31 Amazing Facts about Household Items - mental_floss List Show Ep. 325
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- Amazing facts about mundane items.
The List Show is a weekly show where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John looks at some facts about ordinary household items!
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It's not Wrigley's fault, he didn't "CHEWS" to endorse the team.
+Apledore it's BA DUM TSS
Except for the fact he owned the team and moved it into the stadium...
+Mosixman Not gonna lie -didn't even know that was a gif until I googled it just now because of your comment.
+Mosixman He made the last noise with a triangle :v
NOT A FIRE FLOWER BUT A PIRANHA PLANT
+Hinoe Deepwood But they are not flowers, are they?
Are original Olympic flags "household items"?
Robert Williams for me it is.. stole one for a dare
+Robert Williams Is Cleoptatra's ship?
+Robert Williams yeah i was about to say what does #13 have to do with anything here?
Robert Williams He kept it in a suitcase for 80 years is the point, I think. Granted the other part is the story, but the suitcase is what makes it relevant.
Terry McGinn the concept of this episode though is "you know that one object around your house? well heres an interesting fact"
not "oh this one guy stole something, so he has had it for years in his suitcase"
"Terrible Terrible Baseball Team" ?!? Cubs are amazing this year!
+Josh Shpayher Yeah they are! John doesn't seem to understand sports that aren't soccer though.
+Mike Hoth One goal is one point, damnit. Confusing ass Americans with their computers and their McDonaldses and their quarterbackses.
+Josh Shpayher Yes, thank you! For everyone else who is ill informed, at the time this video was uploaded the Cubs are 7.5 games up on the Giants for the second wild card. They would be in first place in every division but their own and the AL Central with their record. He at least could have said historically terrible terrible baseball team.
As an avid Cardinals fan, I refuse to admit the Cubs are doing well😉
lol.. look now ;)
He didn't put a quarter in the pig when he talked about bacon flavored toothpaste!!
I always chuckle when John _Green_ wears a *red* shirt.
Thank you for number 8. You confirmed my belief of spatula and turner. I posted it on Facebook and tagged my brother-in-law and nephew to show them they were wrong. Happy day.
as a Cubs fan, I had to bite back some choice words, John. we're on our way to the playoffs this year man. BACK TO THE FUTURE SAID THIS IS OUR YEAR.
I waited, i never saw Marty. It was a hoax.
As a cardinals fan I’m happy to say I hope you enjoyed your year. Now be quiet as you trade everyone good away from all your teams besides the Sox and come take a trip to St. Louis this summer for some good baseball. First beer is on me. 😉
I have a solution to the K-Cup thing: Get a reusable K-Cup. They cost about $5-10 depending on brand and where you buy then and then buy your favorite can of drip coffee. Cheaper and saves the environment.
Fountain pens are a thing in all Belgian schools. You get pencils to learn the basics of cursive with, but after 6 months of first grade, you have to use a fountain pen. The reason? Fountain pens naturally write slower than ballpoints, so you automatically spend more time on the shapes your writing, moderately improving your penmanship.
I still use them if I want to take notes that anyone has to read later, and have an impressive collection of low-quality fountain pens lying around at work.
+FreakyBelgianChick I haven't noticed my writing slowing down when I use a fountain pen (or more properly, speeding up when I use a ballpoint). The difference I notice is that fountain pens are more comfortable to use since you don't need to put any pressure on the pen to write. That's why I started using them in the first place; I was having carpal tunnel issues. Now (after surgery), I use them because I like them.
Oh no. John, did you just call a piranha plant a fire flower?
+William Bowles Yes, he did.
+William Bowles I'm so glad somebody else noticed!
Later on technicians removed the fire extinguishers from the copiers because when people would open the door on the copier to put out the fire it made things worse by giving the fire more oxygen
Actually, a spatula is that long thin thing used to spread icing, and the rubber spatula can also be called a rubber scraper, at least according to my home ec class
5:38 It looks like even the fireplace is shocked to find out "aspirin" used to be a trademark.
Bayer Pharmaceuticals developed 'Heroin' (named for Greek god 'Hero') in the 1880's as a 'safe' alternative to morphine. Addicts used collect scrap, sell it to junk yards to purchase it. Hence the name 'Junkies' !
We use our Keurig all the time at work. Only costs about $0.25 cents per brew, and the cups are bioplastic and paper. Don't just discredit the Keurig all together, buy smarter cups. San Francisco Bay Roasting Co. sells bio friendly K Cups for like 1/3 of the price of Starbucks ones. You can get them on Amazon, and also at Costco. They even taste a hell of a lot better than most brands. WIN! drops mic.
The narrow spectrum of coffee or other slim pickins you get with a keurig is extremely limiting. Total fail!
When I had a Writer's Digest subscription, they often showed ads asking writers to capitalize their product because it's under copyright laws. We could use terms like Band-Aid, Kleenex, etc. they just wanted the brand name to be recognized, I guess. Peace!
0:43 Yes, you just sliced the bread yourself. It's not that hard.
TheRecreator what is this?! slicing bread yourself? what sorcery!
Most of the time you only do it because you're eating homemade bread, which is *so* much tastier than factory bread. It's amazing.
TheRecreator Wait, I can slice my homemade bread?!
Zelmel No off course not. You eat it by just ripping off handfuls.
Just grow some grain, grind it, refine it, use it to make bread, and slice it. It's not that hard.
I've forced my mother to become a Tegestologist. Every time I visit a new city/country I buy her a really tacky coaster. Also fridge magnets. What do you call a person who collects fridge magnets?
Spatula just means "broad, flat tool", it's quite acceptable to call a "turner" a spatula. Plus, "turner" also limits the tool's use by name, as spatulas can be used to carry, scrape, move or otherwise influence food in a pan, not just turning. ;)
THANK YOU
"Electromagnetic radiation AND radio waves!" Because they're different things...
+Andrew Bulman I don't mind when dumb mistakes like that are on Mental Floss. It's the ones on Crash Course and SciShow that bug me.
DO NOT DISRESPECT THE CUBS, JOHN. Okay, I'm alright. now
Aaaaaaaand unintentional period.
I thought you had one every month? /rimshot
Very funny.
The Cubs are not terrible, they are going to win the World Series this year according to Back to the Future 2
Also they are doing pretty well this year
Erick Levesque it happened! finally
I feel bad for other companies that produce bubble-wrap, I've never heard it called anything else
Well so much for that shade thrown on the Cubs
Deez Nutz GOT EEM
I'm so with John Sylvan. I hate Keurigs.
I was at the school in Edinburgh with the fountain pens from fact 23 (it's called Stewart's Melville College) and I absolutely hated this experiment!!! As far as productivity goes, you can probably imagine what happened when kids work out that they can fling ink from fountain pens at classmates...
Hey man im more of a white sox fan myself but the cubs are doing pretty well this year
Little known fact: Bayer still owns the trademark for the name of the drug Aspirin in other countries, including
Canada and therefore, it must be capitulated. All others who make this drug call it acetylsalicylic acid or ASA.
The Cubbies are killin it this year though!
That's a fire piranha plant, but whatever.
Salt was used in many places as wages for workers. You had to work hard to "earn your salt".
Im still watching all of these videos. I have a good amount to watch!
3:58 - John says "Fire Flower" but points to a Piranha Plant (which sits towards top-left of the standard camera angle). Funny thing is, there actually IS a Fire Flower in the background of the salon - more prominently displayed towards the middle of the right-hand side of the screen next to the Statue of Liberty. #MarioKnows
HAH!! I was waiting or them to say the toothbrush creator subsequently SHANKED another prisoner with his TOOTHBRUSH INVENTION!!
If you mentioned any of these at a party, everyone would immediately and justifiably hate you.
Aluminum foil can only reduce radio waves if it forms a complete seal around your head, at which point you encounter other problems like lack of oxygen. An incomplete Faraday cage would actually make you slightly more receptive to radio
My favorite is that the crapper (or toilet) was popularized by Thomas Crapper, a plumber who bought the patent for it and mass produced it. I don't get why they say "I return to my salon" at the end, he never left, they were just shooting from a different angle!
At around 4:00 john calls the piranha plant a fire flower. Lol it's okay John.
I love John's hair. Apparently they wake him up from a deep nap and give him about 3 seconds to get ready before they call "ACTION!"
:-D
+theQiwiMan John calls his hair The Puff.
love your comment about the Cubs, always knew I liked you, John Green! :-)
There need to be a series on his gaming channel where John goes through popular/classic games just so that he can stop messing up the references. And also because it would be entertaining. DFTBA, John.
crown pen improves performance? Feeling vaguely chique makes you perform better, brilliant.
Where I'm from a "turner" is called a "fish slice", for it is used to flip over frying breaded fish in a pan. Yes, I am Scottish.
Bonus fact: Salt as a currency is also the reason why salary is called salary. The 'sal' part means salt, and thus money.
Welcome back John!!
3:59 Pretty sure that's not a fire flower. 4:15 I can tell the intern responsible for doing the image search Googled "window 45 degrees," resulting in a window with a shutter propped at 45 degrees, rather than "witch window," which is a window whose frame is tilted at an angle.
Not a Cubs fan but tbh they're actually doing pretty good lately.
He pointed to the piranha plant, not the fire flower.
That's a rubber scraper! A spatula is the metal butterknife like thing you use to spread icing!
I now need that knitting clock and a fountain pen.
+Quixii Q Fountain pens are fun. If you're in the US, a Pilot Metropolitan should only run you around $15.
That's a piranha plant John. Hank will be deeply upset at you as well.
Wrigley Field is named for him because he owned the team and the stadium.
Duuuuuuude! John green wrote TFIOS, I had no clue until this week!
Points to a Piranha Plant and calls it a Fire Flower, literally two seconds later there is an ACTUAL FIRE FLOWER IN THE BACKGROUND
3:57 As a Nintendo fanboy, I feel like I have to point out that that's a piranha plant, and not a fire flower. Easy mistake to make though.
I'm a pharmacist. Legal, generic medications are required to be the same (+/- 10%) of the original drug product. Clinically, they are identical. I never pay the price for name brand drugs.
I refer to flippers as "flatulas" because they're flat spatulas.
NonononononononononononoNononononononononononononononono
I always buy generic because there is always something effed up in the news about the brand name medicine
Fountain pens are no good for left-handed people, they need special nibs and wet ink smudges unless you use your hand in a hook position. Coasters are called beermats in the UK.
Reusable cups man. I've only ever used reusable cups with my Keurig.
I use my keurig mainly for hot water - I brew it over a tea bag
I've been using a fountain pen since the age of seven and I love them :3 x
So the scarf knitting clock will be responsible for my Christmas gift from grandma this year?
#5- don't forget bottle caps!
It never ceases to amaze me that people don't appreciate that any medication that has a brand name, also has a generic equivalent. Meaning you don't need to spend a whole load of money buying a branded medicine all your paying for is the name! the generic one will have exactly the same ingredients but costs far less. If you don't think I'm telling the truth, please compare ingredients on the packaging, in doubt as the pharmacist. By the was I'm a retired anaesthetic nurse.
I ALWAYS buy the generic version of whatever OTC medications I'm taking, with the only exception being Pepto Bismol and that's mainly an issue of taste. It just doesn't make sense to spend all that money on the brand name stuff when the generics/store brands work just as well.
0:43 The toaster is the greatest thing since sliced bread... or actually, before slice bread.
+Collin Bardini I dunno, I think heated knives that toast the bread while slicing it is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Hey guys, that would be an awesome video. All things that are actually brand names, but we have just accepted to be what they are. I believe Q-TIps are the same. A lot of people call them that, but thats a brand name
Hey Cubs are good this year John
So number 6 is more heat than light? That's make a good book title.
John your hair looks amazing
I've never once used my roommate's towel, they're my towels, now that he's dead.
The Cubs aren't that bad anymore. They are fighting for a playoff spot this year.
When you guys talked about the brand name thing I had one to add. Jetski's. Jetski is produced by Kawasaki, Waverunners by Yamaha, and Seadoo's by Bombardier. Their legal names are PWC's and it annoys me when people don't call them by the proper names. Also most states require you have a fire extinguisher in these vehicles, not for your safety but for other people which has always confused me.
+Chase D Does it also make you angry when people say band-aid?
Not angry, annoyed. Which I guess I should offer a little more context to my annoyance. I worked at a rental company which dealt with PWC's (exclusively Waverunner) and our site featured pictures of our stock and several phrases including "Waverunners". Yet still got questions of people calling from our site if we rented "Jetskis" simply because they didn't understand that its all classified as PWC.
My annoyance comes from customer service, not a need to be technical.
Chase D
That actually makes sense. I had something similar happen at a job before.
Toasters existed before pre-sliced bread? :O
Common that a giving! But maybe I am one of the few people left the world that do not mind slicing my own bread. The best bread for a toast where I live is still not pre-sliced. (In general) Of course you can get crappy pre-sliced "toaster" bread but that generally taste crap.
a spatula and a fish slice are totally different! who calls it a turner?
Hey John, the Cubs are relevant this year. 4th best record in all of baseball. Get the net.
Fire flower - power up
Piranha plant - enemy
I know the pharmacist and generic medications is a fact. my mom is a pharmacist and she never buys name brand drugs. store brand is the exact same thing
We were required to use fountain pens until high school. After switching, my handwriting deteriorated dramatically.
Every time he says "hi I'm John green" I yell "hi john!!" ... My family thinks I'm crazy
Isn't that a piranha plant, not a fire flower?
I think you have to take back what you said about Wrigley Field. Cubs are a pretty good team these days. 😁
Hey excuse me!!! The Cubs are doing very well this year, only cub fans are allowed to rag on the cubs
3:58 That's a Piranha Plant.
and Q-Tips! And Scotch Tape. Ace Bandage.
I would call the "turner" a fish slice, though I'm not sure if that's a British/Scottish thing or if it's just cos that's what my mum calls it!
I love the internet, it's always hard at work disillusioning me that I know everything about something, this time it was about the history of the computer. I know I do not know about every computers ever build but I thought I knew everything about historically significant computers, the Honeywell kitchen computer might not have sold a single unit but it seems like it was the first computer meant for home use. I wonder how it would have fared if it had been marketed to male bachelors instead of a male view of an housewife. This was right on the leading edge of the hobby computer revolution. The fact that it was very expensive does not mean it would not have sold, geeks with money must have been a thing back then too, but I guess most of them were busy thinking about creating their own computers.
I wrote the above before watching the whole video. I want to add that I always buy generic medication even if I do not have to foot the bill myself, insurance pays for my anxiety drugs but I had no hesitation with choosing the generic brands when my pharmacy asked which ones I wanted. Patents protect the inventor for only a limited time for a good reason, a limited time protection is good for both competition and also innovation. Without patent limit we would probably still use medications patented fifty to a hundred years ago, we still do for the better ones. Limited patents forces the drug company to innovate.
On the minus side it also forced them to find loopholes and alternate strategies to make money, like changing one molecule in a drug or bribing doctors. Weirdly enough the changing one molecule model is one that is also pursued by the illegal drug syndicates, that's where so called "bath salts" come from, synthetic drugs slightly different from illegal ones in order to side step the laws.
I so wish the inventor's opinion on the Keurig had more influence on everybody else. Those things are the worst.
John that's a Piranha Plant. Not a Fire Flower. You made me sad ._.
keurig coffee cups are much more expensive than ground coffee, usually around $1.00 a cup where loose ground coffee is at most 1/4 of that. he likely got a machine for free, but to use it is expensive, not the machine itself.
uhmm... wasn't salt used as currency in all of the Roman Empire at one point? that's where the word 'salary' comes from; from the latin for salt...
A lot of people don't realize that medication has heavy regulations. Unlike other Off brand products. the only difference between most medication is the name on the box.
Kleenex and Asprine losing their IP is the result of being too good at what they do. I think its complete bollocks that you can lose an IP because you're "Thee" house hold name. Like Saran wrap, or Velcro.
YOU MENTIONED BACON!! PUT A QUARTER IN THE PIG!!
A turner is a fish slice in the UK :)
Hey! The Cubs are great this year. Don't be jelly because Indy has no baseball team...
What he's calling a spatula, I was under the impression was called a rubber spatula.
HOLD UP! The Cubs are probably making the playoffs this year, therefor not terrible
"Expensive to own."
He meant expensive to operate, since the little grind cups cot a lot.
You're saying the same thing. idiocy.
colormesarge
No, I could buy one for very cheap, and then I would own it.
5:40 The fire screen froze... ironic
Dear John, linguistics is all about subjectivity. Languages are fluid, and no one - not even the French Académie - is able to control it. People will call it a spatula if they think it's a spatula, even if it's technically something else. Prescriptive linguists make no friends. And good lexicographer or grammarian will tell you that it's their job to do their best to keep up with linguistic changes and simple record and describe them. Only snobs write usage rules.
yep, i always called it a spatula I think, i know i never called it a turner but my grandma always called it a turner and she has always been known as one who uses the correct term for things