Uncommon Knowledge

It seems so obvious that the color white symbolizes purity and innocence. And yet, for centuries it was the color blue that carried that meaning. White, on the other hand, historically represented mourning in France, while black was a popular color for wedding dresses in Scandinavia. Wedding dresses, in general, were meant to show off the affluence of a bride’s family, and were made in the richest materials available, in any color imaginable. So how did the white wedding dress become near-universal? It dates back to Queen Victoria of England, who married in 1840. Victoria was fond of intricate, English-made lacework, and commissioned a white wedding dress in order to highlight it. This fashion innovation was featured widely in the press, and the wedding was even re-enacted by the royals in 1854 so that moment could be captured and spread by the new medium of photography. Women of all classes quickly followed suit, and it was not long before white was hailed as the must-have color for brides.

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Probably not. “Ordinary bicycle” is an example of a retronym, or name that is given to something only after a new version appears. For example, before color television was invented, there was no such thing as a black-and-white TV. It was just TV. The same is true for landline telephones, or straight-edge razors. The term “ordinary bicycle” actually refers to the quaint, 19th century model with the giant front wheel and the tiny back wheel. It was given that name after the appearance of the “safety bicycle,” which is essentially the same version we pedal around on today. The safety bike quickly became so popular, however, that the ordinary bike was no longer ordinary and was given a different name altogether. Today they’re best known as penny-farthings, named after two British coins of very different sizes.

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George Washington may be the father of our country, but not every state participated in making him our first Presidential. In the 1789 election, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island did not cast their votes—a full 23% of the original colonies. Their reasons for not joining in the newly established democratic process were not as a protest against the candidate—Washington was a widely beloved leader. New York’s legislature was tasked with choosing its electors, but they were deadlocked in debate and ended up sending no one. Both North Carolina and Rhode Island had not yet ratified the new United States Constitution, and were therefore not eligible to participate.

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Is your nosegay sweet and sentimental? Seeking for glory? Or out for revenge? And why such a strange name for a seemingly innocent little bouquet of flowers? The word originated in the 15th century, when the term “gay” meant “ornament.” So a nosegay is a decoration designed to appeal to the nose as much as the eyes. The Victorians, however, were ready to sniff out all kinds of meaning from their bouquets. Each flower had its own meaning, and could be combined into elaborate, symbolic messages. We still accept that a red rose means “passion” or “romance,” but you could also use amaranth for “eternal love,” jasmine for “unconditional love,” and jonquil as a cry of unrequited love. Not all nosegays were romantic, however. Asphodel signaled regret, begonia was a warning, and red clover symbolized an industrious nature. Wishing to end a relationship? Present your companion with a bouquet of “cold-hearted” lettuce.

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Parents may give a name to their new baby, but it’s those babies who gave us the name “mom.” While the babbling of a little one may sound like nonsense, it actually represents a child’s first steps toward learning language. Those first sounds typically take the shape of a consonant followed by a vowel, with the short A sound being one of the easiest vowels to form. Babies will begin with the consonants they can make with their lips (M, B, P), followed by those made with their tongue (D, T, L, N). So, if Mama, Papa and Dada are naturally formed as part of an infant’s linguistic experimentation, why is it that it Mom gets her name specifically, rather than one of the other two? Perhaps it’s because M is the only consonant sound that can be made while nursing. At any rate, Mothers have some version of the M+vowel combination as a name in nearly every language: Mommy, Mama, Maman, Oma, Em, Mutti, Mare, Maty, etc.

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If you get close enough, certain diamonds are so bright they can actually reduce you to cinders. That’s because the brightest (and also the largest) diamonds in the universe are actually stars. Stars have a natural life-cycle, and late in that process, after most of their fuel has been spent, they may become something called a white dwarf. White dwarf stars are incredibly dense, containing a mass similar to our sun in an area the size of the earth, and most of that core consists of compressed carbon atoms. It was theorized that eventually all that carbon would crystallize, but an actual diamond-filled star was not identified until 2004. The nearest space diamond, affectionately known as V886 Centauri, is estimated to be 4,000km across, making it 10 billion trillion trillion carats. Twinkle twinkle, indeed.

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For a human mother-to-be, nine months of pregnancy may feel endless, but we still have it better than some members of the animal kingdom. Giraffes remain pregnant for 13 to 16 months—and not only that, they also give birth standing up, welcoming the baby into the world with a drop of 5 to 7 feet to the ground. Elephants experience pregnancy on an even larger scale, with the calf spending enough time in the womb to celebrate a second birthday before ever taking a breath. The longest vertebrate pregnancy, however, belongs to the frilled shark. One of several ancient species referred to as “living fossils,” this deep sea dweller can be gestate its young for 3.5 years before giving birth.

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That extraordinary woman was Dr. Sara Josephine Baker. As a woman doctor at the dawn of the 20th century, she was not taken very seriously at first, and was given a no-win assignment from New York City Department of Health: reduce the death rate in Hell’s Kitchen, an infamous slum. Dr. Baker not only exceeded all expectations, but also through her efforts, by 1915 New York had the lowest infant mortality rate anywhere in the United States or Europe. Dr. Baker’s innovations included inventing safer baby clothing and sealed medicine capsules, instituting in-house doctors and nurses and public schools, standardizing disease screenings for children, and promoting school lunches to fight malnutrition. She was even able to use her prestige to open doors for other women. When the prestigious New York University Medical School invited her to address the student body, she agreed only on the condition that she and other women would be able to earn degrees at the all-male school.

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