Holidays by Month Archives - Page 42 of 92

October 17 is Wear Something Gaudy Day

October 17, 2017/1 Comment/in October

While Festivus may be the most famous holiday invented by sitcom writers, there is a lesser-known day called Wear Something Gaudy Day that’s fun and doesn’t require the airing of grievances.

Airing from 1977 to 1984, Three’s Company was adapted from a British show called Man About the House. Initially, it was turned down by all three networks—yes, there were only three networks—for its racy premise of two women sharing an apartment with a young, clumsy heterosexual man who pretends to be gay so the landlord will allow the living arrangement. Eventually, ABC came around and gave the show the go-ahead.

The sitcom soon became a hit, with its mashup of broad comedy, inspired farce and great slapstick. Though we’re not sure on which episode the following occurs, we can say with confidence that the plot involves a misunderstanding. (They all do.)The main male character, Jack Tripper, has a friend named Larry Dallas who is a sleazy used-car salesman. Larry’s sartorial elegance is questionable at best: he’s known as a three-button guy, meaning he has to have at least three buttons open to showcase his fluffed up chest hair for the ladies.

After taking a little too much ribbing about his tacky clothing, Larry declares that it is Wear Something Gaudy Day. And just like that, an unofficial holiday is born. Why do we celebrate it today? Why not? Fans of this show are in good company.

It didn’t set out to change the world, it just made us laugh and that is why we love it.
Lucille Ball

Happy Wear Something Gaudy Day. You know what to do!

Here are two non-sitcom related holidays occurring today:
National Mulligan Day: learn how the “do-over” got its start
National Edge Day: celebrated by straight edge punks since 1999

October 16 is Dictionary Day

October 16, 2017/0 Comments/in October

An immense effect may be produced by small powers wisely and steadily directed.
Noah Webster, 1821

Dictionary Day was founded to celebrate the life of Noah Webster, born on October 16, 1758. Why would anyone spend twenty-seven years of his life working in solitude to produce an American dictionary?

Webster sought to create a unifying, distinctly American standard for the spelling, usage, and pronunciation of words. He felt British spelling was unnecessarily complicated and changed words such as colour to color, plough to plow, musick to music.

In the process, Webster learned more than twenty languages, which allowed him to thoroughly examine each word’s origin and definition. This research significantly contributed to the fields of philology and lexicography.

By the time he finished in 1825 at the age of 66, Noah Webster had penned 70,000 words. Of those, 12,000 had never been included in any dictionary. (Among them: skunk, chowder, squash, and hickory.) American Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1828.

Critics disparaged Webster’s changes and additions, particularly his inclusion of non-literary scientific and artistic terminology, as presumptuous and detrimental to the purity of the English language. Despite such pronouncements, Noah Webster has become known as the father of the American dictionary.

You might be asking yourself right now, “What’s so weird about this holiday?” Nothing, except that few people other than English teachers and rabid word nerds know about it. This was a man of astounding tenacity who helped determine the very language we speak and the words you’re reading right now.

We just blew your mind.

More words:
TEDtalk: Erin McKean redefines the dictionary
Dictionary Day and the Quest for Words – visualthesaurus.com

October 15 is Global Handwashing Day

October 15, 2017/0 Comments/in October

Today is Global Handwashing Day. We know, we know: eww! When it comes to that ill-advised hot dog wolfed at a highway rest stop, we are all like Mulder on the X-Files: we want to believe. That counter’s clean, the food freshly prepared by people who treat every day as handwashing day. So this must be one of those silly, made-up holidays. Right? Why are we still talking about this?

Global Handwashing Day was founded in 2008 by the Global Public-Private Partnership for Handwashing to raise awareness of how proper hygiene can prevent disease transmitted by hand. Here’s a tweet promoting the holiday and the graphic embedded in it.

Why #GlobalHandwashingDay? B/C 1 trillion germs can live in 1 gram of poop (abt weight of a paper clip)! http://bit.ly/1JUaOrD

Wait a minute. The numbers in the tweet and its graphic don’t match. Although I think we can all agree that either number is unsettling, we feel it’s our duty to get to the bottom of this. Who knew that researching this would end up in such a dark place?

Okay, now that we’ve gotten our juvenile punning (mostly) out of the way, let’s learn a little bit about the strangers in our poop. According to a study cited by the Centers for Disease Control, a gram of feces can contain a total of 1 trillion germs. So the tweet is right. Reporting of the number of viruses and bacteria, however, varies wildly. You might want to take our word for it. The Google search alone will make you want to douse yourself in hand sanitizer (which, by the way, isn’t as effective as you might think.)

Now that you’ve got a face full of feces facts, here’s a dollop more. A German site called my.microbes aims to be the first social network to connect members with similar microbial profiles to “share experiences, remedies, health and diet tips.” Watch out, Match.com! [2025 Update: Since I wrote this in 2015, this German site has been so well scrubbed and/or buried that the only mention I found on Google is my cross-post on sister site Magick Sandwich. I had to resort to the Wayback Machine to prove this site was real. No BS!]

If you’ve got your mind on your manure and your manure on your mind, track your output with the Poop Log app. According to the developer, he updated it to include the ability to attach photos because “it is the most requested feature from my users.” Poop Log allows you to track your bowel movements using the Bristol Stool Scale. [In 2015, this was the only poop tracking app we could find. Ten years later, there are at least fifteen offered on Google Play. A healthy deposit, in our opinion.]

The Bristol Scale was devised in England and is very, well, descriptive. Click here to view it, but maybe not when you’re eating sausage. We’re not showing it here because we don’t want to support poop porn. We will show you this enthusiastic review of PoopLog, though: Leland, we wish you the best in your turd analysis. Perhaps Places I’ve Pooped might be a useful app for you, too. Just a quick word of advice: turn off the flash when you take a shelfie™* in a public place, which we fervently hope is a restroom. The uninformed might frown on you taking a photo of what came from your posterior for posterity.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go wash our hands. We may never stop.

*sh– + selfie: don’t make us spell this out

October 13 is International Skeptics Day

October 13, 2017/0 Comments/in October

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, still exists.
Philip K. Dick

I’m not sure how he’d feel about International Skeptics Day since there’s no evidence that it’s an official holiday anywhere. If you consider the number of skeptical organizations worldwide, almost 100 according to one source, maybe it should be.

The sticklers among us might point out that Skeptics Day is also listed in some quarters as occurring on January 13.

Others might say the dearth of critical thinking calls for as many reminders of the need for skeptical inquiry as possible.

Perhaps the weirdest thing about this holiday is that we seem to need it at all.

*****

To learn more:

Watch the Youtube channel of the James Randi Foundation. Many tried and failed to win Randi’s years-long Million Dollar Challenge, which promised the prize to anyone who could show proof of the paranormal. The challenge ended recently, the money unclaimed.
Plumb the resources of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Find like-minded skeptics in your neighborhood at meetup.com.
Consult Snopes.com, the Web’s Google search for hoaxes and misinformation, before you forward that chain email about how the government is poisoning us all with cheese.
Watch an old episode of Mythbusters, a show that made testing urban legends entertaining. (After the series wrapped, it became clear that the biggest myth was that the two hosts got along.)
Read A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking, which is sure to help you resist that midnight infomercial, win an argument, and separate fact from fiction in almost any situation.

No matter how or when you choose to celebrate International Skeptics Day, have fun!

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