Author: Internship

In recent years, the Black Friday craze has inched further and further into Thanksgiving. With stores opening as early as 5 p.m. on Thursday, festive dinners are being overshadowed by shopping frenzies. Retailers like to point the blame at consumers—according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey, almost six in 10 Americans plan to shop Thanksgiving weekend—but opening a day early also runs the risk of cannibalizing sales that could have been made on Friday. Furthermore, with stores open the day before, the idea of going shopping in the middle of the night for already picked-over merchandise seems unnecessary.

But there are still stores that allow workers to stay home and enjoy the holiday. We worked with Best Black Friday to find out which companies decided not to open on Thanksgiving. 

1. DSW

In a status update on the company’s Facebook page, DSW said: “We’re closed for Thanksgiving so our associates can celebrate with friends and family.”

2. COSTCO

The warehouse club has always had a reputation for being good to their employees. This Thanksgiving, Costco’s nearly 150,000 employees will have the opportunity to spend the holiday with their families.

3. NORDSTROM

Nordstrom won’t be open for business on Thanksgiving, but some employees will still be coming in for work. “[F]or the past 40+ years, some of our employees work on Thanksgiving eve and into the wee hours of the morning on Thanksgiving Day to decorate our stores with our holiday trim. This is mostly a group of employees who have volunteered to be there and some bring along relatives or friends to join in,” a spokesperson told ThinkProgress in 2014. “We’ll also have a small team working in our Nordstrom.com Call Centers on Thanksgiving to serve the many customers who shop online that day.”

4. DILLARD’S

In 2014, Dillard’s spokesperson told ThinkProgress, “We choose to remain closed on Thanksgiving in longstanding tradition of honoring of our customers’ and associates’ time with family.”

5. BJ’S WHOLESALE CLUB

BJ’s Wholesale Club has confirmed they will be closed Thanksgiving. In 2013, their CEO told The Huffington Post, “call me old-fashioned, but I feel that it’s an easy decision to make [to stay closed on Thanksgiving].”

6. BURLINGTON COAT FACTORY

The retailer has made a point of staying closed for the past two years as well.

7. REI

REI will not be open for Thanksgiving or Black Friday. Because the sporting goods retailer says that they “believe that being outside makes our lives better,” their CEO is “paying our employees to head outside.”

8. AMERICAN GIRL

You will have to wait until Friday to pick up a doll. 

9. CRATE & BARREL

Crate & Barrel employees will be staying home on Thanksgiving this year.

10. JO-ANN FABRICS AND CRAFTS

“Out of respect to our Team Members and their families, Jo-Ann stores will not be open Thanksgiving Day,” Travis Smith, then-CEO and president of Jo-Ann Stores, Inc., said in 2011. “We ask a lot from our Team Members during the holidays, and Thanksgiving Day is a valued tradition for many families. We believe it is important for our Team Members to be able to spend this time with their loved ones.” The tradition continues this year.

11. T.J. MAXX

“We feel so strongly about our employees spending Thanksgiving with their families,” said spokeswoman Doreen Thompson. “And we don’t anticipate this changing in the future.”

12. MARSHALLS

Marshalls, like T.J. Maxx, is owned by TJX and will therefore also be closed.

13. PIER 1 IMPORTS

Pier 1 Imports decided to stay closed for the holiday.

14. PUBLIX

You’ll have to buy your last-minute Thanksgiving fixings somewhere else.

15. SIERRA TRADING POST

“As in past years, Sierra Trading Post stores will be closed on Thanksgiving so our Associates can enjoy the holiday with family and friends,” said spokesperson Juliette Rule.

16. BARNES & NOBLE

Barnes & Noble wants their employees to enjoy the holiday with their families.

17. SAM’S CLUB

Sam’s Club is closed on Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

18. IKEA

Most IKEA locations in the U.S. will be closed on Thanksgiving so employees can spend time with family and friends. So if you’re craving Swedish meatballs instead of turkey (or, you know, you really need an ottoman), you’ll have to wait it out.

19. THE HOME DEPOT

The Home Depot stays closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas.

20. PATAGONIA

When asked why in 2014, a spokesperson responded,“It’s a holiday—we’re closed!”

21. STAPLES 

Staples was open in previous years, but changed their mind beginning last year. “We want our customers and associates to enjoy Thanksgiving their own way,” said Demos Parneros, president, North American stores and online. “On Thanksgiving Day, customers can shop from home on Staples.com and then continue their shopping in stores starting at 6 a.m. on Black Friday.”

22. GAMESTOP

“We believe strongly that our customers and associates should have the opportunity to spend the Thanksgiving holiday relaxing with family and friends, and not worrying with the stress of where to find the best shopping deals. We know this is in stark contrast to what many other retailers are doing, but we are taking a stance to protect family time during this important holiday,” Mike Buskey, executive vice president and president of U.S. Stores, said in a press release last year.

23. LOWE’S

The hardware giant has decided to give its employees the day off to spend with their families. 

24. GUITAR CENTER

The musical instrument retailer will be closed on Thanksgiving Day. The rocking will recommence on Friday morning.

25. MALL OF AMERICA

The overwhelming majority of stores housed in the Minnesota mecca of retail will be closed for Thanksgiving. “We are so pleased that our tenants have embraced this opportunity to give their employees the day to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families and friends,” mall spokesman Dan Jasper said in an email to the Star Tribune.

26. THE CONTAINER STORE

Last year, The Container Store issued a statement expressing its hope that the holiday would give employees the chance to “recharge and renew and come back to work ready to take on the holiday season.“

27. NEIMAN MARCUS

The luxury department store will be closed for Thanksgiving. But if you’re so inclined, you can buy Thanksgiving dinner from them for a neat $495.

28. PETCO

PETCO employees will be spending the holiday home with their own cats and dogs.

29. OUTDOOR RESEARCH

On its website, the outdoor apparel and gear company said it would be joining REI in its #OptOutside initiative, and will be closed on both Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

30. OFFICE DEPOT

In a press release, Troy Rice, chief operating officer of North America for Office Depot, Inc. said: “As we evaluated our store hours for this holiday and weighed the business and personal considerations, we decided it was best to provide our associates with the day off to spend time with family and friends by closing our retail stores on Thanksgiving Day.”

This is just a fraction of the list of stores deciding to stay closed on Thanksgiving. Check out of the full list on Best Black Friday. 

College football fans are no strangers to blowouts. Just look at the 2016 season: Missouri pummeled Delaware State, 79-0; Michigan smothered Rutgers, 78-0; Miami slugged Florida A&M, 70-3. But those games sound like gentle drubbings compared to the lopsided 1916 skirmish between Georgia Tech and Cumberland University, which ended 222-0.

If that score sounds spiteful, it was. Georgia Tech’s coach, John Heisman—for whom the coveted trophy is named—was reportedly bent on revenge. A year earlier, during the spring of 1915, Cumberland’s baseball club had recruited a handful of semi-professional ballplayers from Nashville and disguised them as college athletes. Boasting a lineup stacked with pros, the little Tennessee college creamed Georgia Tech’s ball club, 22-0.

The defeat garnered national attention, leaving Heisman, who coached both Georgia Tech’s baseball and football teams, humiliated. When he discovered that Cumberland had cheated, he vowed to get payback.

Oddly, Heisman nearly missed his chance. By 1916, Cumberland, a university out of Lebanon, Tennessee, a small town about 30 minutes outside of Nashville, was facing financial difficulties and as such canceled that year’s season of football. The football squad’s student manager notified its opponents that, since it would not be fielding a team that season, Cumberland would have to cancel all scheduled games. But Cumberland made a careless mistake—they forgot to brief Georgia Tech. When Cumberland discovered the error, it was too late: They were contractually obligated to play, football team or no football team.

Tasting blood, Heisman wrote Cumberland’s football manager a pointed letter to ensure he wouldn’t flake: “I hearby offer you the sum of $500 and an all-expenses-paid trip to Atlanta for your football team on the condition that you honor your contract by participating in and completing the Cumberland-Georgia Tech football game.” The offer was freighted with a legal threat: If Cumberland didn’t play, Georgia Tech would charge a $3000 forfeiture fee. The expense “would have been a severe blow to Cumberland,” says Sam Hatcher, author of Heisman’s First Trophy, in an interview with The Tennessean, “and probably would have closed the school, if you want to know the truth.”

Cumberland agreed to play. The old football manager assembled a team of at least 13 players (some sources say up to 19), consisting of fraternity brothers, law students, and boys from town. To avoid getting caught by university administrators—who were unaware of Heisman’s ultimatum—the team covered up their practice sessions by calling them “men’s choir meetings.”

Most of the volunteers had no knowledge of, or experience playing, football. “I played once in high school and once in prep school,” Cumberland’s Gentry Dugat admitted to Sports Illustrated in 1961. He wasn’t that interested in playing football anyway. He had signed up because he’d never ridden a passenger train before; it was basically a free vacation.

As Cumberland practiced, no one bothered to cook up trick plays or study the Xs and Os of fundamental football. Instead, coaches assigned each player a code name that corresponded with a specific vegetable. When the offense took to the line of scrimmage, the quarterback called plays by hollering the names of different crudités. “Plays sounded like this: ‘Turnip over lettuce. Hut one, hut two…'” reported Jay Searcy of the Chicago Tribune. “Cucumber to cauliflower. Hut one, hut two…”

The week before the big game, Cumberland’s rag-tag team tested their strategy in a meaningless exhibition game against Sewanee: The University of the South. They lost 107-0.

On October 7, 1916, more than 1000 fans passed through the turnstiles of Grant Field in Atlanta to watch the greatest slaughter in college football history. Cumberland was a wreck before the first whistle blew. Aside from their obvious shortfalls—a severe lack of strategy, knowledge, and, well, talent—Cumberland was already at a disadvantage because three of its players had gotten lost during a layover in Nashville and failed to chase down the connecting train to Georgia.

The game that ensued would turn out to be a mythical comedy of errors that is today riddled with fuzzy details. We know that Cumberland received the first kickoff, and, as the ball hurtled through the air, their quarterback attempted a block and was promptly coldcocked. Morris Gouger took the reins and gave Cumberland fans a ray of false hope when, on the team’s first drive, he rushed for three yards. (It would be one of Cumberland’s best plays all day.) Shortly after, Cumberland punted, Georgia Tech got the ball, and it scored on its first play.

When Cumberland got the pigskin back, it wasted no time and fumbled. Georgia scooped it and scrambled to the end zone. Touchdown. When Cumberland got the ball again, it fumbled a second time. Georgia picked it up and rushed to the goal line again. Touchdown. According to some accounts, Cumberland must have believed in the power of threes, because when the team received the ball again, they repeated the fumble-turnover-touchdown trifecta for a third time.

By halftime, the score was 126-0. Coach Heisman appeared underwhelmed during one pep talk. “You’re doing all right,” he lectured his team. “We’re ahead. But you just can’t tell what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves. They may spring a surprise.”

If Cumberland had tricks up their sleeves, they probably weren’t the tricks Heisman was expecting. At one point, a few frazzled Cumberland players marched over to Georgia Tech’s bench and plopped down; one grabbed a blanket and hid underneath it. Heisman accosted them and screamed, “You’re on the wrong side of the field!” But the boys shook their heads. “No, we’re not. We’ve been in there too many times, and we’ve had enough.”

Later on, two Cumberland players would jump the stadium fence.

Georgia Tech found time to goof off, too. “At one point, I remember, our tackle, Bill Fincher, took out his glass eye and threw it in the water bucket,” Tech’s George Griffin told The New York Times in 1986. “Some Cumberland boys came over and started to drink out of it, and they got a terrible fright.”

But nothing was as terrifying as the action on the field. In one (likely apocryphal) story, a Cumberland player fumbled and watched the ball bounce toward a teammate’s feet. The fumbler pleaded for his teammate to pick it up, but he was having none of it: “Fall on it yourself,” was the reported reply. “You dropped it.”

According to Sporting News, Cumberland’s Charlie Warwick would later brag that, “We were sort of getting to ’em in that last quarter.” Which, statistically, was kind of true. Georgia Tech scored 63 points in the first quarter but only managed 42 in the fourth quarter. But Warwick neglected to mention that Coach Heisman, in what can only be interpreted as a merciful bid for sainthood, had agreed to shorten the second half to 15 minutes.

The final score of 222-0 was so one-sided people must have expected the scoreboard to tip over. The statistics were obscene. Georgia Tech scored 32 touchdowns. One player, the All-American G.E. Strupper, scored eight times. He could have scored more, but at one point, Strupper ran through open field, stopped short of the goal line, gently placed the ball on the grass, and waited for a teammate to pick it up and walk into the end zone. Georgia Tech, which never threw a pass, finished with 501 rushing yards.

Cumberland, on the other hand, never earned a first down. It never crossed the 50-yard line. Five of their punts were returned for touchdowns. They lost at least nine fumbles. Their statistical superstar, Morris Gouger, finished the day with less than zero yards of offense. They threw 11 passes, and completed eight of them. (Technically, only two completions. Six of them were caught by the wrong team.)

To Cumberland’s credit, they weren’t the only big loser that season. Cockeyed mismatches were common during the sport’s nascent days: One week after Cumberland’s licking, Ohio State would rout Oberlin College, 128-0. And in Illinois, the Lane Technical School would give Cumberland’s dismal performance a run for its money in a blowout loss to St. Viator College.

That final score? 205-0.

When it was completed in 1931, the Empire State Building instantly became the tallest in the world. Standing an impressive 1250 feet tall, it was the first 100-story building in history and held the record as the world’s tallest for the next 41 years, until the completion of One World Trade Center in 1972. After that, the title moved to Chicago, and then to a number of super-tall buildings in Asia, until the current world’s tallest—Dubai’s Burj Khalifa—took the title in 2007.

Precisely what constitutes the world’s tallest building is debatable, with arguments raised over whether or not uninhabitable structures (like telecommunications towers) qualify for inclusion, and whether the extra height gained by the addition of radio masts and flagpoles should be taken into account. But using a straightforward list of habitable structures measured from ground to roof as a yardstick, the back catalog of former World’s Tallest Building title-holders actually includes some quite surprising entries.

1. THE PYRAMID OF GIZA // EGYPT

When the Great Pyramid at Giza was completed after 20 years of construction in around 2500 BCE, it stood an imposing 480 feet tall—although erosion has knocked a full 25 feet from that total so that it stands 455 feet today. Precisely what held the title before then is debatable, although contenders include several more of Egypt’s pyramids, the 28-foot Tower of Jericho completed around 10,000 years ago, and Göbekli Tepe, a mysterious site in Southern Turkey that dates back to the 10th millennium BCE.

2. LINCOLN CATHEDRAL // UNITED KINGDOM

When construction of the immense central spire of Lincoln Cathedral in England was completed in 1311, it is believed to have stood an impressive 525 feet, easily surpassing the Great Pyramid’s height by more than 40 feet and breaking its run as the world’s tallest building after a staggering 3800 years. Sadly, all three of Lincoln’s spires have been lost: the two smaller spires were removed in 1807, almost a century after concerns about their safety were raised by the architect James Gibbs, while the taller central tower was destroyed by a storm in 1548. Its collapse also meant that Lincoln Cathedral’s title was temporarily handed over to …

3. ST. MARY’S CHURCH // GERMANY

The 495-foot-tall Marienkircher or St. Mary’s Church in the town of Stralsund in northeast Germany was completed sometime in the 13th century. It might have unceremoniously snatched the title from Lincoln Cathedral after the disaster of 1548, but the Marienkircher has had its own share of bad luck throughout its long history: its bell tower collapsed in 1382, and its central steeple blew down in a storm in 1478 and had to be replaced. The replacement, however, was struck by lightning and burned to the ground in 1647—handing the title of world’s tallest building over to …

4. STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL // FRANCE

After a run of bad luck for ecclesiastical buildings, Strasbourg Cathedral—at 466 feet tall—managed to hold on to the title of world’s tallest building for the next 227 years (although some in the 19th century thought it was shorter than the Great Pyramid). But in the late 19th century, improvements in building techniques and architectural engineering led to a flurry of tall buildings completed all across Europe.

In 1874, a rebuilt St. Nicholas’s Church in Hamburg was completed after the previous building burned down 30 years earlier; standing 482 feet tall, it took the title from Strasbourg (but went on to be all but destroyed during the Second World War and is now in ruins). In 1876, a cast iron spire was added to Rouen Cathedral in France, which stole the title from Hamburg. Then in 1880, work was finally completed—after a 407-year hiatus—on Cologne Cathedral in Germany: construction had originally begun in 1248, but was halted in 1473. The finished building stood 515 feet tall, enough to steal the title from Rouen and return it to Germany. But just like its predecessor, Cologne Cathedral only held the title for the next four years.

5. WASHINGTON MONUMENT // UNITED STATES

On its completion in 1884, the 555-foot Washington Monument became the world’s tallest entirely stone-built structure, the tallest obelisk anywhere in the world, and the first known structure in North America to hold the title of world’s tallest building. Despite that impressive record, however, Europe reclaimed the record just five years later with …

6. THE EIFFEL TOWER // FRANCE

The 986-foot Eiffel Tower was the centerpiece of the 1889 World’s Fair. Although its designer and namesake Gustave Eiffel had a permit allowing it to stand for a total of 20 years, it was originally intended to be dismantled when the fair was over. Thankfully, aside from its popularity, part of the reason the Tower still survives is that it proved an excellent telegraph transmitter, and even proved useful in intercepting German radio signals during the First Battle of Marne in 1914.

On its completion on March 31, 1889, the 984-foot Eiffel Tower instantly became the world’s tallest building (although, astonishingly, it shrinks by up to 6 inches during cold weather). It held the record for the next 41 years, until finally it was beaten by …

7. THE CHRYSLER BUILDING // NEW YORK

When it was opened on May 27, 1930, New York City’s Chrysler Building broke the Eiffel Tower’s record by a full 60 feet—it stands an impressive 1046 feet tall, making it the first building in history to break the 1000-foot mark (thanks largely to a 185-foot spire constructed in secret to prevent any competition from beating it). It remains the tallest brick-built building in the world (although it does have a steel frame), despite holding the record as the world’s tallest for just 11 months: the Empire State Building was completed on April 11, 1931.

From adding cream cheese to dunking in a deep fryer, Americans have taken the most iconic of Japanese cuisine—sushi—and added their own delicious spins. But because all is fair in love and food, Japan has done the exact same thing with the classic hamburger. Whether it’s reimagining what a bun can look like or creating unexpected ingredient combos, the Japanese make burgers with lettuce, tomato, and pickles seem downright passé.

1. SAKURA BURGER // MCDONALD’S

In 2014, McDonald’s decided to celebrate Japan’s cherry blossom season with its pink-hued, limited-run Sakura Burger. The sandwich had a special pink sauce (sakura-flavored mayo with Japanese radishes) and an egg on top of a teriyaki patty, but what really made the burger pop was the light pink bun.

2. KURO PEARL BURGER // BURGER KING

Burger King Japan brought the world the limited-edition Kuro Pearl Burger in 2014. To get that distinctive color, the black buns and sliced cheese were made with bamboo charcoal, and the black onion-and-garlic sauce included squid ink as an ingredient. The black burger briefly came to the United States for Halloween a year later with A-1 steak sauce. (People who ate it reported it turned their poop green.)

3. CHOCOLATE AND HONEY MUSTARD GRILLED CHICKEN BURGER // LOTTERIA

Valentine’s Day means chocolate, and Lotteria, a Japanese restaurant chain known for its outrageous and limited-edition burgers, didn’t want to miss out on the celebration. To honor the most romantic of holidays, it offered up a brand-new chicken burger in 2014. The chicken was marinated in a white wine and onion and garlic mixture, then topped with honey mustard sauce—but the real star was the chocolate sauce, which came in a separate packet for drizzling.

4. FRENCH CRULLER BURGER// MOS BURGER

Donut burgers have been around for over a decade now, but the Japanese chains Mos Burger and Mr. Donut turned the entire mash-up on its head when they partnered in 2014 to create the French Cruller Burger, a spiral chorizo sausage with chili sauce, onions, tomato, mayo, and lettuce, sandwiched between a soft French cruller. This wasn’t the first time the brands worked together to leave their mark on burger world. Past creations include a Red Bean and Custard Rice Burger and a Grilled Beef Rice Burger.

5. NY PIZZA BURGER // BURGER KING

Christmas dinner looks a little different in Japan, with KFC reigning supreme as the holiday meal of choice. Burger King decided to get in on the Christmas market in its own way with the NY Pizza Burger in 2011. A similar dish debuted in New York the year before, but the Japanese version upped the ante. The 8.8-inch-diameter burger, which had four overlapping patties and cost about $21.50, came in two styles: Fresh Avocado (just adding avocado) and Cheese Nacho (it included tortilla chips, cheese sauce, and jalapeños).

6. WET BURGER // MOS BURGER

Take one plain hamburger, submerge it in a ketchup-y sauce, and what do you get? The Wet Burger, which is exactly what it sounds like. Mos Burger’s interpretation of the Turkish islak burger, the Wet Burger comes in a wrapper, so it can be eaten without soaking your hands in sauce (Mos Burger’s much beloved Napolitan tomato sauce seasoned with garlic and onion). Oddly, though, only half the burger had the new toppings—the other half consisted of standard burger toppings.

7. PURPLE MAGIC BACON DOUBLE EXCELLENT CHEESEBURGER // LOTTERIA

Special-edition Halloween treats abound in Japan during the month of October, but Lotteria upped their themed-burger game with this year’s offering: two beef patties, two cheese slices, and a thick slice of bacon. The bacon was meant to resemble a tongue, and the “purple magic” in the burger’s name referred to the purple cheese sauce, which got its color from powdered Okinawan sweet potato. The entire burger was served up in a coffin-shaped box.

8. FOIE GRAS ROSSINI BURGER // WENDY’S

In 2011, after two years out of the Japanese market, Wendy’s returned with a vengeance and a brand-new $16 burger. The Foie Gras Rossini was a spin on the French dish Tournedos Rossini, both of which include slices of foie gras and truffle sauce. The burger was taken off the menu a year later after PETA campaigned against it.

9. BURGER WITH EVERYTHING ON IT// LOTTERIA

Lotteria took one look at McDonald’s Japan’s Giga Big Mac (a gigantic sandwich with 2.8 times the meat of a regular Big Mac), and decided to really step it up with its Burger With Everything On It. What can you expect if you order one of these limited-time monsters? Four patties (hamburger, cheeseburger, fried shrimp, and rib), bacon, cheese, a soft-boiled egg, lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and onion. Plus, a slurry-sauce of teriyaki, mayo, spicy mayo, tartar sauce, meat sauce, and ketchup. Turns out, there’s truth in advertising after all.

A number of famous names have been involved in reforming the English spelling system over the centuries, but probably one of the most unexpected names on that list is Theodore Roosevelt. Known for his uncompromising stance on many issues, in the early 1900s Roosevelt used the full power of his position to try to force through several hundred new spelling reforms in an attempt to make the language—and the cost of printing government documents—more economical. Despite even the president’s involvement, however, in the end Roosevelt’s war on spelling collapsed before it was able to have any lasting effect on our spelling.

FRANKLIN, WEBSTER, AND THE WAR ON WORDS

Probably the most famous spelling reformer in the history of American English, if not the English language as a whole, is Noah Webster. He famously proposed a number of potential simplifications of the English language in his Compendious Dictionary in 1806, and then again in his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828. Webster’s proposals, however, were actually inspired by the earlier work of Benjamin Franklin, whose idea for reforming the English language involved both adopting a purely phonetic spelling system and dropping the letters C, J, Q, W, X, and Y from the alphabet entirely, to be replaced by six less potentially ambiguous letters of his own design.

Franklin devised his phonetic alphabet as far back as 1768, when he wrote a letter to a friend to explain that “if we go on as we have done a few Centuries longer, our words will gradually cease to express Sounds; they will only stand for things, as the written words do in the Chinese Language.” Although Franklin’s ultimate goal of increasing literacy and making English easier to learn was commendable, his friend, Mary “Polly” Stevenson, was unimpressed with his proposal. Using Franklin’s invented alphabet for her reply, she pointed out that using a purely phonetic alphabet meant cutting the ties between spelling and etymology, and would make differentiating between words that sound the same all but impossible. Webster, however, was more enthusiastic.

In 1786, he sent his own plan for a purely phonetic alphabet to Franklin, hoping to win his support in establishing it as a national standard. Franklin responded positively, saying, “I think the Reformation not only necessary but practicable.” The founding father suggested that, since he had already done a great deal of work on the subject (and due to inherent difficulties in discussing such things in letter format), the two should meet up to discuss a path forward. But in reality, Franklin no doubt envisaged the enormous difficulty in implementing such a scheme nationwide.

The idea was eventually abandoned, and Webster—driven by a desire to sever ties between the English used in Great Britain and the English used in the newly independent United States—was left to pursue much less radical changes. Although not all of the spelling reforms he went on to suggest may have hit the mark (his preference for the spellings tung, soop, aker, dawter, porpess, beleev, and masheen leave a lot to be desired), Webster was more successful when it came to the likes of dropping the extraneous letters of colour, waggon, and publick, and simplifying the spelling of words like plough and aeon—changes that continue to divide British and American English today.

PITMAN SHORTHAND AND BRIGHAM YOUNG’S ALPHABET

Other attempts to reform the language followed on both sides of the Atlantic throughout the 19th century. In the 1830s, the British schoolteacher Isaac Pitman published a series of pamphlets arguing for a reform of the English language; his research eventually led to his invention of a shorthand writing system. In 1842, a French scholar named Auguste Thibaudin proposed an insanely complicated alphanumeric system—albeit one that would work across all languages that used the Roman alphabet—in which different vowel sounds were replaced with the numbers from 1 to 9 and six additional symbols. Even Mormon Church leader Brigham Young got in on the act in 1854, advocating that his followers use a “Deseret Alphabet” developed by a committee at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah). And following the formation of the Spelling Reform Association in 1876, in 1898 America’s National Education Association put its weight (with varying degrees of success) behind the adoption of 12 of the SRA’s suggested reforms in all educational material nationwide: program, tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout, catalog, prolog, decalog, demagog, and pedagog.

But perhaps the last major attempt to reform the English spelling system came almost a century after the publication of Webster’s Compendious Dictionary, and it was this final attempt that gained the support of President Roosevelt—and the most powerful and well-known American writers and figures of the day.

CARNEGIE AND THE SIMPLIFIED SPELLING BOARD

The Simplified Spelling Board was founded in 1906 by the Scottish-born steel magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie had long had an interest in language and the arts (he funded and gave his name to more than 2500 libraries worldwide), and, prompted by the various attempts at simplifying the language in the 1800s, soon turned his attention to spelling reform after the turn of the century. Given his background in business and overseas trade, Carnegie saw the potential for English to become, as The New York Times put it, “the world language of the future,” and saw a single global language common to everyone as a stepping stone to world peace. But in this respect, he believed, English was being held back by its “contradictory and difficult spelling.”

In response, Carnegie funded the establishment of a board of experts tasked with reforming the language to make it easier to learn and more economical, both linguistically and financially—removing all the unnecessary letters from all the words in the language could, after all, save a considerable amount of ink and paper.

As the Board’s first published circular explained in 1906:

[The present English spelling system] wastes a large part of time and effort given to the instruction of our children, keeping them, for example, from one to two years behind the schoolchildren of Germany … Moreover, the printing, typewriting and handwriting of the useless letters which our spelling prescribes … wastes every year millions of dollars, and time and effort worth millions more.

Carnegie set aside $15,000 per year (eventually raised to an eye-watering $25,000) for five years to fund the project, equivalent to well over $2 million today. He secured a plush office space on Madison Avenue in New York, and there assembled a group of 30 writers, language experts, scholars, and public figures—among them Melvil Dewey (of the Dewey Decimal System) and David Josiah Brewer (Associate Justice of the Supreme Court). According to its chairman, Columbia University’s professor of dramatic literature Brander Matthews, the principal aim of the Simplified Spelling Board was merely to accelerate the kinds of language changes that were likely to occur over time anyway, regardless of the Board’s involvement. To that end, they were to focus in particular on dropping unneeded or unpronounced letters—or, as Professor Matthews put it, a kind of “simplification by omission.”

Their first task was merely to advocate further the 12 spelling reforms put forward by the Spelling Reform and National Education Associations in 1898, which entailed lobbying several influential writers and publications (The New York Times among them) to utilize the reforms in their work. But having set to work themselves, it wasn’t long before the Board had soon assembled its own selection of 300 such reforms, which they published in full at the end of March 1906.

KIST, MIST, PAST: THE BOARD’S SUGGESTED REFORMS

Many of the Board’s own suggestions had already been proposed by Webster, or else were already establishing themselves as perfectly acceptable spelling variations in American English, like center, checks, esthetic, theater, and sulfurous; the use of S instead of C in words like offense and defense; and the dropping of the extraneous E’s in the likes of judgment, lodgment, and acknowledgment. Many of the Board’s choices were likewise relatively understandable alterations, aimed merely at simplifying troublesome words. So the G was lost from apothegm, and the vowel clusters in words like archaeology, subpoena, and diaeresis were reduced. Other suggestions, however, were more radical.

Purr and burr were to be clipped to pur and bur. Out went the letter A in the middle of deth. Steadfast became stedfast. Hard S’s were to be changed to Z’s, so that surprise, compromise, and partisan became surprize, compromize, and partizan. Rhyme became rime. Phoenix became phenix. Gazelle became gazel. And, perhaps most bizarrely of all, the straightforward –ed endings of a number of words were to be uncompromisingly replaced with –t, so that as well as kist, addrest, propt, wrapt, clapt, flipt, and dipt, the word passed became past and the word missed became mist, regardless of any potential confusion that might cause.

Despite several questionable choices and troublesome shortcomings like these, the Board’s suggestions were initially well received by the press and were even advocated by the New York Board of Education for use in the city’s schools. But the biggest step forward came several months after the list was published, on August 27, 1906: Reportedly without contacting the Board first, President Roosevelt issued an executive order forcing all future publications of the Government Printing Office to adopt the new spelling system in its entirety. The move was an immense, if somewhat unexpected, coup for the success of the Board’s project—but, as it turned out, it was one that would eventually lead to its collapse.

BACKLASH AND THE AFTERMATH: THE RESPONSE TO RUSEVELT’S RULES

Roosevelt’s characteristically no-nonsense and swift-acting approach was nothing new (he passed more than 1000 executive orders during his presidency; Barack Obama has signed around 250). But his steamroller approach to the language and to spelling reform did not go down well, both at home and abroad. A wave of satirical cartoons and damning newspaper editorials ensued on both sides of the Atlantic, all of them mocking the President’s apparent war on language.

“Nuthing escapes Mr. Rucevelt. No subject is tu hi fr him to takl, nor tu lo for him tu notis. He makes tretis without the consent of the Senit. He inforces such laws as meet his approval, and fales to se those that do not soot him. He now assales the English langgwidg, constitutes himself as a sort of Frensh academy, and will reform the spelling in a way tu soot himself.”

—The Louisville Courier-Journal, 1906

The Baltimore Sun questioned whether President Roosevelt would now spell his name “Rusevelt.” The New York Times reported that “Roosevelt’s spelling order has done him more harm than perhaps any other act of his since he became president.” In Britain, the feeling was even more vitriolic: the Pall Mall Gazette labeled him “an anarchist,” while the Saturday Review called America “The Home of the Free and the Paradise of the Half-Educated.” The London Evening Standard raged, “How dare this Roosevelt fellow … dictate to us how to spell a language which was ours while America was still a savage and undiscovered country!” Even Roosevelt’s wife, Edith, joked that the president only supported the reform because he didn’t know “how to spell anything.”

In the face of all this criticism, the Supreme Court chose to ignore Roosevelt’s decree—but the President remained steadfast, even going so far as to employ the spelling system he was so staunchly advocating in his annual address to Congress in 1906, in which he wrote of naval recruits being “put thru” too quickly to senior grades at “regimental posts scattered thruout the country.” But it was all for nothing: On December 13, 1906, the House of Representatives voted 142–25 to banish the suggested spelling reforms from their publications, and dictated instead that all United States government documents “should observe and adhere to the standard of orthography prescribed in generally accepted dictionaries of the English language.” Roosevelt was defeated.

Despite a protest by Professor Matthews, the president immediately repealed his executive order, stating that it was “evidently worse than useless to go into an undignified contest” against Congress, but concluded finally that, “I am mighty glad I did the thing anyhow.” Mark Twain was just as disappointed, and wrote to Carnegie to say that “I am sory as a dog, for I do love revolutions and violense.” Carnegie didn’t lose faith immediately, though. He continued funding the group through 1915 when, $300,000 poorer, he wrote to Matthews to explain that he was withdrawing its funding: “I think I have been patient long enuf,” he wrote. “I have a much better use for twenty-five thousand dollars a year.”

Both Roosevelt and Carnegie died in 1919, after which the Board struggled to secure more funding. Their last act was to publish a Handbook of Simplified Spelling, written wholly in their reformed English, in 1920, before they finally disbanded later that year. Although a number of the Board’s suggested reforms remain in place today, on the whole the project failed to have much of a lasting effect on the language—despite having the backing of a president.

The human body is an amazing thing. For each one of us, it’s the most intimate object we know. And yet most of us don’t know enough about it: its features, functions, quirks, and mysteries. That’s why we’re launching a new series called The Body, which will explore human anatomy, part by part. Think of it as a mini digital encyclopedia with a dose of wow.
 

Your mouth is a battleground—a wet one. Trillions of microorganisms wage war against each other within. On one side are at least 700 species of bacteria. Most are harmless, and some even beneficial—but a few major species repay your hospitality with tooth decay or gum disease, such as Streptococcus mutans, first described by 18th-century Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek as “living animalcules” because they wriggled around so much under a microscope lens. These spiral-shaped microbes build colonies on smooth tooth surfaces and turn the sugars and starches of food stuck in your teeth into acid that dissolves enamel and causes cavities. But Streptococcus isn’t the only danger. Below the gum line live Porphyromonas gingivalis and the recently discovered Prevotella histicola, both of which cause gum disease.

On the other side are the white-caped superheroes of your mouth: enzymes encased in a watery, frothy substance known as saliva or spit. Your mouth makes two to four pints of spit every day. It’s produced by the salivary glands inside your cheeks and the bottom of your mouth. While saliva is 99 percent water, its constant circulation keeps bacteria from settling on your teeth, and swallowing flushes them into your stomach. (Saliva also performs the important function of keeping your mouth’s pH slightly basic, preventing the acid produced by microbes like the S. mutans from making your teeth fall out.)

While saliva polices the neighborhood, there is also co-existence going on. Between meals, when there’s little for bacteria to feast on, some species dig into the protein in saliva and in the fluid secreted by gums. Having a certain level of microbes in your mouth is important: They boost your immune system and keep respiratory infection at bay.

Which microbes occupy your mouth matters. While 200 odd species are common around the world, many others depend on your environment, race, or food preferences—and they can tell a lot about your overall health.

That’s why last summer’s headlines suggesting you toss the floss made many dentists frown.

 
“Some patients need to floss, others do not,“ explains Dan Malamud, professor of infectious disease at the NYU School of Medicine.

Not only does your particular micro-fauna dictate the importance of your daily routines, Malamud tells mental_floss that saliva holds a lot of information, and at times can be a more useful diagnostic tool than your blood.

Just a drop of your spit can tell doctors if you are prone to heart disease; if your pregnancy may be complicated; if you’re stressed; or, if you’re a woman, whether you have a healthy relationship with your father. It may soon also reveal whether you have cancer. Spit is easier to access than blood, too.

While this dark, moist cave is bacteria’s fantasy real estate—an easy place to grow and reproduce—your health depends on keeping them in check. Moreover, the right balance of microbes is important: bacteria on your teeth are being kept in check by bacteria in your gums that produce bad breath. And while the species P. histicola may cause gum disease, it was discovered recently that it also helps control rheumatoid arthritis. And the chemical compound opiorphin, found in saliva, helps activate opiate receptors, which block pain signals from the brain—giving new credence to the idea that you can kiss a booboo to make it feel better.

But there is still a lot that is not understood about our spit. Only half the microbes in our mouth have been sequenced and identified, Xuesong He, a microbiologist at UCLA school of dentistry, tells mental_floss. The Human Microbiome Genome Project, an initiative by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is currently funding a massive effort to identify all of the millions of microbes that inhabit our bodies.

He and his group recently identified [PDF] bacteria in the mouth called TM7x that live parasitically, meaning they occupy the host and rely on it for nutrition. This is the first time a parasitic bacterium has been discovered in the human body. Its host, XH001, is a “relatively good bug,” He says, but when saddled with the parasite, it may cause gums to become prone to disease.

There may be many other such connections lurking under our tongues. NYU’s Malamud, for example, is currently working to develop a diagnostic saliva test for the Zika virus. A blood test exists, but blood begins to develop antibodies to Zika after 7 to ten days, and then the virus becomes undetectable. In one recent CDC report, researchers were able to detect Zika in saliva up to 20 days after infection. As the virus progresses in stages, its long detection cycle in spit allows doctors to tell when the person was infected. Moreover, the ressearchers were able to spot Zika in saliva 81 percent of the time—a rate second only to urine (92 percent), and a third higher than serum (51 percent).

Malamud sees the sequencing of human saliva as one of many steps toward personalized medicine. He says, “When it’s all put together in five to 10 years, it will change the way we practice medicine.”