In loving memory of Tom Hogg, 1943–2023
MoFunny for
December 25, 2027
Who invented matches?
+----- Answer At The End -----+
Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with it apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence. -- Norman Podhoretz
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. -- Samuel Johnson
Emperor Ojin-Tenno (201-310) ruled Japan for 109 years. He became emperor at birth and occupied the throne until his death.
Rank and title are actually more important than pay in determining how respected employees feel.
Why do you have to take fluid pills with a glass of water?
A middle-aged Jewish widow is walking through the park, when she sees a middle-aged man sitting on a bench. The man strikes her fancy, so she goes over and sits down next to him. They sit there in silence for fifteen minutes, so the woman decides that she must take the initiative.
She turns to the man and sweetly asks, "Do you like pussycats?"
The man's eyes widen and he turns to her, breaking into a broad smile. "How did you know," he asks, "that my name is Katz?"
At a big cocktail party, an obstetrician's wife noticed another guest, a big, oversexed blonde, was making overtures at her husband. But it was a large, informal gathering, so she tried to laugh it off, until she saw them disappear into a bedroom together.
At once she rushed into the room, pulled the two apart and screamed, "Look, lady! My husband just delivers babies, he doesn't INSTALL them!"
The trouble with bucket seats is that not everybody has the same size bucket.
He's sooooo mean....
If you kicked him in the heart, you'd break your toe.
He'd steal a dead fly from a blind spider.
He's deaf, and never told his barber.
You couldn't warm up to him if you were cremated together.
He sends get-well cards to hypochondriacs.
He'd cry over your wounds so he could get salt in them.
He has as much use for anyone living as an undertaker.
He applied for a job as a prison warden so he could put tacks in the electric chair.
He folds his newspaper so the guy next to him on the bus can only read half the headline.
He has a testimonial plaque from Kenneth Starr.
He takes sparrows, dips them in peroxide, and sells them as canaries.
He'd throw a drowning man both ends of the rope.
He knifes you in the back, and then has you arrested for carrying a weapon.
He campaigned for a dry county, got it passed, and then moved away.
He never hits a man when he's down--he kicks him.
He never eats his heart out; he'd starve to death.
He'd borrow your pot just to cook your goose.
Only gravediggers would enjoy working for him..
I'd had a pretty hectic day with my four-year-old. When bedtime finally came, I laid down the law: "We're putting on your p.j.s, brushing your teeth, and reading ONE book. Then it's lights out!"
Her arms went around my neck in a gentle embrace, and she said, "We learned in Sunday school about little boys and girls who don't have mommies and daddies."
Even after I'd been such a grouch, I thought, she was still grateful to have me. I felt tears begin to well up in my eyes, and then she whispered, "Maybe you could go be THEIR mom?"
You might be a redneck if…
Your sophisticated show-biz cousin is a rodeo clown.
An elderly couple who were childhood sweethearts had married and settled down in their old neighborhood and are celebrating their sixtieth wedding anniversary. They walk down the street to their old school.
There, they hold hands as they find the old desk they'd shared and where he had carved "I love you,Sally."
On their way back home, a bag of money falls out of an armored car practically at their feet. She quickly picks it up, but they don't know what to do with it so they take it home. There, she counts the money, and it's fifty-thousand dollars. The husband says, "We've got to give it back." She says, "Finders keepers."
And she puts the money back in the bag and hides it up in their attic.
The next day, two FBI men are going door-to-door in the neighborhood looking for the money and show up at their home. They say, "Pardon me, but did either of you find any money that fell out of an armored car yesterday?"
She says, "No."
The husband says, "She's lying. She hid it up in the attic."
She says, "Don't believe him, he's getting senile."
But the agents sit the man down and begin to question him. One says, "Tell us the story from the beginning." The old man says, "Well, when Sally and I were walking home from school yesterday..."
The FBI guy looks at his partner and says, "We're outta here...
How many animals can you fit into a pair of pantyhose?
Now, think about it.....Ready?
10 Little Piggies
2 Calves
1 Ass
1 Beaver
An unknown number of Hares
And a Fish no one can find!
Who invented matches?
The quest for ways to ignite a fire began about 1.5 million years ago, when the caveman discovered that he could start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and ended with the successful invention of the non-toxic matches we use today.
Today, approximately 500 billion matches are used each year and about 200 billion of these come from matchbooks.
In 1669, an alchemist, one who mistakenly believes that he can change base metals into gold, mixed up a batch of something which was, surprisingly, not gold, but a substance he named phosphorous. Since his recipe did not produce the gold he desired, he tossed it onto the heap of history.
Next was Robert Boyle, an English physicist, after whom Boyle's Law was named. He cleverly coated a piece of paper with phosphorous and, armed with a splinter of sulfur-coated wood, bravely bulled the wood through the paper, which burst into flames.
Much later, in 1826, John Walker stumbled upon a chemical concoction that produced fire. After stirring together a mixture of chemicals, which did not contain phosphorous, John removed the stick he used, only to find a dried lump at its end. When he scraped the stick against the floor to rid it of the lump, the stick ignited. His mixture of antimony sulfide, potassium chlorate, gum, and starch could produce fire. In his rush to demonstrate his discovery to others, John bypassed the patent office.
In no time, a person at one of John's demonstrations, Samuel Jones, spotted an overlooked, golden opportunity, and patented the invention under his name. Mr. Jones produced matches he named Lucifers, which produced phenomenal sales. The widespread availability of the matches actually led to a significant increase in smoking.
The dark side to Lucifers was their ungodly odor, and the fireworks display they gave when ignited. In fact, Lucifers carried a warning label stating that they, not the cigarettes they lit, were dangerous to one's health!
In the 1830s, Charles Sauria, a French chemist, decided to improve upon the existing formula by adding white phosphorous to do away with the stench of the matches. What Mr. Sauria did not know, was that white phosphorous was lethal to those who came into contact with it.
Unknowingly, he created a deadly monster by adding the white phosphorous. The phosphorous was responsible for a nearly epidemic disease known as "phossy jaw," match factory workers developed poisoned bones, and children who sucked on the matches developed infant skeletal deformities. Even the amount of white phosphorous contained in one pack of matches could kill a person, and actually did, through numerous suicides and murders.
Finally, by 1910, the general public's awareness of the dangers of the white phosphorous in these matches led to a worldwide campaign to ban them. Thankfully, Diamond Match Company obtained an U.S. patent for the first nonpoisonous match, which used the harmless chemical sesquisulfide of phosphorous in place of the deadly white phosphorous.
So critical was Diamond Match Company's discovery to public health, that U.S. President Taft made a public plea to the Company voluntarily to surrender their patent rights to the invention. Despite the enormous moneymaking potential of the patent, Diamond Match Company granted President Taft's request on January 28, 1911. Congress followed suit by passing a law that raised the tax on white phosphorous matches to a level so high that their production soon ceased.
Discussion of the match would be incomplete without mention of the matchbook. John Pusey, in 1892, invented something he named the matchbook. He had the right idea, but had it backwards, as he placed the striking surface for the match on the inside of the book of 50 matches, so when one match was struck, the remaining 49 also ignited!
Once again, Diamond Match Company intervened and saved the day, by purchasing the patent to the matchbook, by moving the striking surface to the outside of the cover where it belonged, and by marketing the revamped match as the "safety match."