Made In America - Bill Bryson [268]
When the Going was Good: Travel in America
*23 This was nothing compared with the speeds achIeved by steam-powered cars. The great Stanley Steamer reached l27 m.p.h. in 1906. Unfortunately steam cars also tended to be unreliable and to blow up.28
*24 Not until the 1940s did Sanders pretend to be anything other than the Indiana farm boy fate had made him. But upon being made an honorary colonel by the cherishably named Governor Ruby Laffoon of Kentucky, he took the role to heart. He grew a goatee and ever after affected the manner and attire of a southern gentleman.
What’s Cooking?: Eating in America
*25 And compared with later cereals they certainly were. Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks, introduced in 1953, were 56 per cent sugar.
Democratizing Luxury: Shopping in America
*26 Or so most books of retailing history say, though it seems an awfully large number. Many modern shopping centres can’t take that many cars.
The Hard Sell: Advertising in America
*27 The most famous 1920s ad of them all didn’t pose a question, but it did play on the reader’s anxiety: ‘They Laughed When I Sat Down, but When I Started to Play ...’ It was originated by the US School of Music in 1925.
*28 And yes, there really was a Dr Scholl. His name was William Scholl, he was a real doctor, genuinely dedicated to the well-being of feet, and they are still very proud of him in his hometown of LaPorte, Indiana.
*29 For purposes of research, I wrote to Procter & Gamble, Gleem’s manufacturer, asking what GL-70 was, but the public relations department evidently thought it eccentric of me to wonder what I had been putting in my mouth all through childhood and declined to reply.
The Pursuit of Pleasure: Sport and Play
*30 Cricket derives its curious name from an old French word, criquet, describing the sound made by a ball striking wood. The insect the cricket also gets its name from criquet.
Of Bombs and Bunkum: Politics and War
*31 The boot in freebooter has nothing to do with footwear. It comes from an old German word, bu¯te, ‘exchange’, which also gave us booty.
*32 It is curious how often we have lost track of the inspiration behind our eponymous words. We have already seen that no one knows who the real McCoy was. Equally, most authorities agree that there must have been a Mr Lynch who provided the inspiration for the word describing the abrupt termination of life without the inconvenience of a fair trial, and candidates almost without number have been suggested for this dubious honour. Indeed, it can appear that almost anyone named Lynch who had a position of authority anywhere in America between 1780 and 1850 has been mentioned as a candidate at one time or another. In fact no one knows who he was or what he did to earn his morbid immortality. It has even been suggested that Lynch may not be a person at all, but a creek in South Carolina favoured by locals for impromptu executions.
Welcome to the Space Age: The 1950s and Beyond
*33 Brown had gained his reputation in the company by designing a stunning concept car called the Lincoln Futura. It never went into production, but it did eventually find greater glory – as television’s Batmobile.
*34 In case you have ever wondered, the following are the derivations of the more popular Japanese car names: Honda, named for the company’s founder, Soichiro Honda; Isuzu, named for the Isuzu River; Mitsubishi, Japanese for ‘three stones,’ which feature on the family crest of the founder; Nissan, Japanese for ‘Japan Industry’; Suzuki, named for the founder, Suzuki Michio; Toyota, named for the founder, Sakicki Toyoda, and not, as many stories have it. because the early models looked like ‘toy autos’.21
Excerpt
*35 In fact like most other people in America. The leading food writer of the age, Duncan Hines, author of the hugely successful Adventures in Eating, was himself a cautious eater and declared with pride that he never ate food with French names if he could possibly help it. Hines’s other proud boast was that he did not venture out of America until