All stories — Page 6

Every story in the Unbubly reading feed.

• A painting technique helped solve typing errorsSecretary Bette Nesmith Graham was frustrated when small typing errors meant redoing a page. Painting over mi…
• One name covers a beverage and a dessertBritish syllabub names both a beverage and a pudding made with milk or cream and ingredients such as wine. Ve…
• A separate shirt part reduced the washing taskDetachable collars could be removed and washed independently from a shirt. If only the collar was dirty, the…
• Apron once carried an n at its own beginningEnglish apron developed from Middle English napron. The sequence a napron was reinterpreted as an apron, shif…
• Spreading discs across the slots can double their valueIn sjoelen, discs slide along a wooden board into scoring compartments. Under the common scoring system, one…
• Her son’s blotting paper became a coffee filterMelitta Bentz experimented with blotting paper from her son’s notebook in a perforated container to improve c…
• A hot drink’s name became a cold dessertPosset originally named a hot milk drink mixed with wine or ale. After that form disappeared, the name was re…
• The lenses stayed in the hand rather than on the earsA lorgnette is a pair of spectacle lenses mounted on a handle. The user holds it in place instead of wearing…
• Old words can survive inside familiar expressionsA fossil word is broadly obsolete in ordinary use but remains within an idiom or set phrase. English kith in…
• Pins turned a billiards-like game into another kind of playBagatelle sends balls past pin obstacles toward holes in a table. A variant with fixed metal pins helped lead…
• Her land game was designed to question monopoliesLizzie Magie patented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 to demonstrate problems with land monopolism. Later version…
• Flummery also became a word for hollow complimentsFlummery names a soft dessert originating in Britain. The word later acquired meanings such as empty complime…
• These glasses have no arms over the earsPince-nez glasses stay in place by pinching the bridge of the nose, without earpieces. Popular in the late ni…
• Edit was formed from editorEnglish edit is an example of back-formation from editor. A shorter word can be created by removing what is i…
• This billiards game has no corner pocketsA bar-billiards table has nine scoring holes in its playing surface rather than pockets at the sides or corne…
• He sold the safety-pin patent for four hundred dollarsWalter Hunt developed his safety pin in 1849, using a protective clasp and a coiled wire that kept the point…
• Fruit and vegetables can share a gelatin moldAmerican jello salad combines flavored gelatin with fruit and sometimes vegetables such as grated carrots. Ot…
• A European home garment borrowed from kimono formsThe banyan worn in late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe was influenced by Japanese kimono brought…
• Gorilla gorilla is not a typing errorA tautonym repeats the same word in the genus name and species epithet, as in Gorilla gorilla. Such names are…
• A halfpenny became a playing pieceBritish shove ha’penny sends coins or metal discs across a marked board. A piece scores when it finishes whol…
• Her umbrella could put on a different colorAmong Beulah Louise Henry’s inventions was an umbrella with interchangeable, differently colored snap-on clot…
• Mock turtle soup imitates another soupEnglish mock turtle soup uses ingredients such as calf’s head to imitate the texture and flavor of turtle sou…
• Ankle covers served both protection and styleHistorical spats buttoned around the ankle and covered the instep. Made from materials such as cloth or felt,…
• A person’s name can become a thing’s nameAn eponym is a person or thing that supplies another name. John Montagu, Earl of Sandwich, is an example asso…
• A swinging ball knocks down the tabletop pinsIn the English table-skittles game Devil Among the Tailors, a ball hangs from a post on a string. Swinging it…
• The cloudy solution was not thrown awayStephanie Kwolek’s cloudy solution was the sort usually discarded. Concern that it would clog the spinning eq…
• An antelope rises on its hind legs to browseThe gerenuk stands upright on its hind legs and extends its long neck to reach foliage. It can browse more th…
• A plant’s pith became a lighting materialA rushlight used the pith of a rush impregnated with fat or grease as a source of light. Unlike a conventiona…
• Went originally belonged to a different verbEnglish go uses went as its past tense, but went came from the past tense of wend. This is a case of suppleti…
• English shiritori needs a choice about silent endingsShiritori also has an English-word version. For a word such as life with a silent final vowel letter, optiona…
• She could choose the open air even when a bed was availableBotanical collector Ynes Mexia preferred sleeping outdoors even when indoor accommodation or a bed was availa…
• The lower teeth deliver more than a biteSolenodons from Caribbean islands are among the unusual venomous mammals. They deliver venom through their lo…
• The vessel stored tapers rather than flowersA spill vase held thin wooden sticks or tightly rolled paper tapers. These transferred fire from a fireplace…
• Nearby sounds can make a spoken form shorterHaplology reduces a syllable or part of one near a similar sound. The colloquial shortening of English librar…
• Each step must still be a wordA word ladder connects a starting word to a target by changing one letter at each step, with every intermedia…
• She tried it as material for a diaper coverMarion Donovan experimented with materials in her attic and repurposed a lightweight shower curtain into a wa…
• A nocturnal fruit eater navigates with clicking soundsOilbirds forage for fruit at night and can supplement their vision with echolocation in poor light. Their sha…
• Lighting a fire once involved a kitA tinderbox stored items such as flint, firesteel and tinder for kindling a fire. The container kept the nece…
• Bird developed from Old English briddEnglish bird developed from Old English bridd through a change involving the order of sounds. Such rearrangem…
• Everyone builds and rebuilds a word grid at onceIn Bananagrams, players simultaneously arrange letter tiles into their own connected word grids. They may rea…
• The pole-vault champion also developed a construction toyA. C. Gilbert shared the pole-vault gold medal with Edward Cook at the 1908 Olympics. In 1913 he developed th…
• A bird’s outer covering can contain toxic compoundsThe hooded pitohui of New Guinea can contain toxins in its skin and feathers. Researchers think it acquires t…
• A hinged bed can give its space back to the roomA Murphy bed folds upright against a wall or into a cabinet when not in use. Folding bedsteads existed before…
• High and low can include the places betweenSearching high and low means searching everywhere, not ignoring medium heights. It illustrates merism, where…
• Seven pieces came from a quantum-mechanics lecturePiet Hein devised the Soma cube in 1933 during a quantum-mechanics lecture by Werner Heisenberg. Its seven di…
• The Lego founder’s range included a wooden duckLego founder Ole Kirk Christiansen moved from woodworking and household goods into wooden toys. By 1935 his r…
• The bird drops large bones onto rocksBearded vultures feed heavily on bones and marrow. Bones too large to swallow can be carried into the air and…
• An old snuffer could maintain a burning wickBefore the mid-nineteenth century, snuffer could mean a scissors-like tool for trimming a candle’s wick witho…
• Free gift can repeat part of the meaningThe expression free gift is an example of semantic overlap, since a gift is ordinarily free. Such redundancy…
• Moving away may be an attacking moveIn Madagascar’s fanorona, a piece can capture by approaching an opponent or by withdrawing from an adjacent o…
• He filled the riding-act pauses with other performersPhilip Astley presented trick riding in London. In 1770 he hired acrobats, tightrope walkers, jugglers and a…
• The very heavy insect was not a typical exampleOne captive female giant wētā reached about seventy grams, but she had retained an abnormal number of eggs. L…
• The telephone table acquired its own chairA gossip bench combines a chair with a small side table for a telephone. Some included storage for a director…
• Disheveled does not come with a normal sheveledThe English word disheveled appears to offer an opposite if dis is removed, but sheveled is not an attested o…
• Four wooden pieces determine the moveKorean yunnori uses split sticks rather than dice. Combinations of the flat and rounded sides determine how f…
• Four horses pulled against his resistanceStrongman Louis Cyr’s performances included resisting the pull of four draft horses, two on each side. Accoun…
• A piranha relative is largely a plant eaterFish known as pacu are related to piranhas but have squarer, straighter teeth and mainly eat plant material.…
• The chair cloth’s name remembers a grooming fashionAn antimacassar is a small cloth protecting a chair or sofa’s fabric. Its name recalls Macassar hair oil and…
• Gift changes meaning across the language boundaryEnglish gift means a present, while German Gift means poison. This is a false-friend pairing: similar-looking…
• The attacking route leaves the ordinary gridIn Surakarta, circular loops beyond the grid are used when capturing an opposing piece. They are not simply d…
• The Mighty Atom was still performing in his eightiesJoe Greenstein, known as the Mighty Atom, continued strongman performances into his eighties. Accounts record…
• The apparent kiss is a territorial confrontationMale sarcastic fringeheads display their large, brightly colored mouths in territorial encounters. Rivals can…
• The fainting explanation lacks historical supportThe claim that so-called fainting couches were made for women collapsing in tight corsets lacks historical su…
• Bread-making can become an underwear-eating questionA Japanese sound sequence asking about having made bread can be resegmented to ask about having eaten underwe…
• The player unable to capture losesHawaiian kōnane begins with alternating pieces filling the board and opening removals creating space. Subsequ…
• She added baskets to a Niagara tightrope crossingMaria Spelterini crossed the Niagara Gorge on a tightrope in July 1876. On a subsequent crossing she strapped…
• The maned wolf helps disperse a plant’s seedsThe South American maned wolf is omnivorous and regularly eats the tomato-like wolf apple. It can pass the se…
• Its later name compared the bicycle’s unequal wheelsThe penny-farthing’s large front wheel and small rear wheel resemble the different sizes of British penny and…
• A bee and the letter n can represent beenA rebus combines pictures and letters to represent words or phrases. In an English example, a bee picture sup…
• Pieces follow a connected network of linesAlquerque places pieces at intersections of lines, including diagonal connections. Captures jump an adjacent…
• Her husband became part of the strength displayCircus strongwoman Katie Sandwina performed feats including lifting her husband overhead with one hand. A rep…
• A nearly solid casque is used in male clashesThe helmeted hornbill has a nearly solid casque above its bill, unlike the structure in other hornbills. Male…
• A lever can move a small rail vehicleA handcar is powered by its passengers or by people pushing it. A typical version uses a seesaw-like walking…
• Dermatoglyphics repeats none of its lettersThe English word dermatoglyphics uses fifteen letters without repeating one. Such words are called heterogram…
• The figures on the pieces affect capturesRithmomachia is a mathematical board game with descriptions dating to the eleventh century. Most capture meth…
• The inventor brought his equipment to a real rescueIn 1916, Garrett Morgan was summoned at night to a Cleveland tunnel disaster. He and his brother arrived in p…
• This tree-dwelling monkey also swims across riversBorneo’s proboscis monkey is striking for its nose, but its behavior offers another surprise. It swims across…
• The smoking garment kept smoke and ash off clothesThe smoking jacket was intended to absorb smoke and protect underlying clothes from falling ash. In nineteent…
• Silly once carried happier meaningsEnglish silly shifted from senses of happiness and good fortune toward foolishness. The development of a nega…
• Scopa takes its name from a broomItalian scopa is named for a broom. A played card captures a matching value, or a matching total when there i…
• Goodyear did not found the company named GoodyearCharles Goodyear is associated with the development of vulcanized rubber. The tire company bears his name, bu…
• Jerboas do not switch to front-leg walking at slow speedsJerboas have long hind legs and small forelegs. They move almost exclusively on two legs, rather than using t…
• Peignoir comes from the action of combing hairPeignoir names a long outer garment associated with indoor dressing. It comes from French peigner, to comb, r…
• Much and mucho did not come from the same rootEnglish much and Spanish mucho look and mean something similar, but derive from different roots. Such false c…
• Briscola gives a small numeral a high positionIn Italian briscola, played with a forty-card deck, the three ranks immediately below the ace and above the k…
• The 1988 patent followed years of developmentOphthalmologist Patricia Bath conceived a laser device for cataract surgery in 1981. Following research inclu…
• The apparent petals belong to a predatorThe orchid mantis has white or pink coloration and flattened, petal-like limbs. Its resemblance to flowers ca…
• The 1946 single-seat car was eighty centimeters wideIn 1946, Britain’s Larmar Engineering made a small single-seat car for disabled people. It was only eighty ce…
• Bueno loses its final vowel before a masculine singular nounSpanish bueno becomes buen before a masculine singular noun, as in buen hombre. In hombre bueno, the final vo…
• The name remembers the stationary stancePétanque places boules close to a small target ball. Players throw from a circle with both feet on the ground…
• The melted-candy story is not securely documentedPercy Spencer’s microwave work is often introduced through a candy bar melting in his pocket. Credible primar…
• The pupil is neither round nor a simple slitCuttlefish have large W-shaped pupils. Their eyes offer a distinctive detail alongside the better-known chang…
• A dogcart could be pulled by a horseThe horse-drawn dogcart carried sporting shooters and their dogs. A ventilated box below the driver’s seat ac…
• Araw-araw means every day, not two daysIn Tagalog, araw means day or sun, while the full reduplication araw-araw means every day. Repeating a form c…
• Toppling it too soon loses the gameKubb uses thrown wooden batons to knock down the opponent’s blocks, with a larger king in the center. Under t…
• A study of an unread script filled 180,000 cardsAlice Kober studied the frequencies and patterns of Linear B signs. When the Second World War made paper hard…
• The snapping jaws can fling the ant backwardOdontomachus ants have large jaws that snap shut rapidly. Besides handling prey, the jaws have been observed…
• Buckle makers asked the prince to helpIn Britain in 1791, shoe-buckle manufacturers appealed to Prince George to halt a change in fashion. He began…
• App can shorten appetizer as well as applicationEnglish app can be a clipped form of appetizer or application. Shortening different words may bring them to a…
• The number matters only for a single fallen pinIn Finnish Mölkky, a single fallen pin scores its printed number; two or more score only the count of fallen…
• The missing accessory became a guest’s concernA guest memoir recalls Lord Berners putting Woolworth imitation pearl necklaces on his dogs. When a visitor r…
• Flexible ankles help the fossa descendMadagascar’s fossa has flexible ankles and semi-retractable claws that help it climb trees and descend head-f…
• The tragic boot was contrasted with the comic shoeHigh-heeled buskins were worn by Athenian tragic actors to appear taller. The footwear could consequently sym…
• The ending can depart from the grammar of the startAnacoluthon interrupts a sentence’s expected structure, continuing in a different grammatical pattern. It occ…
• Modern senet uses reconstructed rulesAncient Egyptian senet used a thirty-square board, but its exact original rules are unknown. Modern play foll…
• Mytton spent thirty minutes in the CommonsJohn Mytton became MP for Shrewsbury in 1819. He is recorded as spending only thirty minutes in the Commons t…
• The posture completes the camouflageAustralia’s tawny frogmouth angles its head upward while perching, combining posture and patterned plumage to…
• Throwing shoes into machinery is not the secure etymologySabotage is often explained through workers throwing wooden sabots into machinery. That is an alleged etymolo…
• Oxymoron itself joins sharp and dullBittersweet combines opposing meanings. The term oxymoron describes such a combination and itself derives fro…
• A later tablet helped recover an older gameIrving Finkel reconstructed play for the Royal Game of Ur using a Babylonian rules tablet from about 177 BCE…
• A curtain changed the appearance of recitationFaçade combines Edith Sitwell’s poems with William Walton’s music. Performances placed the recitation behind…
• The male inflates its own bright pouchThe male magnificent frigatebird has a red throat pouch that it inflates to attract a mate. Against dark plum…
• Earlier tabi were leather footwearTabi are now commonly understood as split-toed socks, but earlier forms were footwear made from animal hide.…
• Changing English word order changes the spotlightAnastrophe departs from ordinary word order, for example by putting an object before the subject and verb. In…
• Patolli used marked beans as diceMesoamerican patolli used black beans as dice. A hole on one side exposed a white mark, so a toss produced ma…
• Satie bought seven identical suitsIn 1895, Erik Satie used proceeds from a small legacy to buy seven identical dun-colored suits. This became t…
• The tenrec rubs specialized quills togetherMadagascar’s lowland streaked tenrec produces sound by rubbing specialized quills together. This stridulation…
• Traditional zori are symmetricalTraditional zori soles and straps are symmetrical, without separate left and right shapes. Some modern design…
• Wheels can mean an automobileEnglish wheels can refer to an entire automobile. The name of a component stands for the whole vehicle. Synec…
• Pachisi’s name remembers a shell scoreIndian pachisi takes its name from the Hindi word for twenty-five. Under the six-cowrie rules, a throw with n…
• Borge read the marks as sound effectsPianist and comedian Victor Borge’s Phonetic Punctuation routine added exaggerated sound effects for periods,…
• The Sunda flying lemur does not fly by flappingThe Southeast Asian Sunda flying lemur glides among trees rather than flying by flapping. Its membrane extend…
• The same placement can serve a different purposeGaloshes go over shoes to keep them from getting wet or muddy. In Turkish contexts, galoş commonly refers to…
• The disclaimer can introduce the subjectApophasis raises a subject while professing not to discuss it. A refusal to mention something can itself make…
• Daldøs turns its pieces within a boat-shaped boardNordic daldøs uses a boat-shaped board with three rows of holes. Its spatula-like pieces initially stand acro…
• The dye emerged beside a search for quinineIn 1856, William Henry Perkin was working toward synthesizing quinine when experiments produced an intense pu…
• The number names the toppings, not the heatCincinnati chili is served over spaghetti. Chili and pasta make a two-way; cheese creates a three-way; adding…
• The garden could manufacture its own antiquityGarden follies could imitate ruined abbeys or ancient temples, supplying a romantic structure where no old ru…
• Quiddity has more than one specialist senseIn scholastic philosophy, quiddity refers to an object’s essence or whatness. In legal use, it can mean a qui…
• Schuhplattler strikes the soles as well as the thighsEastern Alpine Schuhplattler combines stamping and clapping with flat-handed strikes on shoe soles, thighs an…
• Dunlop’s practical tire had an earlier predecessorJohn Boyd Dunlop developed pneumatic tires for his son’s tricycle in Belfast in 1887, then extended the work…
• A regional sandwich combines familiar formsThe chow mein sandwich places a brown-gravy chow mein mixture in a hamburger-style bun. Associated with south…
• The ha-ha keeps animals out while preserving the viewA ha-ha uses a sunken ditch and steep wall to restrict access, such as keeping grazing livestock out of a gar…
• Four corners and a center make a quincunxThe five-spot on a die places four dots around one in the center. This quincunx pattern also appears on cards…
• The footwear supplies part of the dance’s soundSouth African gumboot dance uses rubber boots with stamping movement. Bells may be attached to ring as the da…
• A date and place marked the copying breakthroughOn October 22, 1938, Chester Carlson and Otto Kornei produced a xerographic copy in Astoria, New York. The im…
• The Garbage Plate is a meat-and-sides combinationRochester, New York’s Garbage Plate piles hot dog or hamburger meat and sauce over sides such as macaroni sal…
• The four-part arrangement could matter more than accessHigh Medieval hortus conclusus gardens commonly used a central well or fountain and paths dividing the enclos…
• The emphatic use is recorded in dictionariesEnglish literally normally signals a literal sense, but dictionaries also record its use to acknowledge nonli…
• The small cloth accompanies the hand movementEnglish Morris dancing includes styles using handkerchiefs or sticks. In Cotswold Morris they accompany the h…
• Diemer taught the salesmen to blow bubblesWalter Diemer worked as an accountant while experimenting with gum in his spare time. His 1928 bubble gum dev…
• The familiar pizza was developed in OntarioSam Panopoulos is credited with creating the familiar Hawaiian pizza in Ontario, Canada, in 1962. He chose Ha…
• The orangery originally sheltered sensitive treesAn orangery historically protected orange and other non-hardy fruit trees during winter. The term can now als…
• Hamster may acquire a transitional pEnglish hamster is often pronounced with an added p sound between the m and s. This is epenthesis, an inserti…
• Zaouli’s masks have varied accounts behind themZaouli belongs to Côte d’Ivoire’s Guro communities and features a single masked, costumed dancer with musicia…
• The ink would not flow through a fountain-pen tipJournalist László Bíró noticed the quick-drying ink of newspaper printing. Its viscosity prevented it from fl…
• The convincing shape could upset the first customersGermany’s spaghettieis shapes vanilla ice cream as noodles, with strawberry sauce and white toppings resembli…
• The icehouse stored cold rather than manufacturing itIcehouses stored winter ice from lakes or rivers with insulation such as straw or sawdust. The ice could rema…
• A quodlibet combines familiar materialA quodlibet combines recognizable tunes or texts, either together or in succession, often for humorous effect…
• Tarantella varies across southern ItalyTarantella names a group of southern Italian folk dances rather than one uniform form. Regional names include…
• Sydney’s recurring chalk inscription had an authorArthur Stace repeatedly chalked Eternity on Sydney footpaths in the early morning. His activity began in 1932…
• A dung beetle can orient using the Milky WayResearch on the African nocturnal dung beetle Scarabaeus satyrus found that it can use the Milky Way’s bright…
• Counting bricks encouraged larger bricksBritain’s brick tax charged according to the number of bricks. Manufacturers responded with larger units, red…
• Section signs can count the referencesThe section sign § is used to refer to a section of a document. The doubled form §§ can refer to multiple sec…
• Gateball’s starting point differs from its imageGateball was devised in Japan in 1947 as a game for young people. Kazunobu Suzuki developed it using wood ami…
• Stanley Green’s campaigning materials outlived himLondon campaigner Stanley Green produced his own pamphlet, which went through eighty-four editions. After his…
• Tsetse larvae receive milk-like nourishmentA female tsetse fly develops one egg at a time inside her body. The larva hatches internally and receives nou…
• Soapmaking once had a daunting entry sizeBritish soapmaking rules required a minimum of one imperial ton at each boiling. Tax administration also supe…
• № joins an N with a small oThe numero sign № combines an N with a raised o and derives from Latin numero. English No. also serves as an…
• Broomball players wear specialized shoesBroomball takes place on ice, but players use specialized rubber-soled shoes rather than skates. They send a…
• Tokyo became a ten-metre panorama from memoryIn May 2005, Stephen Wiltshire drew a ten-metre panorama of Tokyo from memory after a brief helicopter flight…
• Siphonophores are colonies with divided rolesA siphonophore can resemble a single elongated animal, but it is a colony of zooids. Differently formed units…
• The glass tax helped shape glasswareBritain’s glass tax, introduced in 1746, charged materials by weight. Makers responded with smaller objects a…
• A tie mark helped identify a single wordIn ancient Greek texts written without spaces, a tie mark could indicate that letters belonged to one word. A…
• Rounders shares equipment, not every ruleRounders in Britain and Ireland combines batting and running with an underarm delivery. It can look familiar…
• Underwater figures acquire changing surfacesJason deCaires Taylor has installed underwater sculptures in places including Grenada’s Molinere Bay. Marine…
• Horseshoe crabs belong to the cheliceratesDespite the common name, horseshoe crabs are not crustaceans. They belong to the chelicerates, the larger gro…
• A hair-powder tax had a family exceptionBritain’s 1795 hair-powder duty required annual certificates. A father with more than two unmarried daughters…
• Catalan l·l differs from llCatalan uses the middle dot between two l letters in l·l, distinguishing this pattern from ll with its differ…
• The pickleball kitchen is not simply off limitsPickleball’s kitchen is the non-volley zone beside the net. Restrictions concern hitting a ball before it bou…
• Willard Wigan makes works for tiny spacesBritish sculptor Willard Wigan makes works that fit inside needle eyes or on pinheads. In 2010, the BBC repor…
• Woodlice carry developing young underneathFemale woodlice hold eggs in a pouch on the underside of the body. Newly hatched young also spend an initial…
• Tavern clocks acquired a misleading explanationLarge British tavern clocks existed before the 1797 clock tax. The later name Act of Parliament clock helped…
• Prime and double prime are distinct symbolsPrime ′ and double prime ″ resemble apostrophes or quotation marks but are distinct symbols. They have specia…
• Road tennis reshapes familiar equipmentBarbadian road tennis uses wooden rackets and a tennis ball with its felt removed. A low wooden plank serves…
• Anna Coleman Ladd used portrait skills for wartime masksDuring World War I, Anna Coleman Ladd made cosmetic masks for soldiers with facial injuries. She used pre-inj…
• Leopard slugs have an unusual mating positionLimax maximus, commonly called the leopard slug, mates while a pair hangs from a thick mucus thread attached…
• Wheatstone’s device preceded practical photographyWheatstone presented his stereoscope in 1838, before the first practical photographic processes became availa…
• An anagram changes order while keeping the materialEnglish listen and silent contain the same letters in a different order. This rearrangement is an anagram. Tr…
• Theremin performance uses the space around antennasA theremin player moves hands near two metal antennas without touching the instrument. One distance controls…
• Vaucanson’s flute player had a practical obstacleIn 1737, Jacques de Vaucanson built a life-size flute-playing figure with twelve tunes. Its fingers were not…
• Nautilus vision resembles a pinhole arrangementNautiluses have eyes without a solid lens, using a pinhole-like structure open to the environment. Their visi…
• Magic lanterns projected handmade picturesA magic lantern directed light through an illustrated glass slide and a lens onto a wall or screen. Early sli…
• A pangram brings the whole alphabet into viewThe familiar English sentence about a quick brown fox jumping over a lazy dog includes every letter of the al…
• A kazoo changes humming rather than mere breathA kazoo player hums into the instrument instead of simply blowing. Pressure changes from the voice vibrate a…
• Robert-Houdin’s chest changed the apparent contestRobert-Houdin’s Light and Heavy Chest let a child lift a wooden box before an adult failed to do the same. An…
• Peanut worms retract their narrow front sectionMarine sipunculans have a narrow anterior section called the introvert, with the mouth at its tip. They exten…
• Zoetropes turn a strip of pictures into apparent motionA zoetrope holds a sequence of pictures inside a slotted cylinder. As it turns, viewers look through the slot…
• Gadsby keeps E out of more than fifty thousand wordsErnest Vincent Wright’s 1939 novel Gadsby uses over fifty thousand words without the letter E in its text. Co…
• A musical saw is bowed rather than used to cutA musical saw is flexed for performance. Sound is commonly produced by drawing a bow across the back edge at…
• Mouchot demonstrated solar-powered ice makingAt the 1878 Paris exhibition, Augustin Mouchot and Abel Pifre displayed an engine using concentrated solar he…
• An armadillo lizard curls into a defended shapeSouth Africa’s armadillo girdled lizard curls up and holds its tail in its mouth when threatened. Thick back…
• A phenakistoscope is viewed through its discA typical phenakistoscope places sequential images and slots around a cardboard disc. The viewer spins it bef…
• A corporate email carried an acrosticIn a January 2010 email marking Sun’s acquisition by Oracle, Jonathan Schwartz arranged the first letters of…
• The nyckelharpa changes pitch through keyed tangentsThe Swedish nyckelharpa resembles a bowed fiddle but uses keys to operate tangents that stop the strings. The…
• Houdini also performed a large stage illusionHarry Houdini made an adult elephant vanish at New York’s Hippodrome. This was a non-escape stage illusion, a…
• Yellow boxfish move despite their stiff coveringYellow boxfish have a rigid, box-like carapace around the head and body, with openings for the mouth, fins an…
• A thaumatrope can put a bird inside a cageA thaumatrope carries pictures on both sides of a small disc turned by attached strings. A bird on one side a…
• The symbol ə records a central vowelThe phonetic symbol ə is a rotated lowercase e. It represents a mid central vowel, with a reduced form known…
• A mouth harp changes its overtones through the playerA mouth harp vibrates a tongue held within a frame, using the player’s mouth as a resonator. Changing the mou…