If you’re like us, whether from habit or from following the advice of parents, foster parents or cruel court-appointed guardians, you’ve been doing these dozen things wrong your entire life!
You’ve been putting your glasses on wrong
Over your nose and ears each morning? Nope! This abrades the arms and side-wings of spectacles, adds ugly smears, and weakens your vision because of time spent searching for them. (Why did you think you need a new pair every two years!) Glasses are meant to be affixed to the face by the optician when originally purchased, and left on, waking and sleeping, until they form a small bloody skin/plastic amalgam atop ears and nose indicating the need for surgical removal, usually after 60-70 months. Now do you “see” the truth?
You’ve been looking at cows wrong
If you’re like most people, when you look at a cow you do it from the side or occasionally from the front (vache-en-avant). Who knew that from at least 1128 (Ye Booke Of Anymale Regardyinge) we were supposed to look at them from underneath! That’s where the udders are, duh! Those things we get the milk from?? Maybe you’d better put that tin bucket over your head in shame!
You’ve been loading staplers wrong
The earliest woodcuts of stapler use (het Kantoormuseum, Amsterdam) clearly show the staples were meant to be pushed in through the ejection slot one at a time, immediately before use. The space above the ejection slot (het stappelbarrel) is for storing the staples that get pushed too hard and fall inside the stapler. How could we have got this so Yankee cock-a-doodle?
You’ve been putting your bread in the toaster wrong
We bet like us you’ve been putting your bread in the toaster the same way it comes in the bag, curvy-side up. In fact the curve under the bread is shaped like that so it will rock gently with expansion when heated, allowing the toast to brown more evenly. What a passel of crowd-following jackaninnies we all are!
You’ve been saying “hi” wrong
Thomas Edison recommended answering the telephone with “Hello” but in time shortened this to “Hi,” with a short “i” as in “Ed-i-son.” Reminded that Nicola Tesla also contained a short “i,” Edison thereafter answered the phone with a protracted guttural “Hhhhhhhh” and a furious stomping of his left foot. What fools we greeting mortals be!
You’ve been ice-skating wrong
The inventor of the first rink (LaFroidpecheur, 1782) enclosed it with “rink boards” so it might be splashed with kerosene until a glistening, colorful sheen collected on the flat surface, then set on fire the moment the first skater set his or her prancing foot on the ice. Mon Dieu! We stand – or slide-and-burn – corrected!
You’ve been putting small children on escalators wrong
We’ll bet you didn’t know those parallel grooves beneath your feet on escalator steps are there to firmly grip small children’s noses as they ride to the top – or, facing backwards, to the bottom. This is where the saying “Got your nose, Mr. Escalator!” came from. Feel dopily errant now?
You’ve been flouncing wrong
You may believe that you have from time to time flounced, but one is not flouncing unless one has gathered up all of one’s clothing so it does not touch the floor. This includes petticoats, but also shoes, socks, and all cardboard CAR WASH! HALF OFF TODAY! signs. Hmmm. We’ll flounce better next time!
You’ve been using revolving doors wrong
U.S. Patent # 387,571, issued to Theophilus Von Kannel of Philadelphia in 1888, shows the “street vane” was contrived to power the revolving restaurant on his building’s roof. Pedestrians were encouraged to turn it as they passed – slowly, so as not to send cutlery (or customers!) flying, two floors above. Only as an afterthought did Von Kannel realize his “Publically-Powered Dining Establishment Rotor” might also be used by those desiring access to the building, to whom he offered a 5-cent discount on a second creamy dessert. Slap forehead against building!
You’ve been yelling “Stop! Thief!” wrong
When Seth Cribbins, 42, was robbed in the street in Canton, Ohio in 1903, he chased the cutpurse, crying “Thief! Stop!” His on-the-spot inspiration led to bystander intervention and arrest, and the clever phrase was promoted in popular songs, magazines and tent shows. Today, we unhappily reverse the words’ order, which has the unfortunate effect of making onlookers “Stop!” — then look around for a thief, who has already fled. What crime-encouraging mudgoolies we all persist in being!
You’ve been beweeping your outcast state in fortune and men’s eyes wrong
You’re supposed to trouble deaf heaven first, then despise yourself, before you haply think on thee, then scorn to change your state with kings. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 29) Quotha: “Oooops!”
You’ve been abandoning all hope ye who enter here wrong
If you’re like us, you’ve been thinking that when you abandoned all hope when you entered here there was still the ittiest bittiest chance that something would come along, like a winning lottery ticket or a superhero, or one oppressor with a small scrap of remaining soul who’d sympathize with the downtrodden like in War Of The Planet Of The Apes to save you. Nope. When it says all hope, it means ALL hope. There is no hope. None. Let it go. Not gonna happen. It’s hopeless. There, now don’t you feel abandoned like you were supposed to?
Alastair Campbell
http://tinyurl.com/q5bfg63
