I don’t know about you guys, but I am fascinated by the etymology of both words and nursery rhymes. But whenever I hear a new story about the origin of a nursery rhyme or tongue twister, I rush to find out more information because while they’re so interesting, many of these stories simply aren’t true. That’s why I was so excited to share these two cool true stories of tongue twister origins with you, along with a quick explanation of why a few common etymology stories you’ve probably heard already aren’t actually true.
We all know that Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, but who the heck is Peter and why should we care if he’s got pickled or fresh peppers? As it turns out, this story is far more interesting than the simple tongue twister we’re all familiar with. First off, it’s important to know a little history about the spice trade. You see, a long, long time ago, all spices were referred to by the generic name of “peppers.” They were also incredibly expensive and the companies who ran the spice trade would go out of their way to keep the supply low by rubbing the seeds with lime before selling them so they couldn’t germinate if planted. The practice was called “pickling.” As for Peter Piper, he was actually a French pirate and horticulturalist named “Pierre Poivre” (which has become Anglicized into Peter Piper). Pierre was known for raiding spice stores so he could grow them in his garden in Seychelles and hopefully make spices more affordable and accessible for the average European. The rhyme comes from the fact that there were at least a few occasions where Peter Piper picked pickled peppers that wouldn’t grow in his garden. Source
Personally, I never thought much about the girl who sold seashells by the seashore. But as it turns out, the woman who was made famous in this terribly difficult tongue twister is actually quite the scientist. Mary Anning enjoyed collecting seashells and fossils ever since her dad taught her how to dig up fossils when she was a little girl. The duo then sold their specimens to beach tourists and she became so famous in this role that Terry Sullivan eventually even wrote the famous tongue twister about her. Then, in 1811, Anning’s brother noticed a skull sticking out of a cliff near her home. Mary was fascinated by the skull and started digging it out the ground, soon finding a massive skeleton of what she believed was a crocodile. As it turned out though, the giant croc was actually a dinosaur that later was named Ichthyosaurus. As this occurred at a time when most people still didn’t believe in dinosaurs, it was kind of a big deal. Mary was proud of her discovery and went on discovering more and more dino skeletons, including fossils for a Plesiosaurus, a Pterodactyl and a Squaloraja. These days, many people credit Mary Anning with founding modern day paleontology –and you thought she was just a seashell dealer. Source Of course, not all nursery rhyme origins stories are to be believed. Here are a few very untrue, but widely-believed stories about nursery rhyme origins:
I write a lot about animals for Neatorama and that’s because I’m always reading about them. The coolest thing about the vast variety of critters is that there are so many and each has evolved their own strange adaptations to survive in their own niche of the planet. With each animal trying to carve out its own special place in the world, it’s not too surprising that there are some that had to dig a little harder and have ended up adapting in very strange ways. These six creatures might not seem too strange at first, but just wait until you read more about their bizarre adaptations. I’d like to give a special thanks to The Proceedings of the Ever So Strange and The Book of Animal Ignorance, both of which greatly contributed to the information in this article.
Generally, when you’re being attacked by something that wants to eat you, the last thing you want to do is let them get a taste of your delicious, delicious blood to further entice them. But for critters that aren’t as tasty as us humans, this rule applies less and less. In fact, the Texas horned lizard has blood that tastes so gross that it voluntarily gives predators a taste just to show them that they won’t find any pleasure snacking on the lizard. As if that weren’t strange enough though, the source of the lizard’s blood buffet is even weirder …it launches its fluid sample straight from its eye. Even if the taste of the little critter’s blood wasn’t enough to turn away a potential predator, this horrifying scene certainly is! Source Image via randomtruth [Flickr]
Being the most deadly animal in Africa, the hippo doesn’t have much to worry about in terms of predators. Sure, an occasional lion, croc or hyena might munch on the babies, but once these river monsters grow up, they’re pretty much at the top of the food chain. That’s why their biggest defenses aren’t against other creatures, but against the ravaging African sun and disease-causing bacteria. While rolling around in the mud can work as a natural sunscreen, it’s simply not enough when the majority of their day is spent wading through the river. Instead, hippos have developed their own natural sunscreen, which oozes out of their pores in a shocking, bright red color. This strange secretion has earned the appropriately horrific nickname of “blood sweat,” although it contains neither bodily fluid. Instead, it is made up of a number of highly acidic compounds that absorb ultraviolet light, preventing sunburn, and that inhibit the growth of bacteria. While we usually think of the blood sweat as bright red, it actually comes out clear, turns red and then fades to brown as it becomes exposed to the air. Source Image via Hrosi.org
Being stuck on an island with no natural predators, the Komodo dragon already has a good evolutionary hand, growing to become the largest living lizards on earth, reaching almost 10 feet long. But as many lizards will be happy to tell you, “size doesn’t matter,” so the Komodos also evolved a quite nasty way to bring down their prey.
While there’s nothing wrong with giving your gal a glass of champagne before getting down on one knee to propose, some people prefer to go a less traditional and more personalized route. Of course, if the potential bride and groom both happen to be a bit geeky, then it follows that a customized wedding proposal might just have a bit of a nerd-twist to it as well. Here is a small sampling of some of the geekiest wedding proposals ever. Be warned, if you tend to cry after watching emotionally-charged moments, this article (particularly the videos) might have you spraying your computer with tears. I know I was misty-eyed while writing it.
I have to admit, this just might be my favorite wedding proposal ever. Ben and his girlfriend, Tora, were both seriously addicted to the popular Gearbox RPG shooter Borderlands. That’s why when Ben decided to ask Tora to marry him, he decided to ask Gearbox for help popping the question. The company’s response was more positive than Ben ever could have hoped for, as they spent a week working on a special Borderlands-themed wedding proposal video for the couple. It even featured a few hilarious quips from the robot character, Claptrap.
Ben got all of Tora’s friends and family members together under the guise of throwing her a birthday party and unveiled the video by saying he got a hold of a new Borderlands trailer. Needless to say, after watching the video, Tora’s response was a big fat “yes,” although she did later admitted that she was a little upset that Ben got to go to the Gearbox studio without her. Video links #1 and #2
This guy and his girlfriend both seriously love Mario (if you couldn’t tell already by looking at the room) so in order to ask his girlfriend to marry him, he set up a functional Mario question mark box that would drop the ring when she hit it with her head. While the set up is exactly as geeky as you might expect, it’s surprisingly emotionally touching when she tries to hold back her tears as she jumps to hit the box. Video link
If your girlfriend loves the game Bejeweled and you happen to be a software programmer, you can do something above and beyond if you’re so inclined. Or at least, that’s what Bernie Peng did when he decided to propose, using his programming skills to create a custom Bejeweled game. Once the score got high enough, the regular screen would clear out and a ring would appear on the DS screen. Bernie then dropped to one knee and presented her with a pink ring that looked like it belonged in the game. As if the story weren’t great enough on its own, the company that makes Bejeweled was so impressed by Bernie’s proposal that they offered to pay for the couple’s honeymoon and they volunteered to supply all of the wedding guests with a free version of Bejeweled. Now that’s a great way to capitalize on the publicity of the wedding proposal!
Mastering a musical instrument is a challenge to begin with, but when an injury ruins someone’s ability to play, that generally is the end of their career. Fortunately, some great musicians have been able to work beyond their injuries and relearn to play, in some cases, making them even better musicians than they ever were before.
Jazz fans and gypsy music lovers adore Reinhardt, although the name isn’t familiar to many other music fans. Even so, he was a wildly inspirational musician who pioneered his own style of jazz that blended gypsy roots with jazz guitar. His music has since been featured on about a dozen movies, including The Matrix, L.A. Story, Chocolat and more. Reinhardt started learning to play music as a boy, starting with the violin and then moving to the banjo and the guitar. When he was 18 though, tragedy struck. Django and his wife were living in a caravan where they sold imitation flowers made from celluloid and paper to supplement their meager income. When Reinhardt accidentally knocked down a candle on his way to bed, the caravan burst into flames, destroying all of his property and leaving him with first- and second-degree burns over the entire left side of his body. As a result of the accident, his right leg and the 3rd and 4th fingers on his left hand were completely paralyzed.
Doctors said he would have to get his leg amputated and that he would never play a string instrument again. But Reinhardt refused to get the surgery and within a year, he was able to walk with the use of a cane. While his fingers never recovered, the doctors were wrong about his music career as well. As it happens, learning to play guitar again may have saved his life. Reinhardt ended up getting stuck in France during WWII and it was said that and handful of jazz-loving Nazis ensured his safety despite the fact that thousands of Gypsies were murdered under Nazi-occupied territories. To help protect himself further, he also developed a distinctively non-jazz sound to please the Nazis who, like the majority of their party, were adamantly against jazz.
Interestingly, Django wasn’t just influential when it came to jazz musicians, he also played a major role in the creation of heavy metal. You might be asking yourself how in the world a gypsy jazz musician helped create one of the darkest genres around, but the answer isn’t in his sound, it’s in his story. You see, guitarist Tony Iommi was talented, but he came from a poor, working-class family so he was forced to work at a sheet metal factory as a youngster, rather than chase his dreams of rock n’ roll stardom.
Unfortunately, industrial factories aren’t the safest place for the hands of budding musicians. On his last day of work, Iommi severed the tips of the middle and ring fingers on his right hand. As a leftie, this meant his fretting hand was destroyed. Unsurprisingly, the teen was heart-broken and convinced this would be the end of his musical aspirations. However, his boss from the factory inspired Iommi to stick with his craft by bringing him a Django Reinhardt album and telling him about the jazz musician’s injury. The inspiration worked like a charm and soon enough, Iommi was trying to remaster the guitar.
At first he tried learning to play right-handed, but when that didn’t work, Iommi instead developed a few prosthetic fingertips using plastic covered in leather. Because his prosthetic fingers weren’t as tough as the real thing, Iommi started using lighter strings and detuning the strings so the tension would be lowered. To match Iommi’s sound, Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler did the same, and suddenly, the dark, deep sound of heavy metal was born solely as a technique to work around an injury.
They say the revolution won’t be televised, but it most certainly will be "posterized." With so many stylized propaganda posters circulating throughout the twentieth century, it’s no wonder that so many artists have taken inspiration from these influential works of art. Here are 15 awesome examples of propaganda poster art.
Steve Thomas is able to master an array of artistic styles and he does a great job of integrating these with pop culture icons. He’s made travel posters for The Lord of The Rings, propaganda posters for social media and all kinds of other great works, but my personal favorite are his delightful videogame propaganda posters like this one for Joust. He broke the series into 12 parts so you can even buy a calendar of them.
Artist Steve Squall made these recruitment posters for both the Rebel Alliance and the Imperial Navy. I have to say, given the messages of the Rebel Alliance posters that memorialize Alderaan and condemn wookiee slavery, I don’t see why anyone would want to join the Imperial Navy.
I love DeviantArt user Comixmill’s poster reminding stormtroopers to enforce height requirements because it’s one of those things you won’t get unless you’re really into Star Wars and remember the line Leia says to Luke when they first meet.
These four awesome Mario-themed propaganda posters, notably all recruiting for Bowser’s evil squad, are limited edition prints available as a set from Fro Design Co. for only $80.
While those of you with kids might have gone to see the Smurfs movie, I'm assuming the rest of you haven't. From what I've heard, you aren't missing much if you haven't seen it, but I can't talk from first-hand experience because I haven't gone either. Regardless of what you think of the new movie, it's always nice to look back at the things that made The Smurfs so great in the first place. Image via It's Meng! [Flickr]
You may have wondered where the heck the word “smurf” came from and why the characters use it so often in the show, but as it turns out, the original characters weren’t “smurfs,” they were “schtroumpfs.” The whole thing started when the creator of the comics, Peyo, was at lunch with a fellow Belgian comic artist named André Franquin. If you’ve ever had a moment where you forgot the name of something, then you’ll understand Peyo’s frustration when he couldn’t remember the word “salt.” Being a goofy guy, he instead pointed at the salt and asked his friend to pass the schtroumpf. Franquin responded, "Here's the schtroumpf — when you are done schtroumpfing, schtroumpf it back." The rest of the meal, the two joked around using the word “schtroumpf” periodically throughout their conversation.
Now you know why the characters use their name so much in conversation, but suddenly, the question of how the comics became The Smurfs instead of The Schtroumpfs. Well, as I said, this all happened in Belgium, where the native language is French. The first language the comic was translated to was Dutch and while the name could have stayed the same (do you really need to translate an imaginary word?), Schtroumpfs didn’t quite sound right to Dutch speakers, so the name was instead changed to smurfen. When the comic was translated to English, the word “smurf” sounded good, so it was based on the Dutch version. Image via Stephen and Claire Farnsworth [Flickr]
The first introduction of the Smurf characters started in Peyo’s earlier comic, Johan and Pirlouit. This strip took place in the Middle Ages and incorporated elements of sorcery and sword fights. In 1958, Peyo started a new series of the strip, which revolved around the characters searching for a magic flute. At one point in the story, the characters run into a number of schtroumpfs, small creatures with blue skin and human-like features. The smurf characters were a smashing success, so Peyo wrote them their own strip that first appeared in 1959. Although the smurfs would periodically interact with Johan and Pirlouit, the spin off was largely based on their own stories.
Technically there are two girls, Smurfette, who everyone is familiar with, and Sassette, who first appeared in the fifth season of the cartoon. According to the smurf back story though, there are actually no smurf females. Smurfette was actually created by Gargamel in part of an evil plan to cause jealousy amongst the smurfs and Sassette was created by the smurfs using the same magic formula they stole from Gargamel. Sassette was intended to provide Smurfette with a female friend, but because Sassette was a pretty big tom boy, the two didn’t get along at first. If you’re wondering why Sassette is so much smaller than the adult smurfs if she’s not supposed to be a baby, it’s because all adult smurfs stand 3 crab apples tall, but they only had two crab apples worth of clay when they created her. Strangely, after making sure the two female characters were both made from clay and magic spells, season 8 featured another female, Nanny Smurf, with no background story explaining her creation. Nanny Smurf was Grandpa Smurf’s gal, but she disappeared in a haunted house for 500 years before the smurfs rescued her. She only lasted one season and appeared in one episode in season 9 before disappearing forever again. If you’ve been itching for more female characters in the comic, Peyo’s son who is the current writer of the French comics has promised that he will be introducing more females in upcoming years. Image via Scottobear [Flickr]
Most people seem to think that smurf berries aren’t real, but as it turns out, they are really supposed to be the berries from the sarsaparilla tree. Interestingly, in the comics, the smurfs don’t eat smurf berries, but instead gorge on the leaves of the plant.
If you’ve ever watched the cartoon and thought that Papa Smurf or Gargamel’s voices sounded familiar, you’re right, you probably have heard them somewhere else. Papa Smurf was voiced by legendary cartoon voice actor Don Messick who also did the voices of Boo Boob Bear, Ranger Smith, Astro, Muttley, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo and Droopy. As for Gargamel, his voice was performed by Paul Winchell, a professional ventriloquist who became a voice actor later in life. Some of Winchell’s more famous roles included Dick Dastardly (that’s right, he and Mesick worked together before) and everyone’s favorite spring-tailed predator, Tigger. Image via DNNYA17 [Flickr] Do you guys dig The Smurfs? What about the movie, if you've seen it, what did you think? Sources: Wikipedia #1, #2, #3, Smurfs Wiki #1, #2, #3
First they blew your mind when they told you Pluto isn’t actually a planet, then they told you that not only is Atlantis real, it’s been sitting in the bottom of some mudflats in Spain for a few thousand years. It seems history and science keep changing right in front of our eyes and pretty soon, nothing we learned in school will be true any more. Well, if you can’t deal with change, then you aren’t going to like these four things you learned in school are actually completely bogus.
If you learned one thing about Egypt in school, it was that the pyramids are marvels of ancient technology…and that they were built by slaves. There are movies based around slaves working on the pyramids and every one has seen at least half a dozen pictures of the poor workers straining under the hot sun as their cruel masters wait, whip in hand, for someone to slack off. But working on the pyramids might not have been so bad after all. While it was still hard work to construct the massive monuments, recent research has shown that the workers were more likely skilled masons who had the right to leave whenever they wanted. Evidence to back this claim is supported in the fact that the workers had their own tombs right beside the pyramids. Egyptologists point out that someone that low on the social ladder would never have been buried so close to the pharaohs. Image via anniemarieangelo [Flickr]
Ok, maybe not everything you learned about dinos back in school was wrong, but a lot of it sure was. For one thing, there is no brontosaurus. Yeah, that giant lumbering monster we all learned about in grade school was actually an apatosaurus with the head of a camarasaurus. The worst thing about this inaccuracy is that it was discovered over a century ago, but up until recently, everyone (including a lot of elementary school teachers) still insisted on calling apatosauruses brontosauruses. I guess one mislabeled dino isn’t that big of a deal…but the incorrect visual representation of just about every dinosaur imaginable is. By now, you’ve probably heard that many dinosaurs probably had feathers, a huge change for those of us who grew up thinking about giant lizards roaming the prehistoric plains. But even those that probably didn’t look like giant birds still looked way cooler and more versatile than the oversized iguanas popularly imagined. These days, we even know what color some dinosaurs were, and they are a far call from the multitude of green shades we once imagined. If you really want to know just how different dinosaurs were compared to what we were taught, check out this great article on Listverse, about the Top 10 Dinosaurs That Aren’t What They Were. Image via Geoff S. [Flickr]
If you learned chemistry or biology in high school, you were probably taught that there are six chemical elements known as the “building blocks of life.” They are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. These components make up the chemical composition of DNA and without them, life isn’t possible…or at least, we thought it wasn’t possible. Last year, scientists discovered a bacteria species living in a salt lake in California that was missing one of the building blocks of life, phosphorus, and instead had arsenic in its place. For some people, this might not seem like such a huge deal, particularly considering that arsenic is very close to phosphorus in its physical and chemical properties, but it’s a huge deal to scientists who suddenly saw a massive expansion in the scope of potential living things. It really makes a difference in intergalactic research, since the discovery opens up whole new planets as potential life-supporting ecosystems. Image via Artful Magpie [Flickr]
Maybe this wasn’t the case for all of you, but when I was in school, the teachers seemed overly fascinated with telling us how much better humans are than other animals. They’d tell the class, “we’re the only animals who have complex emotions,” “no other animal is self-aware like we are,” “humans are the only creatures who use tools,” “we are the only species to communicate through complex language,” etc. I don’t know why they felt our fragile homo sapien egos were so threatened by other creatures, but I always thought that was a little strange. As it turns out, it was completely incorrect too. Recent studies show that elephants mourn the loss of their companions and many animals, particularly dogs (who have evolved in the companionship of humans), have far more complex emotions than scientists had ever imagined. And chimps don’t just have emotions; they also are self-aware enough to understand how their own actions will affect those around them. Well, we still have our intelligence to set us apart from the beasts right? Not so quick you homo sapien- supremacists. Actually, there are a lot of intelligent animals out there, many of which use tools and converse amongst themselves. Chimps have used spears to hunt for thousands of years, octopuses use coconut shells as both camouflage and as protection, and dolphins use sponges to help uncover fish that are hiding in the sand. As for language, bees have an incredibly complex language system allowing them to communicate what type of flower is located in a given place and how to get to that location. Monkeys not only communicate with one another vocally, but they even understand grammar rules. In fact, in some ways, animals are actually ahead of us in the language game. While humans cannot yet speak the language of any other animals, primates can be taught sign language so they can communicate with us in our own language. Image via Mundoo [Flickr] If this crushed your memories of grade school, I’m sorry, but now it’s your turn to get revenge. What have you learned isn’t true even though they told you it was a “fact” back in school?
I know you Neatoramanauts are a smart bunch, so many of you probably have piles of books lying around your house. If you’re looking for some new bookshelves and bookcases to put all of those great books away, here are some of the coolest book shelving systems that money can buy.
With a little clever placement of elastic, Instructables user fungus amungus was able to create this simple, but seriously eye-catching inverted bookshelf.
If you have a lot of books, you may have wished your home came with a set of bookcases built into the walls, but I’m willing to guess you never conceived of using your staircase to hold all of your novels. Architect Tim Sloan did though, and the result is perhaps one of the most functional staircases I’ve ever seen.
I don’t know about you guys, but I’m always running out of space in my bookcases, which is why I simply love this expanding Twin Bookshelf by Zeynep Cinisli. Essentially, you get two sets of cupboard shelves and when those fill up, you can just pull them apart for even more shelf space.
Like the Twins, REK by Reiner de Jong is brilliant in that it can be consolidated or expanded as needed. As a bonus, the detailed linework in the design makes it look cool room no mater how extended it happens to be at any given time.
Disney fans rejoice, it’s time for yet another set of Neatorama Facts featuring the Happiest Place on Earth. This time, we’re taking a detailed look at “the wildest ride in the wilderness,” Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.
Image via Mastery of Maps [Flickr]
Most of the definitive “Disney” rides seem to have been created specifically for Disneyland long before they were added to Disney World and the other parks, but Big Thunder Mountain started out in exactly the opposite way. This time, the ride was originally conceived as part of a new Magic Kingdom area called the Western River Expedition, a Western-themed area similar to Frontierland. The area would look like a big plateau and contain a number of rides, including a runaway mine train roller coaster. Unfortunately, because the park just opened Pirates of the Caribbean, the area was considered too expensive to install, so Imaginer Tony Baxter proposed building just the coaster as a separate attraction, which would instead be added to Disneyland park first. While that idea was approved, the project way put on hold so the team could focus on Space Mountain.
The delay in the project actually turned out to be a good thing though, as it meant the developers were allowed to use computers to design the coaster, allowing for a smoother ride than one designed by hand. Big Thunder Mountain was actually the first ride to use a computer to design the track, but because it was a brand new technology, the creation process was actually anything but smooth.
While ride designers knew what would look good, the computer wanted the ride to be as simple and smooth as possible. So the imagineers had to submit nine different designs before the computer finally accepted one without automatically making changes that would make it less attractive. Eventually the design was accepted upon by all parties and construction started. The ride opened first in Disneyland in 1979 and a larger version opened in the Magic Kingdom a year later.
Image via Sally Ann French [Flickr]
I don’t know about you guys, but I have a serious girl-crush on Tina Fey. It’s hard not to when the woman in question is unbelievably talented, smart, funny and beautiful. That’s why I’m so happy to get to write this Neatorama article about one of my biggest idols, who will be celebrating her forty-first birthday today. So for all you other SNL and 30 Rock fans, please join me in wishing Tina Fey a very happy birthday by enjoying these fascinating facts about one of the world’s most influential women (and that’s not just me speaking, see fact #7 for more details). Image via David Shankbone [Flickr]
Liz Lemon’s first name is actually Ms. Fey’s real first name. “Tina” was actually born Elizabeth Stamatina Fey. To be fair, at least Tina isn’t a complete stage name, it’s just not her real first name. In case you’ve ever wondered, she was born to a brokerage employee of Greek descent and a university grant proposal writer of German and Scottish descent.
If you’ve ever looked closely enough at one of her movies or shows, you may have noticed that Tina has a fairly large scar on the left side of her cheek. While she refuses to talk about it, her husband finally revealed the story during a 2009 interview with Vanity Fair –and the story is a little terrifying. According to Tina’s husband, she was playing in the front yard of her house when she was five years old and someone randomly came by and slashed her face with a razor. It happened so fast that when it happened, she thought someone marked her with a pen. Tina says she doesn’t like to talk about the incident because she doesn’t want to seem like she is exploiting the trauma for attention. She’s also said that talking about it upsets her parents. If you watch 30 Rock (or pretty much any of her work), you’ll notice the show overwhelmingly features her standing with her right side to the camera –that’s why. Image via Vivanista1 [Flickr]
