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Symbols You Don't Know The Meaning And Origins Of · Be Amazed

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Symbols!
0:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We see them everywhere.
0:03
[SPEAKER_00]: On traffic signs, on logos, on our phones, even hand gestures, are a kind of symbol.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you ever wondered, where are these universal squiggles and swoops come from?
0:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, allow me to act as your humble cryptographer as we decode everything from ancient add signs to confusing controller buttons.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: These are the secret origins of everyday symbols.
0:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Be honest, how many times have you tried to plug in a USB, only to flip it over and over, struggling to figure out which way it plugs in?
0:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh man, is it humbling?
0:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's even more humbling is seeing that weird little trident symbol on the port and having no idea what it's meant to be.
0:56
[SPEAKER_00]: The circle's square and triangle.
0:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like they're mocking me.
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: What do they mean?
1:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the three-pronged USB symbol was modeled after Dry Zach.
1:07
[SPEAKER_00]: For those who missed that history lesson, that's the name of the Trident wielded by Poseidon, the ancient Greek gun of the Sea.
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The three shapes that the Trident's points are there to signify the variation and peripherals that can all be connected via a universal serial bus, or USB.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: As such, the Trident was designed to symbolize the technological power USB's have.
1:30
[SPEAKER_00]: being able to connect a wide range of other devices.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, I know what it means!
1:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I still won't be able to plug it in on the first try though.
1:39
[SPEAKER_00]: If you hold up your index and middle fingers, it can mean a number of different things.
1:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It can be a sign of peace, a symbol of victory, or a very rude gesture in the UK.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Depending on which way round the fingers are held.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But the inception of this two-fingered salute is believed to be older and more gruesome than most Brits realize.
2:00
[SPEAKER_00]: At least one meaning of the gesture traces its origins back to the hundred years' war, which was fought over a hundred and sixteen years, pretty aptly named there, between France and England.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The legend states that during this conflict the French would remove the middle and index fingers of English-long Bowman, they captured before returning them, as a man without these fingers was useless as an archer.
2:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It said that during this time, boastful English-longbowmen who weren't captured would range their two fingers defiantly.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Essentially saying, look, I can still fight.
2:35
[SPEAKER_00]: While pretty badass, this may just be legend.
2:39
[SPEAKER_00]: English-longbows were famously larger and harder to wield than other bows.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Most soldiers needed to use three fingers in order to pull back on the string, meaning it would make more sense for the gesture to include the ring finger as well as the middle and index, making it closer to a Boy Scout salute.
2:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, you could also argue that if the Bose needed three fingers to wheel chopping off two, was as good as chopping off three.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether true or not, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill played a large role in repopularizing the gesture towards the start of the second World War, back in nineteen forty-one.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Around this time, he was first photographed flashing the V-shaped with his fingers, which soon became the Allied sign for victory.
3:24
[SPEAKER_00]: As V was the first letter in victory, not only in English, but also in French and Flemish, the main languages of Britain's non-English speaking allies.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: He would occasionally flip it around as soon as possible to send a message to their enemies, one probably meaning
3:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Roy, look here, we can still fight by Jove, but in more colorful language.
3:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, one for all the console gamers, you might be so good at gaming that you can speed around Dark Souls in less than thirty minutes or a thrash out of your friends and even the pros and Call of Duty.
3:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But can you tell me what the symbols on the buttons on a PlayStation controller mean?
4:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the Circle Square X and Triangle.
4:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You use them all the time, but what do they mean?
4:06
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer to this question was supposedly figured out by nerds a while back.
4:11
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Sony's Tyogoto, who chose the symbols, Sony wanted their controller to stand out from their competitors at Sega and Nintendo who used lettered buttons.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Go toe to sign it on easy to recognize shapes each of which had a meaning.
4:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The triangle is at the top because it points upwards.
4:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The square represents a piece of paper or document as soon as you believe this button would be mused mostly for menus.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The circle in X buttons represent yes and no, or confirm in deny respectively.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where some cultural confusion comes into play.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: In Japan, a circle in a cross takes the place of a ticket across in the west.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: This meant that in many early playstation games, the inputs of the circle in cross were switched.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: In Japan, you press circle to confirm, whereas in the west it was X. It's only on the fifth playstation that Sony has made X the confirmed button in Japan.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: If I were a Japanese gamer, I'd really push my buttons.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Court manufacturer Toyota Simple is simple, easy to recognize, and, honestly, a little confusing.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, cars of four wheels, and yet their logo is three circles?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What gives?
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: While the logo was chosen way back in nineteen thirty-six, and wasn't designed in house.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, it was the winner of a logo designed competition, and it beat up forty-six thousand other entries.
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[SPEAKER_00]: While the circles may seem random, individual elements from the design can be separated from the others in order to spell out the word Toyota, the O-Y-O-T-A.
5:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Pretty nifty, huh?
5:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I bet you've come back full circle into thinking it's a good logo now.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, sorry.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll shift gears.
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever wondered why this weird bumpy upside down triangle is called a her cheap?
6:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, have you seen a real hard recently?
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[SPEAKER_00]: If your heart were actually shaped like this, there'd be something seriously wrong with you.
6:12
[SPEAKER_00]: A more romantic internet theory found all over Pinterest boards and boomer Facebook posts is that it represents two hard side by side.
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: No, it isn't that sweet.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's also completely unfounded and requires a lot of artistic lessons to claim that this looks like that.
6:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So if it doesn't look like a real hard or even two hards, where does the hard symbol come from?
6:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The origin of the shape dates back several hundred years BCE.
6:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, there was a popular little plant called Sylphium.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: This phenyl had heart-shaped bulbs and was found along the North African coast, likely near the city of Cyrene, and the ancient Greeks loved it.
6:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Seriously, they were so crazy about this plant, they even put it on some of their coins.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Why was this little plant so popular?
7:00
[SPEAKER_00]: While it had a number of uses, but its most important role was as a form of contraception.
7:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Back then, if you wanted to bump uglies without having kids, your options were limited, namely the taking Sylphium.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so the plant became so popular that it actually went extinct sometime around the second century BCE.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Sylphium's connotations would sweet-love making her perhaps why its distinct shape became synonymous with love and
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[SPEAKER_00]: for poetic license, the heart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This theory has its flaws, though.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For starters, the heart shape is we understand it only began popping up and art from the twelfth fifties onwards over a thousand years after the extinction of Sylphium.
7:41
[SPEAKER_00]: A gap is pretty hard to explain.
7:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Other theories posit this shape is meant to resemble a well-indowed chest, a butt, or even male privates, if you'd upside down.
7:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Suddenly, I'm way less comfortable getting that Valentine's from my mom.
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: For warnings, responsible for making sure you don't die, the radiation and bio-hazard symbols are pretty abstract, aren't they?
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: If I saw the radiation symbol in the wild, I might think it was a learning me to a cool fidget spinner factory nearby.
8:09
[SPEAKER_00]: In reality, this symbol warns the viewer of nearby dangerous radioactivity.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It was first sketched by members of a Berkeley research group headed by Nell's garden in nineteen forty six.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The symbol was initially magenta on a blue background as Nell's believed the colors were seen less frequently and thus would stand out more.
8:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The colors were later switched to magenta on yellow before eventually standardizing as black on yellow as it makes the shapes more clearly discernible from a greater distance.
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: As for the symbol itself, those explain that it is meant to represent radioactivity escaping from an atom.
8:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god that makes so much sense now.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally I can stop seeing it as if forbidden fidget spinner.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, and I, the makers of modern cost-affected cars and, if their mock-ups are to be believed, the future makers of weird, drivable Wi-Fi routers.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Still no matter what design Hyundai goes with in the future, we know what logo the car will be sporting.
9:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The Hyundai logo works because it's so simple, and I tell a sized H inside a circle.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing more to see here, right?
9:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, don't let Hyundai hear you say that.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the company themselves, the logo isn't just in H. It's meant to resemble two men shaking hands as viewed from the side.
9:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The logo is meant to represent prosperity and the healthy relationship Hyundai has with their customers.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, Bluetooth.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The technology that uses radio frequencies to allow devices to share information wirelessly over short distances.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's truly a game changer.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Without it, we'd still be stuck in the dark age of wired headphones.
9:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Where just putting them in your pocket for a moment would tangle them in a not so tied and make a sailor cry.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Looking at the symbol of Horde though, you may think it's simply a stylized letter B, but there's actually a lot of meaning hiding in those hard lines.
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The design draws antluence from Nordic Runes, the symbols that made up the written language of the Vikings.
10:09
[SPEAKER_00]: As the symbols were usually carved into stone or wood, they're entirely comprised of straight lines rather than curves.
10:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine trying to carve a perfect circle into a tree, and you'll get it.
10:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The blue tooth symbol is what's called a bind-room, which is two rooms combined into one.
10:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The two rooms making out the blue tooth bind-room are the Viking equivalents for the letters H and B. These letters pay homage to a legendary Norse king by the name of Harold Bluetooth.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Harold's greatest accomplishment was in uniting various disparate Norse peoples under one banner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of like how modern Bluetooth is designed to connect various pieces of tech.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a cool backstory?
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
10:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that a huge reach?
10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Also yes.
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever thought about how much time the equals sign saves you when doing math?
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Before the advent of the equals symbol, mathematicians would painstakingly write the phrase is equal to every time they wrote out an equation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
11:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I ain't nobody got time for that.
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Thankfully in fifteen fifty seven along came mathematics superhero Robert record and his book The Wet Stone of Whitt While working on the book record group tired of writing is equal to over and over again unlike other loser mathematicians before him however he decided to do something about it by creating the equal symbol
11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: When you hear how he designed it, he'll kick yourself from never noticing it before.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Record represented the idea of an equation being equal by creating a side made up to equal lines.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When placed in the middle of an equation, it's the perfect way of saying, this stuff here is the same as this stuff here.
11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Record was truly a man with no equal.
12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The Universal Symbol for Tree Huggers and Happy's The World Over, the Peace symbol is as recognizable as it is confusing.
12:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what even is this thing?
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: A circle with some lines?
12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlike other cryptic symbols, we actually know when and where this one came from.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The Direct Action Committee or DAC in the nineteen fifty-eight.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The DAC were opposed to nuclear weapons and created the symbol as a universal sign for nuclear disarmament.
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[SPEAKER_00]: A popular misconception is that the symbol represents the combined seam of four signs for N and D, or nuclear disarmament.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, this is just a pleasant coincidence.
12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Gerald Holtam, a professor of design and member of the DAC, the symbol takes inspiration from the incredibly disturbing painting, third of May, eighteen o' wait by Francisco Goya.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The painting depicts a helpless peasant about to be mowed down by soldiers.
12:59
[SPEAKER_00]: According to Holtam, the lines of the symbol represent a dejected man placing their arms out to the side and a display of weary innocence.
13:07
[SPEAKER_00]: If you flip the individual in Goi as panning, you can kind of see it.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So next time you see a piece I remember, it's not a happy go-lucky symbol.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a somber reminder of the cost of war.
13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoy channel serving as much as me, you're probably intimately familiar with this little symbol.
13:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The power symbol or, simply the on symbol is comprised of a circle with a vertical line at the top and a dorms TV remotes the world over.
13:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The symbol is derived from binary, which is the language of ones and zeros that computers use to relay information across their circuit boards.
13:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The power symbol is simply a combination of these two characters, zero as the base and the one at the top.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: This makes sense when you think about it, zero one is after all the first combination of these numbers in binary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hence, zero one represents something starting beginning or powering up.
14:01
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're curious, you should subscribe to be amazed in binary is.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Zero one zero one one zero one zero one one zero.
14:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty long, that joke's not worth it.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we want.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Throughout human history and across multiple cultures, the crown has signified one thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The person wearing it is the head hacho, the big cuna, the fat Albert.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, not so much that last one, but still.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So what gives?
14:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does wearing a fancy ring around your head mean you get to set my taxes?
14:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, one theory is that in Christianity, angels are often depicted with halos around their heads.
14:41
[SPEAKER_00]: As many kings claimed to rule via divine right, i.e.
14:44
[SPEAKER_00]: they were appointed by God, the crown could be said to have holy connotations.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: However, this theory doesn't hold much water.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: For starters, the widespread precursor to the traditional crown is the diadem.
14:58
[SPEAKER_00]: These were worn by Persian monarchs by at least four hundred CE.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Some Greek gods are depicted wearing them around the same time, and the ancient Egyptians were fashioning diadem by twenty-four sixty-five BCE.
15:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the world's oldest crown, known as the Copper Age Crown, discovered in the Judea Desert, was created somewhere between thirty-two hundred and four thousand BCE.
15:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So diadens and even crowns themselves were around long before Christianity.
15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So where does that leave us?
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Sadly, just with theories.
15:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But we might be overthinking it.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: After all, Crowns just makes sense.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: They're made of expensive materials or adorned with jewels most people can't afford demonstrating wealth.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They're also placed on the head so they can be clearly seen by others as well as hinting at a greater power from above.
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And if they happen to make you look a little taller, well that's good too.
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Another theory is that crowns may have evolved from helmets, the most powerful and important people on the battlefield having the sturdiest and most elaborate.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, nah, the thumbs up.
16:03
[SPEAKER_00]: When used in the real world, it's a gesture of approval.
16:05
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you ever wondered why we raise our thumbs to confirm or encourage things?
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The answer takes us way, way back to the fights in the Colossians of Ancient Rome.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When one warrior would best another in Glantatorial Combat, they would expectedly turn to face the most important person in attendance.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it be a city official or the Roman Emperor himself, this individual would then make a gesture to indicate the fate of the losing warrior.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thumbs up, it might surprise you to learn.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Mint Death.
16:38
[SPEAKER_00]: The thumb is thought to represent the blade and holding it up, currently meant to continue.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So the thumb's up is an affirmation, it's just, let's take a job and more.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, please do murder.
16:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So when the loser was spared, it was a thumbs down, right?
16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not exactly.
16:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, the official would place their thumb and their other hand as if they were sheething a blade.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's thought that the thumbs down came into existence because it's more immediate and easier to comprehend.
17:05
[SPEAKER_00]: One is the opposite of the other after all, and we love those sorts of things.
17:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So the next time the kid moan your yard asks if he's done a good job?
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think twice about giving him the all thumbs up.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The Yan and Yang samples have been around a long time, and fact their first use was dated back in the fourteenth century BCE.
17:24
[SPEAKER_00]: In the thirty-four hundred odd years they've been around the symbols have become strongly associated with Taoism, but also adorn the walls of yoga moms the world over.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The symbol itself represents the balance between two complementary forces, each containing a small aspect of the other.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This can be linked to many concepts such as morality and spirituality, though the visual has a surprisingly literal origin.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: as because Yen literally translates to the dark side of the mountain, while Yen translates to the light side of the mountain.
17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: The symbol can thus lead be viewed as a stylized representation of a mountain top from above.
18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I've shared it, the other bright, within climbs and slopes on each side altering the shadows.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Dang, Yen Yen, if only all the other symbols had such literal explanations, my job would be a whole lot easier.
18:15
[SPEAKER_00]: If you knew a metalhead got the remote high school, there's a good chance they've supported the inverted cross.
18:21
[SPEAKER_00]: This little symbol is spray painted on walls, hangs from necklaces, and even adorns the arms of disobedient anti-establishment individuals everywhere.
18:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever wondered where this blatantly anti-Christian symbol comes from, the answer might surprise you, because it's Christianity.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right, one of the most widely used anti-religious symbols in the world is, in fact, a religious symbol.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Specifically, it's the symbol of Saint Peter, you know, the guy outside the pearly gates.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And real-life Peter is the patron saint of Bakers, cobblers, locksmen, and other professions.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He was also one of the twelve apostles, and for his troubles was martyred.
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: How you might ask?
19:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The four is execution at the hands of the Romans Peter, apparently requested to be crucified upside down, because he felt unworthy to die the same way Christ did.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: For most of history, the inverted cross, also known as the Petring Cross, was in fact not a symbol of defiance, but a mark of devotion and sign of appreciation towards Peter.
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It was only in the twentieth century in the advent of metal music, particularly black metal, that the symbol gained its anti-Christian connotations.
19:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Likely, this was just because it makes sense as an act of rebellion to take a holy symbol and turn it upside down.
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So next time you want to annoy a metal head, compliment their devotion to St.
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What do air space engineers and bakers have in common?
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They both talk about pie all day.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, I'm here all week.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But if you don't remember your tenth grade math pie, is equal to about three point one four one.
19:59
[SPEAKER_00]: As pie can be used to figure out the area and circumference of a circle, along with many of your other circular needs, it's a very important number.
20:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Pie's discovery is attributed to our comedies of Syracuse sometime around two hundred and fifty BCE, but he didn't create this symbol.
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But that had we need look no further than a tenth-century mathematician William Jones.
20:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Jones got tired of riding pie out over and over again, so he decided to come up with a short hand.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: He settled on the Greek letter for P, which stood for a perimeter.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly what he was using the number to calculate.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: If Jones had cared more about the area, maybe we'd know the symbol as Alpha today.
20:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure all you met there's out there would hate that.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: The ampersand is a wonderful character.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This squiggly little guy can turn any two letters into an iconic brand.
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[SPEAKER_00]: For example, H&M, A&W, M&M, A&E.
20:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that last one isn't as fun as the others.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Nevertheless, it's a handy way to abbreviate the word AND, but it's kind of weird, right?
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: What does this eight with a tail have to do with the word AND?
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a lot more than you might think.
21:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The simple story started back in ancient Rome where Latin was the common parlance.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: In Latin the word Et means Anne.
21:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You may have heard it in the phrase, Et Too Bruté.
21:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the ancient equivalent of Don't Stabmebrou.
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: As Latin was a language that just were a few sit-i, writers continued to use words and phrases from it long after Rome's fall.
21:33
[SPEAKER_00]: The written et evolved over the centuries with the E and T getting more and more smooth together, likely to save room on the pages upon which it was written.
21:43
[SPEAKER_00]: While the exact date were et morphed into the modern ampersand can't be pinpointed, that's where it came from.
21:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Except not really.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We may have cracked the case for the symbol, but where the heck does that weird name come from?
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: ampersand?
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Is that Latin too?
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Far from it.
22:01
[SPEAKER_00]: In the eighteen hundreds the ampersand was at the height of its popularity, but the symbol was just called AND at the time.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The end symbol was so common in fact that it was often taught in European schools alongside the alphabet as a sort of unofficial twenty-seventh letter when writing the alphabet out and would come after Z. Teachers realized pretty quickly however that sang XYZ and and out loud was kind of awkward and didn't make learning letters any easier for kids.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So the method for reciting the alphabet became XYZ and per se and
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: per se means by itself, so the phrase was essentially there for a verbal breather.
22:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Over the years in the mounts of babbling schoolchildren and per se and eventually more than two, and per sand.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, our long winding journey with the ampersand comes to a close.
22:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Except not, because there's one more interesting symbol linked to the very same source.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The origins of the mathematical plus or addition sign can also be linked back to et.
23:04
[SPEAKER_00]: The little cross that makes up the symbol is derived from where the E and T meet.
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Makes sense, as and and plus basically mean the same thing.
23:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Before that, mathematicians often just use the letters P and M to denote plus and minus.
23:20
[SPEAKER_00]: The symbols we know today were first printed in fourteen eighty-nine and slowly gained in popularity.
23:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'm done.
23:27
[SPEAKER_00]: No more hands, etz or A per sands.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I promise.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Picture this, you're sat down in the movie theater of the lights dammit that trailer begins.
23:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Desolate Vistas, dramatic music, aging actors who really want an Oscar win before they kicked the bucket in a couple of years.
23:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Finally, the name.
23:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Be amazed, the movie.
23:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You immediately know this is a classy and important film because you keep seeing these years of corn.
23:55
[SPEAKER_00]: For some reason, strands of wheat always appear on either side of an award's name.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: What gives?
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The Farmers Union can't be that powerful.
24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: As with a few other items we've spoken about, this tradition finds its roots and antiquity.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And both ancient Greece and Rome, Laura Reaths were placed at top the heads of those considered victorious.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether you were a champion wrestler or a beloved poet, if you want a competition you'd be adorned with a bushy wreath.
24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Even Roman emperors did it, and they're often seen dining little wreaths and sculptures.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Why was this the case?
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: While I'm Greek mythology that got Apollo once fell in love with a nymph, which is kind of like a fairy.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The nymph who clearly only liked Apollo as a friend turned herself into a tree to avoid him.
24:39
[SPEAKER_00]: the tree sprang laurels which Apollo started wearing.
24:43
[SPEAKER_00]: As Apollo was typically seen as a triumph and figure the connotation stuck.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why though.
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine striking out so hard your crush turns themselves into a tree.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is also where the phrase to rest on one's laurels comes from.
24:57
[SPEAKER_00]: To rely on past achievements rather than putting in an effort.
25:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, the laurels aren't easy eye catching way of telling viewers that this is a winner.
25:05
[SPEAKER_00]: See this Christmas for the BMA's movie premiere.
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: If you live in the stage, you're probably familiar with Chick-fil-A, founded in nineteen forty-six this fast food chain is just about the only chicken business in the world able to compete with KFC.
25:19
[SPEAKER_00]: but its logo is comparatively busy and cryptic.
25:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You see most people are able to spot the rooster proudly adorning the logo C, but what you might not realize is that there are four more chickens nestled away in this loopy logo.
25:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Chick-fil-A has never claimed that this is intentional, in fact it's downright hard to spot, maybe I just have chickens on the brain.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But I definitely see more chickens than one.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got to be thankful for Toglaro.
25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Without them, what would dads around the world have received every single father's day for the last one hundred and fifteen years?
25:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The triangular chocolate bears the logo of Switzerland's iconic matterhorn.
25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But what if I told you there was something else this logo bears?
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a bear!
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: When you fill in the negative space on the mountain, you can clearly see a silhouette of a bear tucked away inside.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: This is in a random inclusion, however.
26:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a cute reference to the town the totalerone company was founded in.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Burn, which is nicknamed the City of Bayers.
26:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They even put this fell on their coat of arms.
26:20
[SPEAKER_00]: The name totalerone is a portmento of the Founders' names, in Mill and Theodore Toebler, and the Italian word for honey, Toebron.
26:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Coincidentally, Toeblerone also features the letter's B-E-R-N-N in order.
26:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It bears repeating this logo is very clever.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever seen a bumper sticker in Midwest America, you're probably aware that fish is a simple of Christianity.
26:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Next to the cross, it's one of the most widely used signifiers of faith.
26:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Why, though, was Jesus related to Aquaman?
26:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the resemblance is uncanny.
26:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the more common misconception is that the fish relates to the miracle of the multitude.
26:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The biblical event where Jesus fed a crowd of thousands of people would just a few loads of bread and some fish.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: However, that's not exactly where the faithful fish comes from.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: After all that wouldn't explain why this mysterious word, sometimes appears inside it.
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like it says, XCA.
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: But those are ancient Greek letters which sound more like XCA.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: To understand this, we need to head back once again to ancient Rome.
27:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Romans weren't big fans of Jesus or Christianity.
27:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They had their own gods and ways of doing things.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: As such early Christians were persecuted in Rome.
27:34
[SPEAKER_00]: The fish was a secret symbol used by Christians often found in catacombs and alleys, or temporarily in the dirt, signifying secret Christian meaning spots.
27:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This is because the ancient Greek word for fish is Hictus, which was an anagram for the word for Jesus at the time.
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: The thought process was that the link was tenuous enough that the authorities would associate them with one another.
27:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The XOA is more debated.
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Some claim it's a corrupted version of it this, which has occurred over the centuries.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Others believe it's a secret message.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: The letter standing for the sounds, Christos, Theo, Yosetar.
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And Greek this would mean Jesus Christ's Son of God's Savior.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, I don't know, seems a little fishy to me.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we can all agree without the at sign all our email addresses would look super weird.
28:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What will we use instead?
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The at sign, the percentage sign, the
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: The add sign, while we couldn't live without it today, have you ever wondered where the little swirly A came from?
28:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, believe it or not, this very modern symbol has a very old origin.
28:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Before the advent of the printing press in fourteen thirty-six, and for a little while after two, the easiest way to create a copy of books was to do so by hand.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Though it sounds agonizing, this was the task many monks across Europe undertook throughout the early medieval era.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: If Abbey's were wealthy enough, some would have entire halls, called scriptoriums, dedicated to the practice.
29:05
[SPEAKER_00]: As you can imagine, coming out an entire book requires a lot of ink, so it was wise to use it sparingly.
29:13
[SPEAKER_00]: As such, Monks occasionally used an A with a little circle around it instead of having to write the word add.
29:19
[SPEAKER_00]: In addition to saving a little ink, it was also a little easier on the wrist.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: First use of the ad sign outside this setting can be traced back to a letter written by Florentine Merchant Francis Colopy, all the way back in fifteen thirty-six.
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: One of he was a Gmail or Yahoo guy.