Stupid Question ™
Aug. 26, 1999
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: Why do some public toilets have a little gap in the front of the seat? I’ve never seen such seats in a private home.
—anonymous
A: The modern toilet is an engineering catastrophe.
It catches defecation and female urination OK. But its small size (exactly fitting the buttocks-to-genitals region) and shape make it unsanitary and annoying for anything else: wiping, standing urination, comfort.
“Open-front” or “split-front” seats with the little gap came in around 1940 to mitigate the errors. If standing males don’t lift the seat, they can drip urine onto its front; the gap supposedly eliminates this.
It also keeps the penis from touching the seat when a man is seated.
Though hardly making toilets much better, open-front seats were instituted as code almost everywhere by the 1950s. They didn’t catch on in private homes because of the public-toilet stigma. Also, men are theoretically more conscientious at home and will always lift the seat (though many do so in public toilets as well).
But different societies have different concerns. In Mexico, new toilet seats are almost all open-front, whether public or private, even though there’s no seat code at all.
* * * * *
An update on the Aug. 12 column about Friday the 13th: I said Friday and 13 were originally independently unlucky (the former due to Good Friday, the latter due to the Last Supper). They came together as Friday the 13th in this century, which was popular only post-1930 (for unknown reasons).
Reader Tim Adams disagrees. He says Friday the 13th dates to Friday, Oct. 13, 1307—the date that a group of Crusader knights called the Knights Templar was arrested for heresy.
The Templars—a staple of conspiracy theories—were arrested on that date, and a couple of recent books assert this as the origin of Friday the 13th.
But they offer no proof beyond the coincidence of dates.
And a survey of 14 Templar histories from 1852 to 1999 undermines the claim.
Pre-1930s books don’t mention the date was a Friday and say nothing about Friday the 13th.
Books from the ’60s to the ’80s start mentioning it was a Friday, obviously alluding to Friday the 13th, but make no claim that the Templars originated the superstition. (One even claims Friday was chosen as the arrest day because of Good Friday.)
It is only in the late ’80s that the origin claim pops up, and only in conspiracy literature.
Friday the 13th is clearly of recent origin. The earliest known citation of it is from 1913, predating its mention in Templar literature.
It is probably that a 1930s-1960s Templar historian noticed Oct. 13, 1307 was a Friday and simply decided to note the amusing coincidence.
Tim could still be half-right: it’s possible that a ’30s-’60s Templar history somehow popularized Friday the 13th. But while further evidence is lacking, how Friday and 13 came together remains a mystery.
Showing posts with label Friday etymology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Friday etymology. Show all posts
March 27, 2008
Friday The 13th
Stupid Question ™
Aug. 12, 1999
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: What is the origin of Friday the 13th, and why is it Tuesday the 13th in Mexico?
—Geoff Glass
A: The notion that these dates are unlucky is an apparently recent joining of separate superstitions about Friday (or Tuesday) and the number 13.
Some forms of numerology consider 13 lucky, others unlucky. Nobody knows the exact origin of any such tradition.
But the unlucky-13 superstition has nothing to do with witch covens, Norse mythology and/or the highest number to which early humans could count, as some sources say.
The idea certainly predates Christianity, but our modern version was defined by the Biblical Last Supper, in which Jesus and the 11 good disciples were joined by the traitorous Judas to make 13—bad luck for Jesus, who wound up on the cross the next day. This led directly to a superstition that it’s unlucky to have 13 people at a dinner table.
Friday was also considered unlucky from at least the 1300s to the early 1900s. This is also almost certainly a Christian superstition based on Jesus being crucified on a Friday. It was deemed bad luck to start any sort of journey or venture on a Friday. There was even supporting folklore that the British navy tried to debunk this by launching a ship called “Friday” on a Friday, only to have it disappear at sea.
Folklore sources from 100 years ago, and even as late as the 1930s, describe Friday and number-13 superstitions separately, never saying anything about “Friday the 13th.” The earliest citation I could find for a “Friday the 13th” superstition dates to—get this—1913.
It seems natural that an unlucky day with an unlucky number would be considered super-unlucky. But exactly how Friday the 13th became popular, and how the Friday-only superstition faded, seems lost to history. Some suggest the link is the Last Supper, held on a Thursday, was technically on a Friday since the Jewish day begins at sundown—a contortion that fails to explain why Friday and 13 remained independently unlucky for 1,900 years.
In Spain and Latin America, Tuesday was also independently unlucky. There are many cautionary folk phrases in Mexico, such as, “En martes ni te cases ni te embarques, ni de tu cases te separes” (“Don’t get married, go on a trip or stray far from home on a Tuesday”).
Some suggest this dates to the 1200s, when a now-obscure Spanish king was defeated by the Moors on a Tuesday. But the superstition probably is linked to the Spanish name for Tuesday. Martes derives from Mars, the Roman war god, associated in folk tradition with death.
The number 13 also is independently unlucky in Latin American folklore, and it also hooked up with Tuesday recently and mysteriously. Friday the 13th has been popularized in Latin America due to the US horror film series of the same name; this may have inspired Tuesday the 13th as well.
Aug. 12, 1999
By John Ruch
© 1999
Q: What is the origin of Friday the 13th, and why is it Tuesday the 13th in Mexico?
—Geoff Glass
A: The notion that these dates are unlucky is an apparently recent joining of separate superstitions about Friday (or Tuesday) and the number 13.
Some forms of numerology consider 13 lucky, others unlucky. Nobody knows the exact origin of any such tradition.
But the unlucky-13 superstition has nothing to do with witch covens, Norse mythology and/or the highest number to which early humans could count, as some sources say.
The idea certainly predates Christianity, but our modern version was defined by the Biblical Last Supper, in which Jesus and the 11 good disciples were joined by the traitorous Judas to make 13—bad luck for Jesus, who wound up on the cross the next day. This led directly to a superstition that it’s unlucky to have 13 people at a dinner table.
Friday was also considered unlucky from at least the 1300s to the early 1900s. This is also almost certainly a Christian superstition based on Jesus being crucified on a Friday. It was deemed bad luck to start any sort of journey or venture on a Friday. There was even supporting folklore that the British navy tried to debunk this by launching a ship called “Friday” on a Friday, only to have it disappear at sea.
Folklore sources from 100 years ago, and even as late as the 1930s, describe Friday and number-13 superstitions separately, never saying anything about “Friday the 13th.” The earliest citation I could find for a “Friday the 13th” superstition dates to—get this—1913.
It seems natural that an unlucky day with an unlucky number would be considered super-unlucky. But exactly how Friday the 13th became popular, and how the Friday-only superstition faded, seems lost to history. Some suggest the link is the Last Supper, held on a Thursday, was technically on a Friday since the Jewish day begins at sundown—a contortion that fails to explain why Friday and 13 remained independently unlucky for 1,900 years.
In Spain and Latin America, Tuesday was also independently unlucky. There are many cautionary folk phrases in Mexico, such as, “En martes ni te cases ni te embarques, ni de tu cases te separes” (“Don’t get married, go on a trip or stray far from home on a Tuesday”).
Some suggest this dates to the 1200s, when a now-obscure Spanish king was defeated by the Moors on a Tuesday. But the superstition probably is linked to the Spanish name for Tuesday. Martes derives from Mars, the Roman war god, associated in folk tradition with death.
The number 13 also is independently unlucky in Latin American folklore, and it also hooked up with Tuesday recently and mysteriously. Friday the 13th has been popularized in Latin America due to the US horror film series of the same name; this may have inspired Tuesday the 13th as well.