushes tied to his hands so he could paint when he got older?
Bob Smith 0:14
Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the off ramp with Bob and Marsha Smith. You
Unknown Speaker 0:35
Music. Welcome
Bob Smith 0:36
to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy take a side road to sanity. Well, Marcia once there was a word that had been in usage for quite a long time, but eventually, in 1996 it was removed as archaic. This was a decision by a major dictionary manufacturer, Okay, the next year, it was added back in as a modern word, as a modern word. So
Marcia Smith 1:01
it changed. Did it change definition or was used more? Okay, I don’t know. The word. Tell me
Bob Smith 1:07
the Oxford English reference dictionary decreed that the noun wireless was archaic. Oh, of course. In 1996 then, with the advent of Wi Fi technology, wireless was added back again and 1997 as a high tech term. Oh, that’s
Marcia Smith 1:23
so funny. So much makes a big difference in the world of tech, absolutely.
Bob Smith 1:27
And back in the 1920s there was a magazine with a trade name, wireless age, and it was about radio. Did you read it? No, I wasn’t there then Marsh. When was it 1920
Marcia Smith 1:38
Oh, no, I guess you were.
Bob Smith 1:41
Thanks a lot.
Unknown Speaker 1:42
You look younger. Oh, yeah, I hope so. All
Marcia Smith 1:44
right, Bob, what famous artist had paint brushes tied to his hands? Paint
Bob Smith 1:49
brushes tied to his hands. The Sistine Chapel artist, that’s Michelangelo. Is that right? Was it him because he was up there on the scaffold, yeah, if you lost your paint brush, yeah,
Marcia Smith 1:58
it was a problem. Oh, that’s good. This is because he got old, hmm,
Bob Smith 2:02
was it Salvador Dali or Picasso? No,
Marcia Smith 2:04
no, neither one of those. No, no, what century, early 20th century. Okay,
Bob Smith 2:11
well, that’s those guys were around back then. I don’t know who was it? It was Renoir,
Marcia Smith 2:16
really, yeah. What’s the story behind that? In the last years of his life, he had severe rheumatism and arthritis, and he was confined to a wheelchair too, oh, and the paint brushes were literally tied to his hands so he could paint. If you look at his work from 1919, 1918, it is a little looser. He did, yeah, I saw a picture of him doing that anyway. He did do Impressionism, so that helped. He died in 1919, at age 78 Hmm,
Bob Smith 2:48
okay, all right. Marcia, can you tell me what indoor sport was designed for businessmen, because basketball was a little too rigorous. What this was designed racquetball. No, not racquetball. This was designed in a YMCA, okay, just like basketball was, yeah, okay, in Massachusetts, just like basketball was in the same decade, just as basketball was,
Unknown Speaker 3:15
No, I don’t know what volleyball.
Bob Smith 3:19
Oh. Volleyball was developed by a young men’s Christian organization’s community center. That’s a YMCA in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in 1895 when William Morgan decided to create a new indoor sport less strenuous than basketball, which had been developed only four years earlier at a YMCA, but still consisted of some physical activity and fun. So he decided to call his new sport mintonette Internet. But a player renamed it, focusing on a key action of the sport, volleying the ball back and forth. He said, let’s call it volleyball. So that’s what it became. And it spread globally. And the big spread of it was in World War One, when soldiers took it overseas from America, and that eventually paved the way for it becoming an Olympic sport in 1964 Oh,
Marcia Smith 4:05
that’s when it became Olympic Yeah, heck, we have like 17 nets down on the beach here on Lake Michigan. Yeah,
Bob Smith 4:11
there’s a lot of outdoor volleyball, but it was originally designed as an indoor sport for businessmen. It’s
Marcia Smith 4:17
one of the few sports you really like to play in indulgent who me?
Bob Smith 4:21
Yeah, oh yeah, I really enjoy it. Yeah, you did, but mintonette was its original name.
Marcia Smith 4:25
Okay, I’ll just transition right to another basketball question. Bob, okay. Bet you didn’t know that the NBA MVP trophies are made right here in Milwaukee Area. No, I didn’t know that. It’s a bronze sculpture of Michael Jordan, and it’s really quite stunning. It was in the paper this morning. Anyway, the trophy stands 23.6 inches tall and weighs 23.6 pounds. Wow.
Bob Smith 4:51
It’s pretty heavy.
Marcia Smith 4:52
Why these precise numbers? Why
Bob Smith 4:54
those precise numbers? 23.6 I don’t know why,
Marcia Smith 4:58
because Michaels. Jersey number was 23 and he won six NBA champions in his life.
Unknown Speaker 5:05
Oh, really. So they did 23.6 Yeah, for the weight
Marcia Smith 5:08
and the height, I’ll be darn
Bob Smith 5:10
so just a symbolic Yeah. All right, here’s another basketball question, as we’re in basketball season, yeah, why are basketball hoops 10 feet high?
Marcia Smith 5:19
Because most guys top out at nine, I don’t know.
Bob Smith 5:23
It had to do with where they were invented, where the game was invented, where James Naismith invented it in a YMCA, we talked about,
Marcia Smith 5:32
oh yeah, okay,
Bob Smith 5:34
got me Bob. Well, he hung the peach baskets that served as the first hoops on the railings of the running track, there’s a running track. Yeah, yeah. A lot of old gyms used to have running tracks up above the
Marcia Smith 5:45
seating of where the people and those were nine feet above 10 feet floor. It
Bob Smith 5:49
was 10 feet above the floor. I’ll be darn so his decision about the baskets on the railing was one of the few features of that first game that still goes on to this present day. Originally, the game was played with nine people per side, as opposed to five, and they used a soccer ball as the basketball had not been invented.
Marcia Smith 6:07
Isn’t it amazing how what constitutes the beginning of something and it stays with it?
Bob Smith 6:11
Well, this is one of the big differences, too. They were not allowed to dribble the ball, but instead, had to be stationary when they were in possession of it, so you would just throw it to another person. That’s how the game was done. Originally say that again, dribble the ball stationary.
Marcia Smith 6:26
What the fun is that? But the
Bob Smith 6:30
goal remained 10 feet off the ground, even after the inconvenient peach baskets, which required a ladder to retrieve the ball when a shot was successful, were replaced by iron hoops. How
Marcia Smith 6:40
long did it take for someone to say, hey, let’s take out the bottom of that peach bag. How long did that take? Just
Unknown Speaker 6:46
get that thing out of here. Yeah.
Marcia Smith 6:48
All right. We’ve talked many times Bob about George Washington and how he escaped death, right? The Indians thought he had some magical spirit because their arrows killed his horse. Went through his hat, they did everything but killed him. So my question is, what other famous person in world history was shot at eight times by seven different people but never was hit by a bullet?
Bob Smith 7:15
Is this an American? No. Was it somebody from Europe? Yes, and it was in the 19th century, the 20th century, 19th so the years are the 1800s Yes, okay, for some reason I’m thinking of General George Custer, but he’s an American, correct? Oh, yeah, yeah. So we’re talking European. So is it Napoleon? Nope.
Marcia Smith 7:35
Okay, that makes sense, too. But it was Queen Victoria. No kidding, yeah, seven different people tried to take her out with a pistol.
Bob Smith 7:44
Jeez, seven different assassination attempts, yeah, and nobody
Marcia Smith 7:48
ever hit her. So that’s what I call destiny, huh?
Unknown Speaker 7:52
Yeah, amazing. It is amazing. It is her and
Marcia Smith 7:56
George Washington would have been a good team,
Bob Smith 8:00
okay? Marcia, the information highway is considered a modern term, but it was actually foreseen 100 years earlier, at the turn of the 20th century. Who called it the information highway? Somebody I know, who described an information highway, somebody I went out with? No Nobody, you know, nobody went out with. I don’t know. It was a technology
Marcia Smith 8:21
company, though. Interestingly. Okay, so some company, IBM, close in
Bob Smith 8:26
an early advertisement AT and T described its telephone network as a highway of communication. The year was 1909 so even back then, so
Marcia Smith 8:38
Bob, where did the fastest and the slowest talkers in the United States live.
Bob Smith 8:43
Where did the fastest and the slowest live? Yeah, they actually did a survey
Marcia Smith 8:46
on this. What part of the country do they live?
Bob Smith 8:49
I say the fastest talkers are probably in New England, New York, Massachusetts, that area, and the slowest talkers somewhere in the south, maybe Mississippi or Alabama. That’s
Marcia Smith 8:59
exactly what I would have said. But no, it’s not even close. It’s the Midwest. A recent survey shows that the slowest talkers, which drive me crazy, are the Bears fans Illinois. Oh, really, yeah, and the fastest talkers are in Minnesota. Don’t you know? I’ll go with fast talkers over slow talkers every time, because they make me nuts, because I want to finish their sentences as they think through Yes, what they’re hello to say next. So
Bob Smith 9:30
the Bears fans talk the slowest. I thought they would talk about a geography, but we’re talking Bears fans. So the Bears fans in California Speak slowly. The
Marcia Smith 9:39
guys on WGN in the morning we’re really upset. We’re not, we’re not slow talkers. Slow talkers.
Bob Smith 9:48
Oh, that’s funny, okay, Marcia, two US states have populations smaller than Washington, DC. What are those two states?
Marcia Smith 9:57
Vermont and Rhoda? Island,
Unknown Speaker 10:00
you’re close Rhode Island
Marcia Smith 10:02
and Alaska, you’re
Bob Smith 10:05
not close at all. Now you had one of them, Vermont. Vermont was one. Uh huh, the other is Wyoming.
Marcia Smith 10:12
Oh yes, I knew it was some state that had a lot of land.
Bob Smith 10:16
So you think about this, you know, America’s capital city is not part of any of the 50 states. But two of the states have fewer people than Washington, DC. So in 2019 an estimated 705,749 people lived in the federal district, District of Columbia, compared to 623,989 in Vermont and 578,759 in Wyoming, but at least those states have representatives in Congress. You know, makes you think that Washington, DC probably should have representatives in Congress. But why isn’t it a state? Because when it was created, lawmakers had no idea it would grow into a major city as it is today. The topic of DC statehood has come up several times, but at least for now, it’s still unlikely to become a 51st state. All
Marcia Smith 11:05
right, this is curious. What was the inspiration for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty in animals?
Bob Smith 11:13
Well, I would think it’s somebody treating animals poorly.
Marcia Smith 11:17
It was something specific, though, was it? Yeah, had to do with transportation. Oh, really, yeah.
Bob Smith 11:23
Did it have something to do with horses?
Marcia Smith 11:27
Yes, did it? Yeah? The ASPCA was established in 1886 and it was inspired by the abuse of carriage horses. Horses were the major form of transportation at the time, they hauled wagons and carriages, and they were often beaten and mistreated, especially when they caused traffic jams, they would do bad, nasty things to them, and so horses in
Bob Smith 11:50
the middle of a city street, so everybody would see these horses being beaten. Yeah, yes, sad. People got
Marcia Smith 11:55
so upset, and that’s how the formation of ASPCA, which stands for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Okay,
Bob Smith 12:04
I have another animal question, but we can get to that in just a moment. Let’s take a break. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and me.
Marcia Smith 12:11
Marsha Smith,
Unknown Speaker 12:13
okay,
Bob Smith 12:16
all right. We’re back. Marcia, I have another animal question now, scientists now believe different creatures perceive time differently. What do they think the difference is based on
Marcia Smith 12:29
brain capacity?
Bob Smith 12:30
Well, no, it’s external factors. Oh,
Marcia Smith 12:33
the weather, the sun, the moon.
Bob Smith 12:38
You’re close. How fast a species, environment changes, and a lot of that deals with how it hunts for food, or if it’s being hunted. Oh,
Marcia Smith 12:46
well, that would that would speed things up. And if you’re a sloth, I would think getting to the food would take a little longer. So this
Bob Smith 12:54
is a new unpublished study by the British Ecological Society. They say that some small animals experience time at a much faster rate. They did flickering light studies to measure the rate at which the optic nerve sent information to the brain. And of the 138 species they studied, dragonflies detected change the fastest. Oh, really, their vision equips them to see changes 300 times a second. 300 Hertz is the speed at which they measure time changes. A bird known as a pied fly catcher has the fastest eyes in the vertebrate kingdom, boasting rate of 146 Hertz. Dogs have vision measured at 75 hertz, and we can only detect changes 65 times per second. Okay,
Marcia Smith 13:39
Bob, can you name any of the top three most dangerous professions?
Bob Smith 13:46
Top three most dangerous professions, I always thought coal mining was one of the top ones. Very dangerous. Nope. Hmm. Top three dangerous professions,
Marcia Smith 13:55
maybe it was back in the day. Yeah, it
Bob Smith 13:57
was very dangerous. Anything under town now, okay, I don’t know. Do I get any clues? The you always want me to give you clues, but boy, when it comes to your questions, no clues. You just got to figure it out. Don’t
Marcia Smith 14:09
be whiny, Bob. All right, okay, all right. Number one, tapping the list loggers, okay, it’s highly physical, and it’s in remote locations, and it’s far away from medical facilities. Yes, it’s true. So the fatality rate is 130 2.7 out of 100,000
Bob Smith 14:25
and that’s considered high. Yes, okay, yeah.
Marcia Smith 14:29
So number two is commercial fishing. I wouldn’t have guessed that. It’s the heavy physical labor of it and the extreme conditions out on the water there.
Bob Smith 14:36
Sure you’re lifting nets and wind and everything else. And also, it’s
Marcia Smith 14:40
not close to medical facilities, usually, right anyway, and the good old, falling overboard is always possibility, and your chances of dying are 87 out of 100,000 okay? And third is a pilot or in flight engineer, and their issues are constantly changing, schedules, causing fatigue, bad. Bad weather and busy airspace all contribute to increased chance of human error. Their fatality rate is 55.5
Unknown Speaker 15:08
out of 100,000 pilots, really. So there’s a lot of stress
Marcia Smith 15:12
there. And the remainder of the top 10 roofers, waste and recycle collection, iron and steel workers, traveling salesmen, truck driving, farming and ranching and construction. I always knew
Bob Smith 15:23
farming was dangerous. And again, same thing, you’ve remote locations. You’re away from anything somehow with them, with heavy equipment, yeah, a lot of machinery you’re dealing with, and usually the only person, or one of only two or three people dealing with huge pieces of equipment, yeah, okay, Marcia, what Mexican restaurant tour gave his name to a popular snack food,
Marcia Smith 15:43
Cheeto,
Unknown Speaker 15:44
not Cheeto, but you’re close.
Marcia Smith 15:46
Am I taco? No, not taco. No, that’s not a snack. It’s
Bob Smith 15:51
a no food, though it’s a what? It’s a no food, like you’re talking, it’s not Cheeto, it’s not taco, uh huh.
Unknown Speaker 15:57
It’s Nacho. Oh, Nacho.
Bob Smith 15:59
In 1943 a group of military wives were visiting piedras Negress, a small Mexican city just across the border from Fort Duncan in Eagle Pass, Texas. They dropped by a local restaurant looking for a bite to eat. Now the restaurant was closed, but the maitre d, or possibly the chef, whose name was Inacio, Ana Garcia, very good. Felt sorry for them, so he whipped up something based on what was available in the kitchen. He cut up fried tortillas, covered them with shredded cheese and jalapeno peppers, put it in the oven for a few minutes, and he named the snack after his nickname, nosh. So nice. Ignacio Onana, Garcia and Bennett the nacho.
Marcia Smith 16:40
Okay, Bob, there’s a quick one. What was the most common use of photography in the beginning?
Bob Smith 16:46
Most common use of photography at the beginning? Yeah, okay, let me think about this for a second.
Marcia Smith 16:52
What did people use it for?
Unknown Speaker 16:54
Well, I It
Marcia Smith 16:55
wasn’t selfies, just no
Bob Smith 16:56
clue, portraits. I know they did that. It wasn’t used for documents or anything. Yet. I don’t think was, no we do photocopies all the time and things, but I don’t know what
Marcia Smith 17:08
was originally used for decades after the birth of modern photography in 1839, goes back that far. It blows my mind. One of the most common uses of the technology was a professionally shot photograph of a dead family member. Oh, no, yeah, they wanted to remember. Oh, my God, that people look like and so that’s
Bob Smith 17:29
right, there were all those death photos, yeah, pictures taken in funeral homes of family members, loved ones, because they figured you’re never going to see them again. Let’s take a picture of them. Yeah?
Marcia Smith 17:39
Well, that’s right. There was, you don’t have a scrapbook at home full of other pictures.
Unknown Speaker 17:44
Oh dear. You
Marcia Smith 17:45
had that, and then you had the hair thing. They took hair samples. Yes, that’s how you remember them.
Bob Smith 17:50
Oh so sad pictures of your loved ones in their leg there with their coffins, with their hands folded on their chest.
Marcia Smith 17:57
That’s something I never want to remember. They’re gone. I remember them smiling, and of course, you don’t have pictures of them smiling or laughing either, so well,
Unknown Speaker 18:05
not back then. Yeah, that’s what I mean. If you had
Bob Smith 18:07
a picture of them, they were Stern, looking at the camera, like, When is this gonna get over your relatives, right? The Smith family, happy photo.
Marcia Smith 18:14
Oh, my 1890 Yeah, that’s what I wanted to show you yesterday. Was this really old photograph of this family, and they were all cracking up getting you never see that. That’s very unusual. Yeah, that’s why it came up on my feed. It was pretty funny. Okay, Marcia,
Bob Smith 18:30
this shows you, it depends on how you ask the question, okay, you could obscure the answer. So here’s the question, what former du Pont chemist gave his name to a new kind of kitchenware? Ah,
Marcia Smith 18:45
well, I’m supposed to know his name. Yeah, I’ll just think of a kitchenware product. What
Bob Smith 18:49
former DuPont chemist gave his name to a new kind of kitchenware? It
Marcia Smith 18:54
was it the name of the of the the product? Yeah, the product, like a spatula or something, something like that product, okay, I’ll say John spatula. No,
Bob Smith 19:03
it’s not John spatula who never existed, by the way. This is a chemist who held numerous jobs before taking a position with viscoloid, which was a subsidiary of DuPont in 1937 he left a year later to start his own business as a DuPont subcontractor and eventually developed a flexible, unbreakable plastic called polyethylene, which he used to manufacture lightweight containers with airtight lids. He gave them his name, Earl Tupper Tupperware.
Marcia Smith 19:33
Oh, no kidding, Earl Tupper, he
Bob Smith 19:35
was a former DuPont chemist, so, you know, we don’t think about that. I
Marcia Smith 19:40
mean, we’re lucky. He could have been Jim Schwartz. Schwartz, where doesn’t have the same ring. He could
Bob Smith 19:44
have devised some kind of agent of death. You know, that’s a horrible thing.
Marcia Smith 19:49
Could have short swear home party shorts, where?
Bob Smith 19:51
There we go. All right, Bob, did you realize they had a problem selling the product at first? Tupperware. People didn’t understand how to use it. Yeah. Really, how can that be? Well, they just didn’t see what the point of it was, what? And that’s why they started the home demonstration parties. Oh, okay. Bonnie wise was the marketing person who started the housewife demonstration parties that changed everything, and soon Tupperware could be found in kitchens throughout the country. But that’s why it was originally sold at these home parties because people couldn’t understand how to use this stuff. What do I do with this? Can you believe that? No, it seems simple, doesn’t it?
Marcia Smith 20:27
Well, it seems like, Oh, look at this. I can save stuff easily in the fridge. Okay, all right, here’s a little factoid. You know, we breathe roughly 25,000 times a day.
Bob Smith 20:36
25,000 so that’s something we do without thinking that’s correct every day. That’s right. 25,000
Unknown Speaker 20:43
times That’s correct. Does
Bob Smith 20:44
that show you how marvelous your body is, that it does things like this.
Marcia Smith 20:48
Our bodies did a lot of things this week, and including breathing. Thank God, we both got the stomach flu. Oh,
Bob Smith 20:54
my goodness, that was that. Isn’t it amazing how disabling that is for about 24 hours or marks you on your butt. I think I’m never gonna be the same. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 21:02
I just wanna die. I wanna die. God, what country? Bob has a cheese stockpile.
Bob Smith 21:10
A cheese stockpile, yes. So just in case we run out of cheese,
Marcia Smith 21:14
can’t be too careful. We
Bob Smith 21:16
got a stockpile of cheese. Would it be someplace like Switzerland or Germany or Italy. You tell me, Bob, it’s someplace like Switzerland, Germany or Italy, okay? Switzerland, no.
Marcia Smith 21:26
United States, really? Oh yeah, because stockpile, one point
Bob Smith 21:32
the strategic oil reserve, strategic cheese reserve, that is correct.
Marcia Smith 21:36
1.4 billion pounds of the stuff is in storage. Oh, my God. What it was is we had surplus and it was to help out the farmers, so we started stockpiling it. I remember when I worked at the food pantry, the one thing we always had was cheese, because there was a cheese stockpile we could go to that had tons of it. So
Bob Smith 21:55
this cheese reserve was started by the government because they bought up surplus cheese that wasn’t being sold, correct? To help the
Marcia Smith 22:02
farmers milk and stuff, and they just couldn’t sell it all. So now we have a strategic cheese reserve. That’s right. Other countries have their stockpiles too. Bob Canada has stockpiles of maple syrup, and
Bob Smith 22:15
that’s where most of the maple syrup comes from.
Marcia Smith 22:18
I just read 70% that’s amazing, and China has a pork stockpile. Really, I want to guess that. Yeah, all right, Bob, are new babies born colorblind.
Bob Smith 22:28
I think they are, aren’t they? Well, they’ll say yes. I got a 50% chance of being right with that kind of a question, yes,
Marcia Smith 22:35
yes. Well, we have a answer is yes. We have a new grandchild. Yes. Colorblind, yes. It’s true for four months, and it’s because the rods and cones in their eyes don’t perceive color yet, but it starts coming in at four months. And here’s something we often fight about, okay, as I’ve told you many times, Bob, men are more color blind than women. No, they’re not. One in 12 men are color blind. Why? Only one in 200 Bob here 200 women are color blind.
Bob Smith 23:07
But women have a lot of other problems. Whoa,
Unknown Speaker 23:10
did I say that we’re smarter?
Marcia Smith 23:12
That can be onerous. That’s true, and it centers around telling red and green variants that they cause the most trouble, okay? And it’s your X chromosome, sweetheart. That’s the culprit I see, just so you know.
Bob Smith 23:26
Okay, here I have a question for you about naming again, what weapon of war is named after a British artillery officer?
Marcia Smith 23:33
Well, you’re full of naming rights today. This
Bob Smith 23:37
is deadly projectiles, typically small, metal shot, but also fragments of shell casings shattered by an explosive charge.
Marcia Smith 23:45
Okay, all right, I’ll just say good old hairy grenade, actually. Henry
Bob Smith 23:50
shrapnel, okay, that was, yeah, I
Marcia Smith 23:52
was on the bright track. He
Bob Smith 23:53
invented the anti personnel weapon in the late 18th century. What a terrible, terrible invention, and it bears his name, Henry shrapnel, okay,
Marcia Smith 24:01
Bob. Did you know Bill Shakespeare invented a name, a very popular modern name. You know what it is? Bill
Bob Smith 24:09
Shakespeare, meaning William Shakespeare, yes. Let’s have some serious respect.
Marcia Smith 24:14
Some respect, okay, William
Bob Smith 24:15
Shakespeare invented a modern name. Yeah? Something I should know. Yeah, as you would say, is this something I should know? Okay, I don’t know the answer.
Marcia Smith 24:26
The name is Jessica. It never appeared before, never heard of before, till really William put it in his book. Along with phrases such as, too much of a good thing. The Clothes make the man. We can also thank Shakespeare for the name Jessica. I didn’t know that the bard first used it in his play The Merchant of Venice, and it was likely written about 1596 Jessica doesn’t sound like a name from 1596
Bob Smith 24:51
No, it doesn’t. I wonder what was his inspiration to name it? Well,
Marcia Smith 24:54
I’m going to tell you, Oh, okay, it’s the name of the money lender, Shylock. That’s his defiant. Daughter. Some scholars think Shakespeare may have been inspired by the Hebrew name ishka from the Bible, which was spelled Jessica, j, e, s, k, e in some English translations, and he used it. It means to see and to possess foresight, and it became extremely popular in the years between 1976 and 2000 it was always one of the top 10 most popular girl names. Just Shakespeare
Bob Smith 25:26
actually invented it. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. It is. I didn’t know that either. All right, here’s the name uranium. Yeah,
Marcia Smith 25:34
who? Who was called uranium? Wasn’t
Bob Smith 25:36
a guy named Baby, named bad baby, Bill uranium. No, the German chemist Martin Heinrich klapfroth named named the newly discovered element uranium. Why did he call it uranium?
Marcia Smith 25:51
Well, there was mine and yours uranium was basically
Bob Smith 25:55
a popular name Marcia, because he named it after the seventh planet, which had itself been discovered only eight years before. So we decided, well, I’ll call this uranium. I’ll be darned Yeah. So people are affected, even in the sciences, by what’s popular or what’s current, what’s new. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 26:11
absolutely funny.
Bob Smith 26:12
Here’s a question for you to wrap up. My end of things, all right, what city does the world’s largest tunnel exist in and what does that tunnel deliver to that city?
Marcia Smith 26:24
We’re not talking about the Chunnel between Britain and France. Are we? No, it’s not for trains. This is other than trains. Not
Bob Smith 26:31
for trains,
Marcia Smith 26:32
okay, all right, not
Bob Smith 26:33
for cars, okay, not for transportation. All
Marcia Smith 26:36
right. Tell me it’s New York City.
Bob Smith 26:38
The Delaware aqueduct delivers drinking water to New York City through the world’s longest tunnel from the Delaware River. So the tunnel travels from upstate in the Catskill Mountains, 85 miles. No
Marcia Smith 26:52
kidding. Okay, all right, I’m gonna end with a quote Bob from Carrie Bradshaw, oh, from Sex in the City. Very good. Okay, yes. And she said, I like my money where I can see it hanging in my closet.
Bob Smith 27:08
Well, that’s that’s what clothes are. That’s true. It’s money hanging in the closet. And
Marcia Smith 27:13
all those shoes she had all my work. Oh, that’s right. And you know, the producer of that does Emily in Paris, and he does the same over the top fashion.
Unknown Speaker 27:21
Yeah, exactly. Although we kind of get a kick out of that show. It’s
Marcia Smith 27:25
fun as its moments, absolutely.
Bob Smith 27:27
Okay. Well, that’s it for today. We hope you’ve enjoyed the half hour here, and you’ll join us again next time when we return. I’m Bob Smith.
Marcia Smith 27:35
I’m Marcia Smith.
Bob Smith 27:36
You’ve been listening to the off ramp. The off rep is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin, the.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
