1. Personal hygiene left much room for improvement. As a result,
many women and men had developed acne scars by
adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their
facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were
speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another
woman's face she was told, "mind your own bee's wax." Should
the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a
smile" In addition, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax
would melt . . . therefore, the expression "losing face."
2. Early politicians required feedback f rom the public to
determine what the people considered important. Since there
were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their
assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars. They were told to
"go sip some ale"
and listen to people's conversations and political concerns.
Many assistants were dispatched at different times. "You go
sip here" and "You go sip there." The two words "go sip" were
eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and,
thus we have the term "gossip."
3. In George Washington's days, there were no cameras.
One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of
George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with
one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and
both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how
many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were
to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs,"
therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the
_expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."
4. In the late 1700s, many houses consisted of a large room with
only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from
the wall, and was used for dining. The "head of the household"
always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the
floor Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be
invited to sit in this chair during a meal. To sit i n the chair
meant you were important and in charge. They called the one
sitting in the chair the "chair man." Today in business, we use
the expression or title "Chairman" or "Chairman of the Board."
5. Google was originally named BackRub (anyone wonder why it wasn't famous?)
6. Windows was originally named Interface Manager.
7. Of the 247 BILLION email messages sent every day, 81% are pure spam.
8. According to legend, Amazon became the number one shopping site because in the days before the invention of the search giant Google, Yahoo would list the sites in their directory alphabetically!
9. Google estimates that the Internet today contains about 5 million terabytes of data (1TB = 1,000GB), and claims it has only indexed a paltry 0.04% of it all! You could fit the whole Internet on just 200 million Blu-Ray disks.
10. The first webcam was deployed at Cambridge University computer lab – its sole purpose to monitor a particular coffee maker and hence avoid wasted trips to an empty pot.
many women and men had developed acne scars by
adulthood. The women would spread bee's wax over their
facial skin to smooth out their complexions. When they were
speaking to each other, if a woman began to stare at another
woman's face she was told, "mind your own bee's wax." Should
the woman smile, the wax would crack, hence the term "crack a
smile" In addition, when they sat too close to the fire, the wax
would melt . . . therefore, the expression "losing face."
2. Early politicians required feedback f rom the public to
determine what the people considered important. Since there
were no telephones, TV's or radios, the politicians sent their
assistants to local taverns, pubs, and bars. They were told to
"go sip some ale"
and listen to people's conversations and political concerns.
Many assistants were dispatched at different times. "You go
sip here" and "You go sip there." The two words "go sip" were
eventually combined when referring to the local opinion and,
thus we have the term "gossip."
3. In George Washington's days, there were no cameras.
One's image was either sculpted or painted. Some paintings of
George Washington showed him standing behind a desk with
one arm behind his back while others showed both legs and
both arms. Prices charged by painters were not based on how
many people were to be painted, but by how many limbs were
to be painted. Arms and legs are "limbs,"
therefore painting them would cost the buyer more. Hence the
_expression, "Okay, but it'll cost you an arm and a leg."
4. In the late 1700s, many houses consisted of a large room with
only one chair. Commonly, a long wide board folded down from
the wall, and was used for dining. The "head of the household"
always sat in the chair while everyone else ate sitting on the
floor Occasionally a guest, who was usually a man, would be
invited to sit in this chair during a meal. To sit i n the chair
meant you were important and in charge. They called the one
sitting in the chair the "chair man." Today in business, we use
the expression or title "Chairman" or "Chairman of the Board."
5. Google was originally named BackRub (anyone wonder why it wasn't famous?)
6. Windows was originally named Interface Manager.
7. Of the 247 BILLION email messages sent every day, 81% are pure spam.
8. According to legend, Amazon became the number one shopping site because in the days before the invention of the search giant Google, Yahoo would list the sites in their directory alphabetically!
9. Google estimates that the Internet today contains about 5 million terabytes of data (1TB = 1,000GB), and claims it has only indexed a paltry 0.04% of it all! You could fit the whole Internet on just 200 million Blu-Ray disks.
10. The first webcam was deployed at Cambridge University computer lab – its sole purpose to monitor a particular coffee maker and hence avoid wasted trips to an empty pot.