Why is a superficial vacation known as a “Cook’s tour”?

When Thomas Cook founded the world’s first travel agency in 1841 he organized a railway trip for a group of non-drinkers into the British midlands. Soon the safety and security of travelling in groups encouraged the less adventurous to see the world. The more seasoned travellers, enamoured of their ideas of individual adventure, scoffed at these disciplined tours and referred to them sarcastically as “Cook’s tours.”

What was the original purpose of Rubik’s Cube?

In 1980, Rubik’s Cube became a worldwide craze. Its Hungarian inventor, Professor Erno Rubick, had created the cube as a math aid for his students. After realizing the cube’s potential as a toy, he sold two million in Hungary alone before introducing it to the West, making him the Communist world’s first self-made millionaire. The Rubik’s Cube has over forty-three quintillion configurations (43,252,003,274,489,856,000).

How did the letters in Scrabble get assigned their quantities and numerical values?

In 1931, an unemployed American architect named Alfred Butts invented the game we now call Scrabble. Turned down by every manufacturer he approached, he sold homemade sets out of his garage until 1946, when a company bought the rights and began mass production. Butts determined the scoring value and quantity of each letter by counting the number of times it was used on a single page of the New York Times.

How is “the full monty” related to “three-card monte”?

“The full monty,” popularized as a movie title, is a British expression meaning “the whole thing.” It came from illegal gambling, where the huge pot of a high stakes game was called the monty, from the Spanish word for mountain, which is monte. To win the monty meant you had won a mountain of money. Three-card monte, an illegal con game, has the same Spanish origin and refers to the same thing.

Why do actors say “break a leg” when wishing each other good luck?

“Break a leg” comes from the First World War, when, before flying, German airmen wished each other a “broken neck and a broken leg.” Considering the dangers of combat with primitive aircraft, this was preferable to losing your life, which was all too common. After the war, the phrase was picked up by actors in the German theatre and eventually adopted by the British and American stages, where it was abbreviated to “break a leg.”

Why do we call a working vacation a “busman’s holiday”?

Bus is an abbreviation of omnibus, which is what they called the original horse-drawn vehicles used for public transportation. The busman, of course, was the driver, and because the bus was drawn by the driver’s own horses, he was very concerned about their well-being. It wasn’t uncommon for busmen to frequently come down to the barn during their vacation time to ensure that their horses were being well treated, which gave us the expression “busman’s holiday.”

Why is a theatre ticket booth called a “box office”?

In early Elizabethan times, theatres admitted the general public into the ground level “pit” without charge. Before the play began, a plate was passed through the mostly standing pit audience and, like a church collection, an established amount was expected for different seats and rows. For the wealthy patrons who bought private balcony boxes for the season, tickets were conveniently held near the entrance in what was called the box office.

How did “betting your shirt” come mean to gambling everything you own?

In 1823, the bitterness that led to the Civil War surfaced during a match race between the Northern horse American Eclipse and a Southern colt named Sir Henry. The grudge match inspired fortunes to be wagered, including that of congressman John Randolph, who put up $10,000 and his entire wardrobe, which gave a newspaper the observation that he was “betting his shirt” on the race. (Incidentally, the race was won by American Eclipse, and Randolph kept his wardrobe.)

What is the origin of the Frisbee?

In 1870, Frisbee’s New England bakery sold pies in round tins, which students at nearby Yale took to tossing as a pastime. In the 1940s, the Wham-O toy company was trying to capitalize on the new UFO mania by selling a plastic flying saucer. When Wham-O noticed Yale students tossing the metal pie plates, they trademarked the name Frisbee and mass-produced the discs in plastic — and a craze was born.

Why is a tough, all-terrain vehicle called a “Jeep”?

In 1937, the Army introduced a general purpose four-wheel drive vehicle which, when abbreviated, became G.P. At the same time the very popular Popeye cartoon had introduced Eugene the Jeep as a weird little pet for Olive Oil; it communicated by calling “jeep.” The young men in the service put the little G.P. and the cartoon character together and called the vehicle a Jeep.

Why are cigars called “stogies”?

Tobacco was picked up from the natives of the East Indies and introduced to Europe by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. The English word cigar is from the Spanish cigarro, which they took from cigarrales, a Cuban word meaning a place of leisure. Stogie is an abbreviation of Conestoga, and because the drivers of that wagon company (based in tobacco country) always had a roll-your-own cigar stuck in their mouths, observers called them stogies.

Why is a shifty person called a “four flusher”?

In poker, five cards from the same suit is called a flush and is very valuable. The highest possible poker hand is a royal flush, or five cards from ten to ace all from the same suit. However, four cards from the same suit, or a four flush, is nearly worthless. If a person continues to play with such a hand they are bluffing, or hiding the truth, which gave us the expression “four flusher” for someone not to be trusted or believed.

Why do we say that a poker player, or anyone putting up a false front, is “bluffing”?

The word bluff is from the Dutch word bluffen, meaning to deceive, and entered English as a nautical reference to the imposing front of a warship. For the same reason, the term bluff was applied to a bold coastline that rose straight and high out of the water. By the 1830s, bluffing had taken on the meaning of anything less intimidating than it appears and had entered the game of poker as a reference to the art of deception.

Why is a particular game of gambling with cards called “poker”?

A card game called poque was introduced to America by French gamblers in New Orleans. Both the name and the game came from the German word pochspiel, which literally means “boast game,” while the derivative pochen means “to knock.” This knock on the table is still part of the many forms of poker and indicates that a player is passing on a bet. In a Southern drawl, poque was “pok-uh,” which, when spread to the rest of the country, became “poker.”

Why is the word trump used in card games, and what else in the deck, other than the cards, adds up to fifty-two?

A trump card or suit has been designated a higher rank than usual for the purposes of the game being played and will triumph over others of normally equal value. Trump is a distortion of the word triumph. If you add up the number of letters in the names of the cards, the total is fiftytwo, the same as the number of cards in the deck (acetwothreefourfivesixseveneightninetenjackqueenking).

Why is a commercial record player called a “jukebox”?

Jukeboxes first appeared in restaurants and bars in the late 1930s. Juke is an African word meaning “to make wicked mischief” and came directly from American slaves, who described the illegal brothels or bootlegger shacks where they could occasionally escape their cruel lives with a jar of moonshine as “Juke-joints.” Juke had an exotic and forbidden appeal, which inspired the name jukebox.

Why do we call leisure work a “hobby”?

Hobby is a word used to describe an avocation done for diversion or selfpleasure. Few people find fulfillment working for someone else, and so many express their individuality within a hobby. The word comes from a toy made from a stick with a horse’s head that children used to ride. It was called a hobby horse, and, like the child at play, anyone pursuing a hobby was doing it for escapism and pleasure, not money.

Why are skilled computer fanatics called “geeks”?

Since the fifteenth century, geek or geck has described a low-life fool. For example, a geek is, in carnival slang, someone who bites off the heads of chickens or snakes. At the beginning of the computer age, the word geek took on the meaning of a socially awkward intellectual. But through accepting and celebrating their geek status, skilled computer operators have managed to change the meaning of the word, so that a geek is someone to be admired.