That’s Why We Do That! The Uncommon Origins of Common Habits
Updated: Aug. 14, 2024
These things seem so commonplace, we barely think about them. But how did they get started, exactly?
Little-known facts about common habits
Ever wondered why we use candles when we sing “Happy Birthday,” or why we wear diamond rings? We found out the origins and most interesting facts about eight common habits that you’ve probably never stopped to think about. Not only will you feel a little smarter, you’ll never look at these customs the same way again!
Walking 10,000 steps (or aiming to!)
This benchmark of maintaining good health started with one of the first personal fitness pedometers. The Manpo-kei hit the market in the 1960s, around the time the Tokyo Olympics boosted public interest in fitness. Its name, which translates to “10,000 steps meter,” was a catchy marketing move by manufacturer Yamasa, since theJapanese character for 10,000 (万) looks a lot like a person walking.
While hoofing it obviously improves health, the target of 10,000 steps was never based on actual science. However, several recent studies have proved it to be mostly true. Research shows that middle-aged men and women who walk at least 8,000 steps per day were about half as likely to die prematurely from heart disease or develop dementia. Also, amblers had a greater likelihood of dodging strokes as well as 13 types of cancer.
Counterintuitively, anything over 10,000 didn’t produce much additional benefit, but even walking a total of just 3,000 or 4,000 steps on top of your daily routine can lower your risk of premature death by about 40%. So what are you waiting for? Lace up a pair of sneakers and get out there!
Having escape-release latches inside car trunks
A few nights before Halloween 1995, Janette and Greig Fennell had just pulled into their garage in Northern California when two armed men forced them into the trunk of their Lexus. As they headed south, Janette clawed at the carpeting, exposing wires, trying to see what had become of their baby, Alex, who was in the backseat at the time of the abduction.
Eventually the car stopped, andthe kidnappers opened the trunk just long enough to get the Fennells’ jewelry, bank cards and PINs. Then they slammed it shut on the Fennells and fled. Luckily Janette noticed a light coming through the opening where she’d ripped through to the wires. She started pulling at the cables until one of them released the trunk. They were now free. But their baby was gone.
After the couple’s frantic call to 911 from a pay phone, police went to the Fennells’ house and found Alex cooing on the front porch in his car seat, where the kidnappers had left him. Janette researched similar stories and learned that many people were not so lucky. Some kidnapping victims held captive in trunks were eventually murdered. Just as distressing, some kids got stuck in trunks and died from overheating.
Janette set out to lobby politicians and the media as part of a tireless campaign to require all new cars to include escape releases in their trunks. The federal government agreed and in 1999 mandated that all cars, starting in 2001, must come equipped with a trunk-release latch. As for the Lexus? It found a home in a Toyota museum in Southern California. When Alex was older, he went to see it.
Putting candles on birthday cakes
Credit for our festive birthday candles likely goes to the ancient Greeks. They purportedly made cakes adorned with candles to honor Artemis, the goddess of the moon and the hunt. The round shape of the cakes was a tribute to the moon, and the lit candles made the confections glow like the moon’s surface. It’s said that when the candles were blown out, the smoke helped ward off evil spirits or carried prayers to the gods on Mount Olympus.
How birthday candles progressed from Zeus to present day is a little more obscure. One theory puts them at pagan celebrations. Pagan and other cultures believed bad spirits visited people on their birthdays, so candles and a room full of friends were necessary to protect the birthday boy or girl.
A few hundred years later, birthday candles resurfaced in Germany, where the custom developed of adding one candle on the cake for each year of a person’s life, plus one extra candle in the middle for good fortune in the year to come. Hundreds of years after that, we’re still lighting up our birthday celebrations.
Going through airport security
In the late 1960s, airplane hijackings were common. More than 50 planes were highjacked in the United States in 1968 and 1969 alone. These incidents never resulted in serious injuries, so they were mostly viewed as a nuisance, after which passengers would typically get free drinks and a good story to tell. But in 1970, an Eastern Airlines commuter flight changed everything.
On St. Patrick’s Day, passengers were smoking cigarettes on their $21 flight from Newark to Boston. (One passenger, noted the Boston Globe, was flipping through a Reader’s Digest, lingering on an article titled “Is There a Substitute for God?”) A man with a gun gained entrance to the cockpit and shot both the pilot and co-pilot. Though mortally wounded, the co-pilot seized the gun from the would-be hijacker, shooting and wounding him, while the pilot, shot through both arms, managed to land the plane.
Congress reacted swiftly, holding hearings just two days later regarding new airport security measures. Soon there were 2,000 undercover and armed sky marshals aboard select flights, and by 1973 all passengers had to go through security screenings. Those ended up being the largest airline security changes until another fateful day, Sept. 11, 2001, when three other Boston and Newark flights ended in tragedy.
Using plastic bags
In 1959 a Swedish engineer who was lamenting the destruction of forests invented a product he thought would save the planet: plastic bags. They were stronger and cheaper than paper, and included convenient handles. Creator Sten Gustaf Thulin always carried one folded up in his back pocket to reuse as needed. He expected everyone else would do the same.
But his creation was far more popular than he ever dreamed. By 1979, single-use plastic accounted for 80% of bags in Europe. By 1982, two major U.S. supermarket chains, Safeway and Kroger, had switched over, and from there, plastic bags quickly spread around the globe. Worldwide, we now use around 500 billion plastic bags a year.
Ironically, Thulin’s invention—meant to save the environment—has contributed to marine plastic pollution that is expected to outweigh all the fish in the ocean by 2050.
Wearing diamond engagement rings
Giving diamond engagement rings is a ritual we rarely question, thanks in part to a then-31-year-old American advertising copywriter named Mary Frances Gerety. She came up with the catchphrase “A Diamond Is Forever” in 1947 as part of a marketing campaign launched by Britain’s De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd.
Sitting on a diamond lode in South Africa, De Beers set about persuading young men and women that diamonds were a crucial measure of love. The marketing campaign even went so far asto dictate how many months’ salary the prospective groom should spend on an engagement ring. In the 1930s, that figure was one month’s salary. Today, says the wedding website The Knot, the price of showing one’s affection has risen to three months’ salary.
The campaign worked. Before World War II, just 10% of American brides donned diamond rings. Today, that number is 75%.
Having tamper-evident packaging
Those foil seals and breakable plastic rings on over-the-counter medications are infuriating to open. But when they hit the market in 1982, the country gave a collective sigh of relief. That’s because just six weeks earlier, seven people in the Chicago area had died from ingesting Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide.
Whoever did it slipped the poison into the bottles sometime after they had left the factory, probably after they were stocked at retail stores. (No one was ever charged with the murders, and the prime suspect, James Lewis, died in 2023.)
In response, manufacturer Johnson & Johnson recalled more than 31 million bottles of Tylenol nationwide, then quickly set out to develop and deploy tamper-evident packaging. Their solution included a lining underneath the cap of bottles so consumers could easily tell if the product had already been opened. Most other food and drug companies followed suit, and the new packaging was quickly mandated by the FDA.
Saying “pardon my French”
You know something juicy is about to be said when someone utters the phrase “pardon my French.” For a century, we’ve used the idiom to excuse profanity. But why are the French the target? Blame it on the English.
Only 20 miles of water—but an ocean of bitterness—separate France from England. Culture, land … they’ve fought over it all. Tensions hit an especially acute high in 1066, when French patriot William the Conqueror invaded England and seized the throne. Soon the language of British aristocracy swung toward French, and thoughit eventually swung back, about 7,000 French words remain in the vocabulary.
Because of this, “pardon my French” was originally meant as a way to apologize for French words someone was using that English speakers might not understand. But when feuds flared, anything rude started to be deemed “French.” Even leaving a party improperly became known as a French exit.
Oh, well. C’est la vie.
