Secrets of My Legacy

Where did the two-fingered peace sign come from?

The gesture of two fingers spread and raised in peace, popularized in the 1960s, is a physical interpretation of the peace symbol, an inverted or upside-down Y within a circle, which was designed in 1958 by members of the anti-nuclear Direct Action Committee. The inverted Y is a combination of the maritime semaphore signals for N and D, which stood for “nuclear disarmament.”

Where did the rude Anglo-Saxon one-fingered salute come from?

When the outnumbered English faced the French at the Battle of Agincourt, they were armed with a relatively new weapon, the longbow. The French were so amused that they vowed to cut off the middle finger of each British archer. When the longbows won the day, the English jeered the retreating French by raising that middle finger in a gesture that still means, among other things, “in your face.”

Why do Christians place their hands together in prayer?

The original gesture of Christian prayer was spreading the arms and hands heavenward. There is no mention anywhere in the Bible of  joining hands in prayer, and that custom didn’t surface in the church until the ninth century. In Roman times, a man would place his hands together as an offer of submission that meant, “I surrender, here are my hands ready to be bound or shackled.” Christianity accepted the gesture as a symbol of offering total obedience, or submission, to God.

Why was grace originally a prayer said after a meal?

Today, we say grace before a meal in thanksgiving for an abundance of
food, but in ancient times, food spoiled quickly, often causing illness or
even death. Nomadic tribes experimenting with unfamiliar plants were
very often poisoned. Before a meal, these people made a plea to the
gods to deliver them from poisoning, but it wasn’t until after the meal,
if everyone was still standing, that they offered a prayer of thanksgiving,
or “grace.”

Why at the end of a profound statement or prayer do Christians, Muslims, and Jews all say “amen”?

The word amen appears 13 times in the Hebrew Bible and 119 times in the New Testament as well as in the earliest Moslem writings. The word originated in Egypt around 2500 BC as Amun, and meant the “Hidden One,” the name of their highest deity. Hebrew scholars adopted the word as meaning “so it is” and passed it on to the Christians and Muslims.

Why is June the most popular month for weddings?

The ancient Greeks and Romans both suggested marriage during a full moon because of its positive influence on fertility. The Romans favoured June, a month they named after Juno, the goddess of marriage, because if the bride conceived right away, she wouldn’t be too pregnant to help with the harvest. She also would probably have recovered from giving birth in time to help in the fields with the next year’s harvest.

Why are wedding banns announced before a marriage?

The custom of proclaiming wedding banns began in 800 AD when Roman Emperor Charlemagne became alarmed by the high rate of interbreeding throughout his empire. He ordered that all marriages be publicly announced at least seven days prior to the ceremony and that anyone knowing that the bride and groom were related must come forward. The practice proved so successful that it was widely endorsed by all faiths.

Why is a formal suit for men called a “tuxedo”?

In the nineteenth century, the accepted formal dress for men was a suit with long swallowtails. But one evening in 1886, young Griswald Lorillard, the heir to a tobacco fortune, shocked his country club by arriving in a dinner jacket without tails. This fashion statement caught on, and the suit took on the name the place Lorillard introduced it: Tuxedo Park, New Jersey.

Where did the coffee habit come from?

Muslims were the first to develop coffee. As early as 1524 they were using it as a replacement for the wine they were forbidden to drink. According to legend, an astute Arab herder noticed that his goats became skittish after chewing on the berries of a certain bush, so he sampled a few himself and found them to be invigorating. The region of Abyssinia where this took place is named Kaffa, which gave us the name for the drink we call coffee.

Why do we define the rat race as “keeping up with the Joneses”?

Keeping up with the Joneses has come to mean trying to keep up with your neighbours, in terms of material possessions, at any cost. The expression comes from the title of a comic strip that ran in newspapers between 1913 and 1931 and chronicled the experiences of a newly married man in Cedarhurst, New York. Originally titled “Keeping Up With the Smiths,” the cartoon was changed to the “Keeping Up With the Joneses” because it sounded better.

Why do we say “Hello” when we answer the telephone?

The first word used to answer the phone was the nautical greeting “ahoy” because the first regular phone system was in the maritime state of Connecticut. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor, answered with the Gaelic “hoy,” but it was Thomas Edison’s greeting of “hello,” an exclamation of surprise dating back to the Middle Ages, that caught on, and so we answer today with, “Hello?”