House of the Week 4/29/22
MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Produce Is Usually At The Front Of Grocery Stores
If you’re anything like me, then you’ve run into a grocery store for just one item, but ultimately walked out with armfuls of stuff you hadn’t intended on picking up. Grocery stores are deviously clever at tricking consumers into dropping more money than planned. Is that why the produce section is almost always near the front of nearly every grocery store?
Grocery store layouts are highly planned & seriously strategic. There’s a psychological reason that stores place the produce section at or near the front. Because when you go into a store, the store knows it’ll be hard for you to not take the opportunity to pick up their vibrantly colorful array of fruits & veggies, U mean, c’mon…they’re practically glowing in color & glistening with water to make them appear so deliciously fresh (though those spray showers do make the veggies weigh more, which also makes them cost more.) The produce section tends to be dramatically lit, to, so that everything looks better in the store than it ever could once you get home with it. Almost every grocery store knows that, if they can get your mouth watering, you’re more likely to buy more stuff (which is why the bakery is also usually pretty close to the door, too).
Grocery stores also have their ways of making you cover as much ground as possible, too, so that you’ll have a better chance to pick up more items than you might’ve gone in for. One way is their placement of the dairy section in the back of the store; with the milk, eggs, butter, or other dairy staples back there, you have to walk past lots of less necessary (but hard to resist) items along your way.
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected].
MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Truckers Say “10-4”
Some truck driver slang just makes sense. Like “Bambi”, which means a deer is in the vicinity. “Go-go Juice” means diesel fuel. “Seat covers” are actually pants. But what about the phrase “10-4”. You may know that 10-4 basically means “okay” or “I got your message”, but why? Where did that come from?
10-4 came from what are called “ten-codes”, a group of digital short-codes developed in the late 1930s by Illinois State Police. After the recent invention of 2-way car radios, ten-codes were an easy & efficient way for police officers to transmit messages to & from each other & the police station. Then in 1940, APCO (the Association of Police Communications Officers) published a list of about 100 ten-codes as a way to standardize usage across state lines. 10-1 stood for “Receiving poorly,” 10-2 meant “Receiving well,” 10-3 was for “Stop transmitting,” while 10-4 meant “Acknowledgement”.
So, why did they tack a 10 onto the front of each number? It was a actually a troubleshooting tactic. Radio motor-generators weren’t high-tech enough at that time to jump into action as soon as someone started transmitting, so the person on the receiving end often didn’t hear the beginning of the message. But if the beginning of every message was the same meaningless 10, it didn’t matter.
Thanks to Broderick Crawford saying “10-4” on the 1950s police drama Highway Patrol, it gained traction with the general public. Then, when truck drivers started using via 2-way radios, they co-opted the ten-codes. Truckers’ radios were usually citizens band radios, or CB radios, which took off after the 1973 oil crisis, when 55-mph speed limits were instituted across the nation & truckers needed a way to warn each other about speed traps. Shortly thereafter, CB radio code talk took on a life of its own, thanks to C.W. McCall’s 1975 hit song “Convoy” and, later, the movie “Smokey & The Bandit”.
CB radios may not be as big of a thing nowadays, but 10-4 has never gone out of style as the go-to way to say “I Gotcha” (without actually saying “I Gotcha”).
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected].
Wake Up Crew Highlights: April 27, 2022
Ella- our Jay Day & the Day Home Team PET OF THE WEEK
MUNDANE MYSTERIES: Why Do We Answer The Phone By Saying “Hello”?
Most folks prefer to not talk on the telephone, they’d rather text. But pretty much everyone who does answer the phone to talk says the same thing: “Hello”! The fact that hello remains the favored way to start a phone conversation was definitely not the first choice of the telephone’s inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. He wanted people to answer the phone by saying “ahoy”. So WHY do we say “hello” when answering the phone?
The first written example of the word “hello”, itself, appeared in print in an issue of Connecticut’s Norwich Courier in 1826: “Hello, Jim! I’ll tell you what: I’ve a sharp knife & feel as if I’d like to cut up something or other.” In that & most of the other instances from that era, “hello” was used to either flag someone down (a lot like we might holler “Hey!” nowadays) or to express surprise. But it took a couple of decades for people to start using it as a greeting.
By the late 1800s, “hello” saw big a boom in popularity thanks to a guy you may have heard of named Thomas Edison. Edison actually gets the credit for insisting that the word “hello” be the greeting of choice for anyone answering a telephone call. But not because he just liked the word. Initially, Thomas Edison didn’t think a telephone needed to ring at all. He believed the caller could simply shout “hello” to the person on the other end in order to get their attention. (At that time, though, people were basically a room or two apart.)
Then, as the technology evolved to become more than just a single, always-open direct line between two people (and at greater distances), it made the most sense for the receiver to be the first to speak (as opposed to the caller). And thanks in large part to Edison’s influence, hot-off-the-presses telephone operating manuals began advising users to say “hello” when answering a call. The very first phone book, published in 1878 in New Haven, CT, recommended a “firm & cheery ‘hulloa’.” Meanwhile, instead of goodbye, they suggested callers sign-off by saying “That is all”.
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected].
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Berryville Graphics
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MUNDANE MYSTERIES: What Do The Stars Next To Elevator Numbers Mean?
If you’ve ever ridden in an elevator, you may have noticed that some of the floor numbers have a star next to them. What do those stars mean? Is it where the “stars” (celebrities) stay? Maybe it’s the hotel manager’s favorite floor? No, there’s actually a much more practical use for those particular stars.
Whenever you see a star next to an elevator button taking you to a particular floor, or maybe you might see it next to the number where the door opens (which is called the ‘jamb’), what that star means is that that floor is the location with the closest or nearest exit to the outside the building. That’s why it isn’t always going to be on the same floor in every elevator: sometimes it’ll be on the first floor, sometimes it will be on ground floor, and then other times it may be some other floor. The basic reason the starred floor numbers exists is to tell you where the nearest outlet to the street outside the building is. It’s basically a safety & convenience thing.
So, the next time you’re riding in an elevator keep your eyes on the stars…they’re there for a reason that might actually save your life one day (or at least get you where you’re going more efficiently).
Got a Mundane Mystery you’d like solved? Send me a message via Twitter (@AndyWebbRadio), or shoot me an email at [email protected].
BROUGHT TO YOU BY: Berryville Graphics