Yahoo! Answers

Hey Guys,

In today’s economic downturn, holding onto a job has become, well, a full time job. With so many workers living in perpetual fear of the pink slip, I got to wondering how the term originated. Once upon a time, were workers given actual pink pieces of paper when they were fired? Seems almost too cruel to be true.

After a Yahoo! search on “pink slip origin,” I came across this interesting blog from the urban legend experts at Snopes.com. They delve into the history of the phrase and note that its origin has never been verified.

But the lack of evidence hasn’t stopped the theories. One of the most popular explanations has to do with Henry Ford. According to legend, back in the early days of Ford Motor Company, when an employee was performing substandard work, he or she would find a pink slip of paper in their cubbyhole. Pink slip meant do not come back.

Good story, but nobody knows if it’s really true. An interview with an editor from the Oxford English Dictionary on PublicRadio.org offers a similar explanation (or lack thereof). Despite historians having looked into the origin of the phrase, nobody has ever found an actual example of a pink slip of paper having ever been used to fire someone.

The editor does note that pink pieces of paper have long held connections to rejection. In the olden days, when a typographer made a mistake, he or she was given a note on pink paper. The theory: if a typographer got enough of those dreaded pink notes, he or she would likely have been shown the door.

There are plenty of stories online from people who say they were given literal pink slips, but apparently none have satisfied historians. Have any of you ever received an actual pink slip when laid off? The closest I ever came was a terse phone call from my boss when I was a teenager. I would have fired me, too.

Thanks for reading,

Mike

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Did you know that the first “Ask Mike” column appeared on the Yahoo! Answers blog on January 8^th, 2008? Since then, Mike has written 390 posts on topics that include everything under the sun- ranging from posts on whitening your teeth, to how to fix a bad haircut, to the most common words used in the English language. Mike has covered a bit of everything.

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Now, we’d like to invite you to continue the discussion on the Ask Mike Yahoo! Group, found here: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AskMikeonAnswers/ – you’ll still find Mike’s posts here on the Answers blog, but will now have the opportunity of shaping future entries by joining the group and suggesting ideas for future posts!

Feel free to stop by the group, share your thoughts and suggestions, and who knows, maybe your ideas will be featured in the next “Ask Mike” column!

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Hey Guys,

The World Series, the Super Bowl, and college basketball’s March Madness are three of the biggest events in sports. They’re all so popular, that it’s hard to imagine ‘em being called anything else. Each term is now a part of the average American’s vocabulary, but who deserves the credit?

According to various sources across the Web, the Spalding Guide, a magazine put out by the sporting goods company, was responsible for coming up with the name “World Series.” Why the word “World,” when the first baseball teams were American? According to a blog from Road Side Photos, the National League’s Chicago squad and the American Association’s St. Louis team could both be considered champs back in 1887. So, “a more grandiose name was required to describe the postseason showdown” between the two leagues. The name “World Series” stuck.

The Super Bowl has an even more interesting history. A blog entry from Doc’s Sports explains that it was Lamar Hunt, one-time owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, who coined the phrase. Mr. Hunt came up with the “unofficial nickname” for the NFL-AFL World Championship Game after watching his daughter play with a “Super Ball” toy. After a few years, the name Super Bowl officially replaced the more formal “World Championship Game.”

And what of March Madness? Slate.com hosts an excellent article on how the name came to exist (and all the legal battles that would later ensue). Back in 1939, a chap named Henry Porter wrote an article called “March Madness” for the Illinois High School Association. Slate explains that “the phrase was confined to Illinois high-school ball until 1982, when CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger used it during his network’s NCAA tournament coverage.” The phrase “Final Four,” meanwhile, was coined by Ed Chay, a sportswriter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

On a somewhat related note, I’d like to pose a question to you guys–how did an Academy Award get to be named an Oscar? Got any ideas? Please leave a comment and link below.

Thanks for reading,

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Hey Guys,

Halloween is upon us, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll want to watch a few scary movies to help celebrate. This year, I wanted to have a kind of theme to the spooky madness, so I decided to watch movies that have at least one thing in common–the Wilhelm scream.

The Wilhelm scream is an iconic sound effect that’s been used in dozens of films that have little else in common. It was originally used in a film called “Distant Drums” starring the late, great Gary Cooper. The “scream” can be heard when a character is torn to pieces by an alligator. There’s nothing particularly amazing about the scream, and it might have languished in obscurity had it not been for Star Wars sound wizard Ben Burtt.

Hollywood Lost and Found offers up an interesting blog post on Burtt’s fascination with the scream. Burtt had been hired to create the sound effects for Star Wars (the original). While at Warner Bros. Studios hunting for different effects, “he found the original “Distant Drums” scream.” Burtt called it the Wilhelm scream in honor of the character that bellowed the scream in another movie called “Charge at Feather River.”

In the years since Burtt first inserted the scream into Star Wars (you can hear it when Luke Skywalker shoots a Storm Trooper in the Death Star), the sound designer has put it in a slew of other films, including the Star Wars sequels, and “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” But Burtt isn’t the only audio expert to slip it into films. Other sound designers have used it in films ranging from “Batman Returns” to “There’s Something About Mary” to “Aladdin.” Indeed, the Wilhelm Scream has become one of Hollywood’s ultimate “in-jokes.” Or maybe it’s just a cliche. Either way, you can watch a compilation of many of the screams here.

So, what Wilhelm films will I be watching on Halloween? Surprisingly, not that many of ‘em are horror flicks. However, “Poltergeist” definitely hits the mark. And, if I get desperate, I can always watch “Howard the Duck.” That one’s about as scary as they get.

Thanks for reading,

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Hey Guys,

I’ve had the same keyboard here at work for nearly ten years. It’s now pretty (OK, very) disgusting due to the fact that I eat lunch at my desk. However, it still works perfectly. Well, almost. The “T” key is a bit finicky and the “numbers lock” key responds only when it wants to. And that got me thinking–why are keyboards laid out the way they are? Why is the “Q” key way up in the upper left-hand side? Who decided all this?

The story of the keyboard’s layout may seem like the dullest topic in the world, but it’s actually pretty interesting. Commonly referred to as the “QWERTY” keyboard, this landmark creation was first used in 1875 by Christopher Sholes.

One might think that the keys are arranged in this way to make typing as efficient as possible. I was always told that the letters you use the most are the ones nearest to the center. But I was misinformed. It turns out this layout was used because it is actually quite inefficient.

Back in 1875, people used typewriters with keyboards laid out in ABC order. Because folks typed so quickly, jamming was a common problem. Mr. Sholes couldn’t improve the mechanical aspects of the typewriter, so he would have to do the next best thing–get people to slow down. His solution was to arrange the letters in such a way so that the type bars wouldn’t get crossed up. Amazingly, it worked.

According to Idea Finder, the change reduced typewriter jamming drastically. Over time, the QWERTY became the standard. Inventors have since introduced alternatives, but nothing has caught on with the mainstream. One of the best known is the Dvorak Layout. HowStuffWorks breaks down the pros and cons.

What would it take to get you to switch to a new keyboard layout? Would you ever consider it? I might, provided the “T” key worked more than 50% of the time.

Thanks for reading,

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