Bob and Marcia Smith discuss various historical and cultural trivia. They explore the use of chariots in ancient warfare, noting that while many civilizations used them, the Romans did not due to their impracticality. They also delve into the origin of the whippet, a dog breed resulting from a terrier and an English greyhound. The conversation shifts to fashion history, covering the popularity of bell-bottom pants, the origin of the mini skirt, and the influence of caftans on hippie fashion. They touch on the environmental impact of recycling, noting that recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a 100-watt bulb for four hours. The episode concludes with a discussion on the history of UNIVAC, the first commercially produced computer in the US, and the significance of the phrase “in one fell swoop.”
Outline
Roman Chariots and Ancient Warfare
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the use of chariots in ancient warfare, noting that the Egyptians, Assyrians, Celts, and Hittites used them, but the Romans did not.
- Bob explains that the Romans found chariots obsolete by the time they came to power, preferring infantry and catapults for battle.
- Marcia inquires about the types of projectiles used by the Romans, and Bob mentions flaming weapons, oil, hot oil, and huge stones.
- Bob clarifies that chariots were used in parades, sports, and for fast travel but not in combat, except for a scythe chariot called currus falcatus, which was not a Roman invention.
Mixed Breed Dogs and Whippets
- Marcia asks Bob about the breed of dog resulting from crossing a terrier with an English greyhound, and Bob answers incorrectly before Marcia corrects him.
- Marcia reveals that the correct answer is a whippet, and they discuss the whippet’s history, appearance, and temperament.
- Bob and Marcia share their observations about whippets, noting their popularity among tall, elegant people and their loyalty to their families.
- Marcia mentions that whippets were later bred with Italian greyhounds to achieve their sleek appearance.
Bell-Bottom Pants and Fashion Trivia
- Bob asks Marcia about the origin of bell-bottom pants, and she correctly identifies the British Navy as the first to popularize them in the 1600s.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the practical uses of bell-bottom pants for sailors, such as rolling up the legs for deck work and serving as life preservers.
- Marcia introduces a game where she gives Bob clues to guess clothing stores, and they play several rounds, with Bob eventually figuring out the answers.
- Bob and Marcia share their experiences with bell-bottom pants, with Marcia recalling her own large, flared pants from the 1960s and 70s.
Crocodile Tears and Word Origins
- Bob asks Marcia about the origin of the expression “crocodile tears,” and she explains its medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears while killing their prey.
- Bob shares that this belief was popularized by the 14th-century book “The Travels of Sir John Mandeville” and later used by Shakespeare.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the word “marble,” tracing its origin to the ancient Greek word “marmaron,” meaning shining stone.
- Bob explains that the word “marble” was adopted by the Romans and later used to describe polished balls used in children’s games.
Recycling and Energy Efficiency
- Marcia asks Bob how many glass bottles are needed to power a 100-watt bulb for four hours, and he is surprised by the answer: one bottle.
- Bob explains that the energy saved by recycling one bottle is compared to creating a new glass bottle from raw materials.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the infinite recyclability of glass, comparing it to the natural recycling of sand in the ocean.
- Bob shares a humorous anecdote about his son using AI to create a family photo with their grandson.
Police Patrols and Water Buffalo
- Bob asks Marcia why police in Brazil ride water buffalo, and she speculates about the tameness of the buffalo.
- Bob explains that water buffalo are common on Marajo Island and are used by police for patrols during the rainy season due to their ability to navigate flooded areas.
- Marcia jokes about AI creating pictures of her riding a water buffalo.
- Bob shares a story about his son using AI to create a family photo with their grandson, highlighting the capabilities of modern technology.
Boning Up and Trash Generation
- Marcia asks Bob about the origin of the phrase “boning up,” and he explains its connection to British teacher Henry George Bone.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the practice of students using notes instead of reading books, with Marcia admitting she never did that.
- Marcia asks Bob about the trash generated by the biggest American city, and he reveals that New York City generates nearly 10,000 tons of trash every day.
- Bob explains that this amount of trash could fill the Empire State Building, emphasizing the significant environmental impact.
Historical Phrases and First Computers
- Bob asks Marcia about the origin of the phrase “in one fell swoop,” and she explains its use in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
- Marcia and Bob discuss the first commercially produced computer in the US, identifying UNIVAC as the first computer used by the US Census Bureau in 1951.
- Bob shares details about UNIVAC’s capabilities, including its ability to perform 1000 calculations per second and predict the 1952 presidential election.
- Marcia and Bob reflect on the historical significance of UNIVAC and its impact on technology.
TV Test Patterns and Boysenberries
- Bob asks Marcia about the purpose of TV test patterns, and she explains their use in calibrating cameras and helping viewers adjust their sets.
- Bob shares a memory of watching TV test patterns in college, including the transmitter location at Monkey’s Eyebrow, Kentucky.
- Marcia asks Bob about a berry owing its existence to an amusement park, and he reveals that boysenberries were first grown at Knott’s Berry Farm.
- Bob explains the history of boysenberries, their creation by Rudolph Boysen, and their popularity at Knott’s Berry Farm, which led to the development of the amusement park.
Mini Skirts and Caftans
- Marcia asks Bob about the designer who pioneered the mini skirt, and he identifies Mary Quant as the designer who raised hemlines in 1964.
- Bob explains that Mary Quant named the mini skirt after her favorite car, the Mini Cooper.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the influence of Middle Eastern fashion on hippies, specifically the caftan, which originated in ancient Mesopotamia and Ottoman Sultans.
- Bob shares that caftans became popular in the 1960s as a comfortable and cool fashion choice for summer, eventually being adopted by high fashion.
Humility Quotes and Final Thoughts
- Marcia shares a quote by CS Lewis on humility, emphasizing that humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the importance of humility and share additional quotes from Maxime le Grave and Mike Tyson on the value of humility.
- Bob concludes the episode by thanking the audience and inviting them to join them again for more fascinating facts and trivia.
- The episode is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library, and listeners are encouraged to visit theofframp.show for more information.
Bob Smith 0:00
The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Celts and the Hittites use them in battle, but not the Romans. What technology are we talking about?
Marcia Smith 0:09
And what breed of dog do you get when you cross a terrier with an English greyhound?
Bob Smith 0:14
Answers to those and other questions coming up in this episode of the Off Ramp with Bob
Marcia Smith 0:19
and Marcia Smith,
Bob Smith 0:36
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 with fascinating facts and tantalizing trivia. Well, Marcia, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Celts, the Hittites, all used them in battle. What did the Romans not use in warfare? Now, it’s a technology.
Marcia Smith 0:58
It’s a technology. Did it have something to do with wheels? Did it have wheel system?
Bob Smith 1:03
Yes.
Marcia Smith 1:03
Was it a cannon that they’d carried with them everywhere?
Bob Smith 1:07
No, it’s transportation.
Marcia Smith 1:08
Oh, it is.
Bob Smith 1:09
Yeah.
Marcia Smith 1:09
Horses
Bob Smith 1:10
Chariots.
Marcia Smith 1:11
Chariots?
Bob Smith 1:12
Chariots.
Marcia Smith 1:14
Wait, the Romans didn’t use chariots?
Bob Smith 1:16
Well let me explain. You see a lot of famous paintings with Roman chariot masters, and they have whips and they’re in battle. But the Roman military didn’t use chariots as battlefield weapons in the way earlier civilizations did. The Egyptians, the Hittites, the Celts – they deployed chariots as mobile archery platforms or shock troops.
Marcia Smith 1:36
That’s benign.
Bob Smith 1:37
But by the time the Romans came to power, they found them largely obsolete, so they emphasized the infantry. You know? Basically feet on the ground, legions built around disciplined, heavily armed foot soldiers. Chariots were considered impractical because they were vulnerable, hard to maneuver on rough terrain, and less effective than Calvary. So what did they use? They used catapults. You know, they used all kinds of things to shoot big projectiles and fire into their enemies’ camps.
Marcia Smith 2:05
What kind of projectile? Like a bomb, thing, a cannonball?
Bob Smith 2:09
Flaming weapons, oil, hot oil, all kinds of horrible things and stones. Yes, huge stones, rocks. Now, chariots were used in parade use victorious generals rode their chariots through Rome, and they used them for sports. Chariot races wildly popular in venues like Circus Maximus . And also couriers occasionally used them for fast travel or message delivery, but they didn’t use them in combat. There’s only one exception, that’s called currus falcatus, and it is a scythe chariot with blades attached to the wheels, but that was not a Roman invention.
Marcia Smith 2:44
Oh yeah, they come up and grind away your your spokes.
Bob Smith 2:47
Your spokes in your wheels, right. But that was not a Roman invention. It was something the Roman legions encountered, especially from Eastern or Celtic enemies. They may have described it, but they didn’t use it. So while the image of Roman chariots charging into battle is dramatic. It’s mostly a myth.
Marcia Smith 3:03
Huh? Well, I’ll be darned.
Bob Smith 3:04
Speaking of myths, you have dogs there. You want to talk about that? Are they real dogs, or are they myth dogs?
Marcia Smith 3:09
No, this is a real dog. So my question is, what do you get when you mix a Terrier with an English Greyhound
Bob Smith 3:17
You get a Greyhound Terrier.
Marcia Smith 3:19
That’s right. And what do we know this as?
Bob Smith 3:22
What do we know this as?
Marcia Smith 3:25
Yes.
Bob Smith 3:25
A Greyhound Terrier, a Terrier Greyhound? No, I don’t know what?
Marcia Smith 3:28
It’s, a Whippet.
Bob Smith 3:29
A Whippet.
Marcia Smith 3:30
Yes, a Whippet. You’ve seen them. They’re never with short, dumpy people walking down the street. They’re always with very tall, elegant people, very tall and thin. I, you know, we all attract our own kind, the Whippet. Italian Greyhounds were later bred to give the Whippet its sleek appearance. They switched out the English Greyhound with the Italian Greyhound. Apparently, they were skinnier. Although I personally find them unattractive and cold in appearance, they are considered a gentle, loyal, affectionate breed that forms strong bonds with their families and are generally wonderful with children and other dogs. Who knew, you know, I look at them, I thought, Oh, they’re not very affectionate, but
Bob Smith 3:28
Right, right.
Marcia Smith 3:28
I’m wrong on all counts.
Bob Smith 3:28
Whippets?
Marcia Smith 3:29
Whippets, yeah, you’ve seen these dogs.
Marcia Smith 3:32
I’m sure I have, all right, Marcia, we all remember bell bottoms in the 1960s and 70s, but did you know they first appeared in the 1600s ?
Marcia Smith 4:23
1600s?
Bob Smith 4:23
So who first popularized bell bottom pants?
Marcia Smith 4:26
Was it wasn’t the British Navy.
Bob Smith 4:28
It was the navies. Yes, the world’s navies. Before they became all the rage in fashion in our lifetime, bell bottoms had been worn by sailors since the 1600s the pads could easily be rolled up if a sailor needed to wash the decks, and then they doubled as a life preserver if the wearer fell overboard. In the 1960s though, young people started wearing them for fashion rather than function, and they were initially found only in military surplus stores.
Marcia Smith 4:56
Yeah.
Bob Smith 4:56
I didn’t realize that. Then, of course, the style caught on by designers.
Marcia Smith 5:01
Did you wear bell bottoms?
Bob Smith 5:02
Oh, sure. Who didn’t?
Marcia Smith 5:03
So did I?
Bob Smith 5:03
Or they actually called them flared pants. They were flared. They weren’t as big as the bell bottoms the navies used.
Marcia Smith 5:09
I wore both. I had bell bottoms so big, they just branched out like trees .
Bob Smith 5:15
Really, huge ones?
Marcia Smith 5:16
Huge. I’ll show you some pictures. I’m gonna do, AKA Bob.
Bob Smith 5:21
Okay.
Marcia Smith 5:21
Also Known As – it’s a card game that Marcia loves. And you have a category, and you have to figure out what the word is I’m saying, such as the category is clothing stores. So if I say the space between your teeth, what’s the store?
Bob Smith 5:36
The Gap?
Marcia Smith 5:37
That’s right,
Bob Smith 5:38
Because I have one,
Marcia Smith 5:39
That’s right, all right, good, good. How about elderly army rival?
Bob Smith 5:45
Elderly army rival, elderly army rival, wow, I don’t get that one.
Bob Smith 5:52
Yeah, you do.
Bob Smith 5:52
Grandpa? No, let me see.
Marcia Smith 5:55
Elderly is another word for
Bob Smith 5:56
Senior.
Marcia Smith 5:57
Or
Bob Smith 5:58
Sir.
Marcia Smith 5:59
Or just
Bob Smith 6:00
Old.
Marcia Smith 6:00
That’s it.
Bob Smith 6:00
Old Navy.
Marcia Smith 6:01
It’s an army rival.
Bob Smith 6:04
I see. Okay, I got it. Yeah, that makes sense.
Marcia Smith 6:07
This one, I don’t know, so just go with the description, scalding. Subject, what’s the clothing store?
Bob Smith 6:14
Hot Something.
Marcia Smith 6:16
Subject
Bob Smith 6:16
Hot Subject, Hot Topic.
Marcia Smith 6:18
That’s it.
Bob Smith 6:19
Is that the name of a clothing store?
Marcia Smith 6:20
Yeah, I never heard of it. Okay, all right. Eternally Black Jack. What’s that again? Eternally, Blackjack. What’s the clothing store? Cards? Eternally, Blackjack. Okay, now think it through. What is blackjack?
Bob Smith 6:35
It’s a game.
Marcia Smith 6:36
Yeah? But I mean, what do you have to have to have blackjack? 21 .
Bob Smith 6:39
Okay, okay.
Marcia Smith 6:41
Eternally means
Bob Smith 6:43
Forever 2.1
Marcia Smith 6:44
That’s it.
Bob Smith 6:44
Okay. Gotcha
Marcia Smith 6:45
Okay, all right. Monkey food country.
Bob Smith 6:48
What’s that again?
Marcia Smith 6:49
What’s the store?
Bob Smith 6:50
Monkey food country?
Marcia Smith 6:52
Yes, you’ve bought things here.
Bob Smith 6:54
Monkey food country?
Bob Smith 6:56
Yeah, what’s a monkey food what do monkey’s like?
Bob Smith 6:58
Banana Republic
Marcia Smith 6:59
That’s it.
Bob Smith 6:59
Okay, I figured that one out.
Marcia Smith 7:02
I just love how you have to get to some of these. This, you should know William H’s,
Bob Smith 7:07
William H’s?
Marcia Smith 7:09
Yeah, that’s, uh,
Bob Smith 7:10
Bill something.
Marcia Smith 7:12
No, it’s, who’s a movie star, William H
Bob Smith 7:16
Macy. Macy’s!
Marcia Smith 7:17
that’s it.
Bob Smith 7:17
Okay, gotcha
Marcia Smith 7:18
All right. And the last one. Nathan Cobe, it’s the first name of somebody you know, and the last name of somebody you know.
Bob Smith 7:28
Hale, something. Nathan Hale. No?
Bob Smith 7:30
Nathan Cobe.
Bob Smith 7:31
Nathan, I don’t know. I don’t know that one.
Marcia Smith 7:34
Okay. Lane Bryant,
Bob Smith 7:35
Oh, okay.
Bob Smith 7:36
Nathan Lane and Kobe Bryant.
Bob Smith 7:38
Nathan, Lane, I was going historical. Nathan Hale.
Marcia Smith 7:40
Yes, you would, you’d go right to Nathan Hale,
Bob Smith 7:43
All right. Marcia, I have a word origin question. Where does the expression crocodile tears come from? He’s crying crocodile tears, which usually means insincere, right?
Marcia Smith 7:56
Yeah, right. Because
Bob Smith 7:58
This goes back to the 14th century. If that helps you.
Marcia Smith 8:01
Oh, yeah
Bob Smith 8:02
I wanted to take it back to your youth
Marcia Smith 8:03
Yeah. What? What did grandma-ma say about that? I don’t know. Bob, is it crocodiles, when they’re in fear, emit water from their eyes.
Bob Smith 8:12
It’s a thought. It’s a medieval belief that crocodiles shed tears of sadness while they killed and consumed their prey, which was not true! This goes back to it, yeah, a widely popular 14th century book the travels of Sir John Mandeville and his travels through Asia. He described crocodiles this way, these serpents slay men and eat them, weeping.
Marcia Smith 8:37
Oh [laughs]
Bob Smith 8:38
The statement about crocodiles crying is factually accurate. In a 2006 survey, researchers observed crocodiles produce tears while feeding. They believe this happens because of the way air is forced through their sinuses during the intense huffing and puffing of eating, which stimulates tear gland.
Marcia Smith 8:56
When you’re gobbling up a human being, it can require a lot of effort.
Bob Smith 8:59
so it might look like they’re crying over a meal, but it’s a side effect of their anatomy,
Marcia Smith 9:04
Okay.
Bob Smith 9:05
Mandeville, factually accurate description of crocodiles made its way to Shakespeare, and crocodile tears became an idiom for insincere displays of sorrow from the 16th century on.
Marcia Smith 9:17
.Okay? All right, Bob, think about this. All right. What two similar words – you know, like past tense present test – are the only words in the English language with three consecutive double letters. And the letters are OO, KK EE.
Bob Smith 9:34
So those are letters are all in these two words
Marcia Smith 9:37
Yes.
Bob Smith 9:38
Okay, so, but we should just concentrate on there being one word that has all yes. Okay, so it’s like, instead of look, it’s looking, yeah, but it’s something much more complex than that. Obviously, I have no idea, bookkeeper, oh my goodness. Let’s explain that again,
Marcia Smith 9:55
bookkeeper and bookkeeping, it’s the only word in the whole English language. Three consecutive double letters. And I never really thought of it until I read this, but it’s B, O, O, K, K, E, P, I, N, G, bookkeeping.
Bob Smith 10:10
Wow, I hadn’t thought of it either. And so it’s a compound word too. It’s multiple words. Un hadn’t thought of that.
Marcia Smith 10:16
In fact, even when I was writing this, I misspelled bookkeeper with only 1k but it has two Ks.
Bob Smith 10:22
Okay, that’s that’s a great one. I’ve got a question for you, the word marble. Where does marble come from? Where does it come from? It originates from a Greek word means shining stone.
Marcia Smith 10:34
Well, that makes sense, because that’s what we use it for. Or it could be cake. Does it mean cake? No, it doesn’tmean cake.
Bob Smith 10:40
Get your mind off cake.
Marcia Smith 10:42
Okay, all right, fine.
Bob Smith 10:43
The word marble traces back to the ancient Greek word marmaron, which itself comes from Marma coast, meaning crystalline rock or shining stone.
Marcia Smith 10:53
Okay.
Bob Smith 10:53
And it traveled. The Greeks used to describe the luminous quality of polished stone. And the Romans adopted as Mar more, which referred to marble used in sculpture and architecture, and then Old French M, a, b, r, e, marba. By the 14th century, it had morphed into marble,
Marcia Smith 11:11
but it initially meant Shiny Stone.
Bob Smith 11:14
Yeah
Marcia Smith 11:14
So it’s not a weird origin at all.
Bob Smith 11:17
No. And the word marble by the 16th century came to mean the little polished balls used in children’s games too. Marbles, yeah, because they were originally made from real marble, but also they were shiny.
Marcia Smith 11:29
Oh, that’d be cool to have a real marble-marble.
Bob Smith 11:32
Wouldn’t that? Instead of a glass marble, right?
Marcia Smith 11:34
Yeah, okay. All right, Bob, here’s something to ponder.
Bob Smith 11:38
All right
Marcia Smith 11:39
How many glass bottles do you need to recycle to light a 100 watt bulb for four hours, or power a computer for 30 minutes?
Bob Smith 11:49
Oh, my goodness.
Marcia Smith 11:50
How many? How many bottles you need to recycle to make that happen?
Bob Smith 11:53
I never thought of that.
Marcia Smith 11:55
I know, but now you have to.
Bob Smith 11:56
How does the recycling do that? How does it create the energy?
Marcia Smith 12:00
Well, give me a guess.
Bob Smith 12:01
Okay.
Marcia Smith 12:02
How many bottles?
Bob Smith 12:02
Okay, 100 bottles.
Marcia Smith 12:04
Wow, for four hours. Well, you’ll be surprised at the answer.
Bob Smith 12:07
Okay
Marcia Smith 12:08
One bottle.
Bob Smith 12:08
What?
Marcia Smith 12:09
Yeah, that’s the answer.
Bob Smith 12:12
Well, how does recycling one bottle convert into how many hours? Four hours of light?
Marcia Smith 12:17
A 100 watt bulb.
Bob Smith 12:19
I don’t get that.
Marcia Smith 12:19
It’s a glass bottle, and the calculation is not based on converting the bottles material into energy, but rather on the amount of energy saved by recycling it compared to creating a new glass bottle from raw materials.
Bob Smith 12:34
Oh, really.
Marcia Smith 12:34
So that’s how they figure out how you’re saving.
Bob Smith 12:37
So the amount of energy would be equal to what a light bulb takes for, what, four hours?
Marcia Smith 12:40
Four hours, 100 watt.
Bob Smith 12:42
That’s pretty impressive.
Marcia Smith 12:43
I thought so too. I was going to guess a lot more bottles than one. I’ll tell you that.
Bob Smith 12:48
Wow.
Marcia Smith 12:48
And how many times can you recycle glass?
Bob Smith 12:52
Oh, well, infinitely. I think.
Marcia Smith 12:54
Well, you think right.
Bob Smith 12:55
Because it’s sand.
Marcia Smith 12:56
That’s right.
Bob Smith 12:57
God, recycles sand.
Marcia Smith 12:58
Yes, dear.
Bob Smith 12:59
I mean, it’s like stone. It becomes sand. Grains of sand, it goes in the ocean, washes up on shore, goes back in the ocean, it gets recycled over and over again.
Marcia Smith 13:07
Okay, let’s go with that.
Bob Smith 13:09
Okay, good. Marcia, why do police ride buffalo in Brazil?
Marcia Smith 13:12
Well, you know, I’ve often wondered that – they ride buffalo. Geez. Louise, what kind of people are they? That’s that’s pretty scary to think about, but I – Why do they do that? Are their buffalo very tame there?
Bob Smith 13:26
Well, much of life on Brazil’s Marazo Elia Island centers on the water buffalo. So we’re only talking about one island, but those water buffalo slightly outnumber the human population there, and police officers ride water buffaloes for their patrols, particularly during the rainy season. Because the terrain is often flooded and swampy, so kind of hard to get around in traditional vehicles. And water buffaloes, as their name suggests, are pretty adept at navigating the island’s flooded areas.
Marcia Smith 13:55
Wow. I’m going to AI a picture of me riding a water buffalo.
Bob Smith 13:59
You know, it’s amazing what you can do with AI. Our son, Ben, recently took a picture of our grandson and put it into a picture of me and our daughter in our Indian guide regalia from the 1990s – the vests and the kerchiefs and everything. And he looks like he belongs there, back in time. I don’t –
Marcia Smith 14:17
Yeah, it’s so easy.
Bob Smith 14:18
It’s much more impressive than Photoshop was, I think, and a lot less time.
Marcia Smith 14:22
And you have to be dubious of almost everything you see on the internet now,
Bob Smith 14:25
From now on, yeah
Marcia Smith 14:26
Visually and vocally – you know, you can trick everything.
Bob Smith 14:30
So it’s going to come back to the old adage, you have to be face to face to trust somebody, right? I mean, isn’t that what it’s gonna be?
Marcia Smith 14:37
Actually, maybe you’re right. Maybe we have to resort to the old way of dealing with that.
Bob Smith 14:42
And that may not be bad at all.
Marcia Smith 14:43
No, no, hopefully not.
Bob Smith 14:46
Okay, Marcia, I think it’s time for a break.
Marcia Smith 14:48
Indeed.
Bob Smith 14:49
All right, you’re listening to the Off Ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’ll be back in just a moment.
Bob Smith 14:55
We’re back. We have returned. You’re listening to the Off Ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We do this each week for the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Then we put it on podcast platforms, and it’s heard all over the world.
Marcia Smith 15:09
Where do you think the expression boning up comes from?
Bob Smith 15:12
Boning up.
Marcia Smith 15:13
Such as I was boning up for my History test last night.
Bob Smith 15:17
I wondered if boning up came from, like, the whale bones that used to be in garters and women’s foundations. You know, that would bone them up to make them
Marcia Smith 15:26
No, not at all. So boning up. It derives from the students of a British teacher of Greek and Latin. He tried to make life easier for his students in the 1840s with that goal in mind, he translated Greek and Latin classic literature into English and had them published and distributed within his classroom, and his kids really appreciated that’s a lot easier to read in English. Anyway, the teacher was Henry George Bohn.
Bob Smith 15:53
Oh, no kidding!
Marcia Smith 15:54
B, O, H, N, he spelled it, and his grateful students called his new speedier method of studying the classics in English, boning up.
Bob Smith 16:03
So it was a slang expression by the students.
Marcia Smith 16:05
Bohning up, yeah, I’m using his translation, wow.
Bob Smith 16:09
Bohning up, yeah. Well, that’s it. What a great tribute to him as a teacher.
Marcia Smith 16:12
Yeah. If only he knew.
Bob Smith 16:14
It was like – what were those notes we used to study. Those notes, we used to buy and instead of reading the book.
Marcia Smith 16:20
You know, I never did that.
Bob Smith 16:21
Oh no, You never did really, really, wow!
Marcia Smith 16:24
Everybody I knew did, but I don’t know why, but I didn’t
Bob Smith 16:27
I would have thought you, of all people, would have done it
Marcia Smith 16:29
I know because I’d like short
Bob Smith 16:30
Yeah, you like taking the fastest route for reading.
Marcia Smith 16:33
I read very long books.
Bob Smith 16:34
Okay.
Marcia Smith 16:35
From cover to cover.
Bob Smith 16:36
Okay, all righty, Marcia, how much trash does the biggest American city generate in a day?
Marcia Smith 16:43
Okay, so you want tonnage here?
Bob Smith 16:44
Yes, this is New York City. How many tons of trash every day?
Marcia Smith 16:51
Ah, jeez, Louise, where does it go? Is the interesting question? Oh, yeah, they used to send it out on barges. I don’t know where it goes.
Bob Smith 16:58
I don’t have the answer to that. It does go to certain places. Yes.
Marcia Smith 17:01
All right, I’ll just say, how many times? 100 tons?
Bob Smith 17:05
No. New York City generates nearly 10,000 tons of trash every day. 1000 times, 10,000 tons.
Marcia Smith 17:12
So what’s a ton?
Bob Smith 17:13
2000 pounds
Marcia Smith 17:14
2000 pounds.
Bob Smith 17:15
It goes to landfills and incinerators. New York City produces enough trash to fill the inside of the entire Empire State Building. The entire empire state building filled with trash. ]
Marcia Smith 17:29
Wow
Bob Smith 17:29
All the way to the top
Marcia Smith 17:30
Every day. All right. Bob, ready, yeah. Why do we say in one fell swoop?
Bob Smith 17:36
In one fell swoop, Swoop? Is that the key to it? It’s a swoop, maybe one fell swoop. Does this go back to Shakespeare or
Marcia Smith 17:46
something, my goodness, as a whole, the phrase in one fell swoop means with a single quick action or effort, right? You do something and it’s quick and it’s Swift, and it’s over. I always think of a bird swooping in or something. That’s where it comes from. I think the swoop is the things and all that, but it was first seen and heard and then started being used after Shakespeare specifically said the phrase in Act Four, scene three of Macbeth hmm, upon finding out his wife and children had all been murdered, the character Macduff exclaims that they Had all disappeared, all died in one fell swoop. And that was the first time that phrase was ever
Bob Smith 18:24
used. So it may have related to something else lost in the mists of time, that expression, Yeah, but why would he say that? If it was brand
Marcia Smith 18:32
new? Because I’m sure he was thinking of a bird, okay, how they can go down? I think of a bird diving into the water,
Bob Smith 18:39
yes, right? Me too, and plucking a fish out, or even diving down to capture something on the ground and going back, going up, you know, yeah, and then up, all right? Marcia, what was the first computer to be commercially produced in the US? I’ll give you names here, the Macintosh, yeah. UNIVAC, yeah, Colossus, or the IBM PC, 1951 UNIVAC, that’s exactly right. Do you know what UNIVAC stood for?
Speaker 1 19:04
Ah, gosh, universal, that’s right.
Bob Smith 19:10
A Yeah, you know universal, a vacuum, automatic, automatic vacuum, no computer. The Universal automatic computer was UNIVAC, okay, and it was first used by the US Census Bureau on June 14, 1951 it was a tiny little thing. It weighed 16,000 pounds, so eight tons, and it used over 5000 vacuum tubes, and could perform 1000 calculations a second, but it correctly predicted Dwight Eisenhower’s landslide victory in 1952 in the first US presidential election that was televised that was after only a small percentage of the votes had been counted. Yeah. Okay, that’s a little history for you.
Marcia Smith 19:52
All right. Thank you, Bob. Okay, Bob, you grew up in the US before 24 hour television programming. Yes, you. Remember falling asleep to the sound of the national anthem or waking up to the eerie tone of a test
Bob Smith 20:05
pattern? Yeah, so yes, the Indian on the screen or something like that.
Marcia Smith 20:09
What were those TV test cards used for? Why were they
Bob Smith 20:13
there? They were there to use to make the camera, to focus the camera, and the registration and the white balance and everything like that, to make sure the cameras were working right.
Marcia Smith 20:23
Yeah, calibration tools for engineers. And it also let the viewers try to set their sets right, if it was foggy or fuzzy or something. Yes, to do that,
Bob Smith 20:34
I gave you something to look at. Well, it was just
Marcia Smith 20:37
and, and we did look at it. Didn’t we was there to, do you
Bob Smith 20:41
know, when I was in college at Southern Illinois University, and we were down in deep southern Illinois near the Mississippi River, and there was a station in, I think it was Paducah, or somewhere around there, that used to sign off at night. At midnight, they all signed off. Nobody stayed on all night long. But we would wait and watch that, because they would say, and transmitter located at monkeys eyebrow Kentucky, really studios and so and so. And transmitter located a monkey’s eyebrow Kentucky. We’d stay up just to hear that. A real place. Yeah. And then after that, they played the national anthem. Of course they would play the national anthem at the end. Wow. Monkey’s eyebrow Kentucky. I always wanted to know somebody who maybe lived there, you know, yeah. How did that get its name? Yeah. How many monkeys were there in Kentucky to know about a monkey’s eyebrow, what it looked like? That’s right, okay. Marcia, my final question here is, what variety of berries owes its existence to an amusement park? There is a berry that you can buy in the store. It owes its existence to an
Marcia Smith 21:44
amusement park, berry farm, or whatever that place is called. It was Knott’s Berry Farm, yes. But what’s the berry? All right, Knox Berry. No, it’s not an ox Berry. Blackberry. A. Blueberry starts with
Marcia Smith 21:56
A, B, it’s a boysenberry.
Bob Smith 21:58
That’s exactly right. That’s right. Now, the boysenberries were first grown by Rudolph Boysen. He discovered the hybrid fruit, which is a cross between red raspberries, blackberries and Logan berries. But the harvests were unimpressive, and he gave up on the plant. And the Notts family of nott berry farm in Buena Vista, California, heard about boysens new Berry, and this is when they were just a farm. So they thought, oh, this sounds good. Had a layered, complex flavor profile. They opened up the phone book, and they called this guy, and they said, Can we have some trimmings from what was left of your plant? So they spent a year growing and harvesting the berries, and that’s what made Knott’s Berry Farm famous. I had no idea. I’ve never been there, but it was the only place that you could get boysenberries. They started making jams from their boysenberry harvest, and their Knott’s Berry Farm soon grew into a major tourist destination because of them, especially the famous boysenberry pie. And because of that, they said we got to do something. The people are coming here, bringing their kids, let’s put some attractions in here, or something. So they started putting rides, yeah. And then they started adding entertainers, people like Steve Martin, got their start there performing magic and and stand that
Marcia Smith 23:09
was on his documentary that was that’s right at the nuts cage theater. He worked at Disney
Bob Smith 23:14
test, yes, Disney as well. So in fact, Knott’s Berry Farm pioneered daily live scripted entertainment. That’s the first amusement park that ever did that with props, costumes and actors, and it became a boot camp for talent, sending talent to radio and TV in the 50s and 60s. Where is it located? Knott’s Berry Farm is located in California. Buena Vista, okay, and it’s
Marcia Smith 23:34
still there. I don’t know why I thought it was down south. No, it’s the 57
Bob Smith 23:38
acre theme park. It attracts 3 million visitors annually. To this day, many other people now offer boysenberries and boysenberry food products, but all boysenberry plants in the world today can be traced back to Knott’s Berry Farm. All right, and it was just a farm at the time. All right. All right. Marcia, what designer was pioneering the mini skirt, and what was it named after?
Marcia Smith 24:01
Ah, what designer? Oh, that first name was Mary. Oh, Mary. What was her name? Mary, I can not Kent, Mary, let’s
Bob Smith 24:11
do it. Mary Quant, yes. A NT, yeah. You know the short skirts have been around for centuries, but you can find even very short skirts in the ancient Egyptian frescoes depicting mini skirts, but British designer Mary Quant, she’s credited with raising the hemlines on her skirts in 1964 to several inches above the knee. And what did she name the garment after her favorite car, the Mini Cooper? Oh, really, that’s named after
Marcia Smith 24:42
the Mini Cooper, yeah,
Bob Smith 24:43
which most of us never saw over in this country until the last later, you know, maybe 20 years or so. Yeah, the Mini Cooper gave the name to the fashion item, the mini skirt, in 1964 thanks to Mary Quant. And one more thing, what Middle Eastern fashion? You? Influenced hippies. It was a loose dress from India. No from ancient Mesopotamia starts with a K caftan. That’s it. Caftans. They are believed to have originated in ancient Mesopotamia and ottoman. Sultans, dignitaries and generals from the 14th to the 18th centuries wore these long, lavish robes. And then in the 1960s as hippie fashions became more mainstream, the caftan caught on as a comfortable and cool way to dress in the summer. And then by the mid 60s, high fashion adopted them. But they came from Mesopotamia way, way back,
Marcia Smith 25:35
and it’s really good if you’ve eaten too much pasta.
Bob Smith 25:40
I guess I never
Marcia Smith 25:41
thought of that. Oh, yeah. You got to think I like a girl. Bob,
Bob Smith 25:44
well, I thought stretch pants is what you thought about when you were writing too much or something.
Marcia Smith 25:49
How about a quote? Son, humility, okay? CS Lewis, humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself
Bob Smith 25:57
less. That’s a great play on words, and that’s true, isn’t it? Yeah, this is
Marcia Smith 26:00
from a book entitled 90 humility quotes that will make you feel powerful. Okay, I thought that was fine, which, which
Bob Smith 26:09
is just the opposite of humility?
Marcia Smith 26:11
Yes, that’s exactly right. Bob, okay, so Maxime le grave. That’s his name. This is his quote. Truly great. Men know their own value and don’t need to show it to others. I agree with that. Yeah. And Mike Tyson really finishes up with his wisdom. If you’re not humble, life will visit humbleness upon you.
Bob Smith 26:32
I think that’s true. Yeah, it’ll come after you. I like that. All right, that’s good. Well, we hope we’ve got humbleness visiting you once in a while. It’s always healthy to be humble, I think. And we are humbly asking you to join us again when we return next time with more fascinating facts and well what we consider tantalizing trivia, trying to be humble here. Marcia, yeah, right. I’m Bob Smith. Marcia Smith, thanks for joining us today, here on the off ramp. You
Bob Smith 27:13
announcer, the off ramp is produced in association with the Cedarburg Public Library. Cedarburg, Wisconsin. Visit us on the web at the offramp, dot show at.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
