Category: Bazaar News

Ireland’s rugged and beautiful landscape has captivated people’s imagination for generations. As picturesque as it may be, however, the North Atlantic island can be an unforgiving environment.

Before gaining independence in 1922, Ireland had been colonized for nearly 1000 years. The people had their ancient culture repressed and torn to shambles multiple times, and experienced severe poverty and famines—the longest and most devastating being the potato famine of the 1840s. 

Remembered as the Great Hunger (or Gorta Mór in Irish Gaelic), the lack of proper aid paired with layers of broken policies and a fractured response from a distant British government led to unimaginable—and likely avoidable—suffering in Ireland. Here’s how it all played out.

Although they’re a longstanding Irish staple, potatoes didn’t originate in Ireland. How exactly the tubers made it to the British Isles remains unknown; according to one popular but controversial theory, they were introduced from the Americas in 1585 by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh. 

Before the potato’s introduction, the Irish people survived off the ocean and livestock. They required vast amounts of land and resources for ranching and tremendous strength and tenacity to fish the North Atlantic. Growing potatoes, on the other hand, needed less space than tending livestock. Many Irish peasants learned to adopt the crop after land ownership shrunk into oblivion as the English confiscated and claimed their land.

Not only did potatoes thrive in Ireland’s damp and rocky environment, but they provided a bountiful and affordable crop packed with nutrients. In fact, for several generations, most Irish peasants survived on a diet of mainly spuds. 

The effect of potato-based agriculture was two-fold: It caused the country’s population to grow, but it also helped the British ruling class earn higher rental income from more Irish families living on smaller subdivided plots of land.

The ruling British government forced a slew of harsh penal laws on most of the Irish population throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. They were intended to pressure Catholics to convert to Protestantism and reduce the power of native Irish people; as such, the laws also aimed to eliminate much of Ireland’s unique cultural identity. 

These rules prevented Irish Catholics from attending mass, owning land, speaking Gaelic, practicing cultural traditions, educating their children, or traveling abroad. Further, they weren’t allowed to make money through export trade, own a horse worth more than £5, own weapons, join the military, or elect government—and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Although eradicated in 1829, the Penal Laws left generational scars felt during and long after the famine. Many rural Irish Catholics in the mid-19th century had little opportunity for advancement and only knew one reality—growing potatoes on tiny plots of land for consumption and resale.

By the 1840s, nearly half of Ireland’s people relied on a successful potato crop for survival. The dependence on one sole crop unwittingly put the Irish people in exponential danger: One bad growing season would spell disaster for millions. In 1845, this overreliance became sorely realized.

In 1844, a highly contagious fungus called blight made its way over the Atlantic from Mexico, decimating potato crops across Europe. Unlike Ireland, however, other European countries were better prepared for such an event: They had planted various types of potatoes, whereas Ireland relied on just one species.

In Ireland, the 1845 farming year began uneventfully. Peasants tended their fields and watched their crops flourish. As the weeks passed, however, it became clear that something was wrong. 

When stored properly, potatoes can be safe for consumption for up to eight months after picking. But these tubers were different. The plants’ leaves darkened and wilted. Within weeks, the smell of rot was palpable in the air as potatoes across the island quickly spoiled into blackened mush. 

It would be a hungry winter ahead, but people believed the following year’s harvest would be their salvation. They were wrong. Back-to-back potato crop failures left people starving to death. Many living along the coasts sold their fishing nets to pay rent, resorting to eating raw, bacteria-ridden shellfish found along the shores, despite the risk of dysentery. They were too weak and hungry to cook it.

Others no longer had the strength needed to battle the aggressive waves of the North Atlantic for fish—a task that requires more physical exertion than their malnourished bodies could handle. There are also accounts of people resorting to eating grass, weeds, and far worse to survive. Ultimately, Ireland endured four years of decimated potato crops, misery, and starvation.  

Under a trade rule called the Corn Law, foreign grain imports were only legal if the cost of domestic stockpiles reached a certain level of inflation. Maintaining an insular monopoly on grain markets benefited British merchants and politicians financially, whereas importing cheap grain from Europe or the Americas could severely undercut their monetary stability.

With corn prices kept artificially high but not high enough to welcome imports, low-income families across the British Isles struggled to make ends meet. British Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel saw Ireland’s failed potato crop of 1845 as a sign of an oncoming crisis and looked to readjust the Corn Laws.

Sidestepping parliament, Peel brought reserves of cheap Indian corn from the Americas to Ireland, which he planned to sell at a reduced price to feed the hungry population. Unfortunately, Peel’s Corn Law reformation was a flop. Not only were his peers enraged by his actions, but he failed to realize that Ireland didn’t have enough grain mills capable of refining the import into cornmeal for human consumption. He was soon replaced by Prime Minister Lord John Russell and Assistant Secretary to the Treasury, Charles Trevelyan.

The new government did little to continue Peel’s attempts to import and sell cheap corn. Why? Its rulers simply didn’t want to upset local grain merchants and strongly believed in a hands-off policy for social assistance issues.

Some in the British Parliament—including Trevelyan, the very man in charge of overseeing Irish relief efforts—didn’t believe in handouts and viewed the Irish people as lazy and the famine as God’s will [PDF]. Instead of offering direct relief, they hatched a public works scheme whereby destitute citizens could earn a small income building stone roads. 

But there was a catch: Only people unable to find employment elsewhere and who were physically fit enough to work were eligible hires. This rule left many of Ireland’s most vulnerable out of the picture. 

With multiple failed crop seasons, farmers desperate to support their families sought employment through these government-organized public works projects. People of all ages spent their days breaking apart stones and laying roads throughout the countryside. The workers toiled for upwards of 10 hours a day, on empty stomachs and in grueling circumstances. Many people dropped dead from exhaustion and malnutrition while working on these roads. The income they earned was meager—barely enough to pay rent. 

The British government decided to scrap the public works project in 1847, deeming it a pointless and failed endeavor. The suddenness of this decision left many workers hopelessly destitute. 

Today, those stone roads to nowhere are still visible throughout Ireland’s landscape and remain a poignant reminder of the great famine.

Around the time the public works projects ended, the British government sought ways to distance themselves financially from Ireland’s terrible situation—Britain knew the severity of the famine but didn’t want the Irish people relying on handouts from their tax dollars.

Menacing, jail-like institutions called workhouses dotted the Irish countryside. These were rooted in an older English practice: In early 17th-century England, caring for the poor became the responsibility of local parishes, who built workhouses meant to employ those in need. An 1834 amendment to Britain’s Poor Law tightened the restrictions around who could use a workhouse; under the new rules, anyone who wanted help had to live in a workhouse, and could not receive aid if they remained in their own home. Ireland instituted its own Poor Law Act in 1838, which was similar to England’s policy. The poor could seek food and shelter within dehumanizing communal living conditions. The workhouses were terrible places, where conditions were kept purposefully dismal to discourage people from actually relying on their aid.

To ensure workhouses remained a last resort option among an increasingly impoverished population, Parliament amended the law in 1847 to save themselves money and limit workhouse intake. Under the new rules, anyone who held more than a quarter of an acre of land was ineligible for workhouse relief.

Starved of food and out of options, many Irish families felt they had no choice but to give up their tiny plots of land to seek help from these overrun institutions. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they gave up their homes, many were turned away due to overcapacity.

As a result of this ballooning vagrant population, Britain turned their attention to the landlords and Anglo-ruling elite in Ireland, declaring that they should be the ones to finance the Irish poor. Under the new rules Trevelyan had introduced in the Poor Law Extension Act, Irish taxpayers were expected to foot the bill. Those who couldn’t pay had their personal belongings expropriated. Uncollected taxes quickly became the responsibility of already cash-strapped landlords to repay on behalf of every tenant living on their land. 

Many landlords feared going destitute themselves and sought to get rid of as many tenants as possible. After all, if no people lived on their property, they wouldn’t have to pay for them.

Rampant mass eviction became commonplace, with entire villages left abandoned as people struggled to survive by the roadside or in dugout hovels.

In 1846, Quakers from the United States and Britain began helping the Irish population, an act they viewed as a Godly responsibility. The Quakers gathered clothing, money, and seeds to hand out to famine victims, and in an attempt to feed the growing number of starving Irish people, they became the first to provide soup missions across the country. The Quakers struggled to keep up with demand, though they carried on as best they could.

By February 1847, the British government also began offering soup to those in need.  The Soup Kitchen Act replaced the failed public works projects and was funded by local taxation. It was a temporary measure that allowed workhouses to provide aid outside their walls—formerly a forbidden action. The meager rations and cornmeal soup they offered allowed people to temporarily avoid death by starvation. But because the soup had little nutritional value in it, people remained dangerously weak; many suffered from scurvy. 

Historians have deemed the soup kitchens an overall success—at their peak, they served 3 million people per day—though they certainly weren’t perfect. They were a costly endeavor and were never meant to be permanent. Though millions of people relied on them, the government began closing the soup kitchens in August of 1847.

It wasn’t long before rumors swirled among the masses. Though many Irish people used the soup kitchens, some avoided them altogether due to a deep distrust of the British government and ruling elite and a belief that they’d be forcibly converted to Protestantism in return for food.

Withholding soup based on religious doctrine was uncommon, at least at government-run institutions. It was, however, an issue at some privately run outreach sites like the Achill Mission. Nonetheless, the damaging effects of these rare occurrences caused broad-reaching paranoia among a vulnerable and traumatized population.

For those unlucky enough to find themselves at the mercy of these irregular soup missions, converting to Protestantism for soup would be an unforgivable endeavor. The few who did were shunned as traitors and coined “soupers” for life.

Forever etched into the collective psyche of the Irish people,1847—otherwise known as “Black ’47”—was the perfect storm and brought unimaginable horrors, particularly in the south and west of the island. Many Irish families, now homeless, starved for proper food for two years in a row, and weakened by rampant disease, were dying en masse by the roadside. It was one of the worst winters in living memory.

Missionaries and officials who dared to visit the island nation in 1847 were left horrified and haunted by the sights they encountered. “Famished and ghastly skeletons, to all appearances dead, were huddled in a corner on some filthy straw … I approached with horror and found by a low moaning they were alive—they were in fever, four children, a woman, and what had once been a man,” wrote magistrate Nicholas Cummins upon touring the town of Skibbereen.

Many people died that year, while many more fled Ireland forever, making it the darkest year in the potato famine.

It’s believed that the great famine took more than 1 million lives. Not only did many people suffer the pain of starvation, which can take several agonizing weeks to succumb to, but many more died from disease. The horrendous living conditions of the peasant poor, where large families shared cramped, damp, and dirty quarters, sometimes with livestock, became a breeding ground for sicknesses. Simply referred to as “fever,” several devastating epidemics swept through the country during the famine, including typhus, smallpox, dysentery, and recurring fever, to name a few.

Exported goods such as grain, beef, honey, beans, and an array of other food items grown for profit continued to pour out of the island for foreign consumption. As roughly three-quarters of Ireland’s land was dedicated to profit crops grown on the free market, several have argued that Ireland could have avoided the intensity of the famine if exports had been halted or lessened.

But they weren’t. Instead, crop exports guarded by the British army continued on their way to various British destinations—all while millions of people suffered and starved.

With the government refusing to close the ports, local populations watched as boatloads of home-grown food left their shores. Not only was there a ruling belief among the government in London that the Irish people should sort out food shortages themselves, but, with money and trade on the table, there was no popular support for stopping the cash flow. Business is business, after all.

Imports into Ireland also steadily continued, but they were mainly in the form of corn feed for livestock or were highly priced goods far out of the financial reach of most people.

Facing starvation, disease, and few prospects at home, over 1 million Irish people looked to escape by any means possible. Those who could afford it boarded ships headed to England, Australia, Canada, and most often, America. 

Those lucky enough to escape would quickly discover new horrors aboard crowded ships overflowing with hundreds of sick and dying compatriots. Drifting at sea for weeks and sometimes months, steerage passengers had to contend with poor ventilation, constant darkness, no bathroom, and no space to move about. 

On top of this, numerous ships were ill-prepared for the journey. Some of the worst vessels were unable to provide enough food or medical care for the crossing. By the time some of these vessels—notoriously known as coffin ships—made landfall, up to half of their passengers were either buried at sea or lying dead among the barely living. 

Those who survived the journey quickly realized they were often unwelcome in their newfound homes, where they became the target of hate and anti-Irish sentiment. There was a language barrier—many Irish people only understood Irish Gaelic—and in places like the United States, obtaining decent work or housing was nearly impossible because many opportunities were closed off to Irish immigrants.

With few options and little support, many Irish immigrants remained stuck in a cycle of poverty and crime. It wasn’t until the American Civil War that the luck of the Irish people changed; several took the opportunity to enlist in the army, a move that helped them integrate and find social acceptance.

Now, there are more Irish people in America than in Ireland itself. Ireland, on the other hand, still has a smaller population than before the famine.

On December 16, 1931, Nell Donnelly found out her life was worth exactly $75,000.

Donnelly, a prominent Kansas City fashion designer whose clothing could be found in closets all over the country—and whose financial success was well-known—had been bound and driven to a dilapidated house, where she and her chauffeur, George Blair, were held against their will. She was given a dire warning: Either her family would deliver $75,000—worth roughly $1.3 million today—or the kidnappers would kill Blair. Donnelly would be spared, they said. Instead of killing her, they’d merely blind her.

Donnelly and Blair were undoubtedly terrified. But the two would soon discover that help was coming from the very same criminal underworld that had put them in their predicament. And some 80 years later, the world would learn that Donnelly harbored a secret—one that would heavily influence how one of the most sensational kidnappings of the 1930s would unfold.

The Great Depression, which began in 1929 and lasted for about 10 years, was a time of extreme economic desperation: At the peak of the downturn, the unemployment rate in the United States was more than 20 percent. Circumstances became so dire that some citizens were propelled to turn to crime—kidnappings in particular became the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme, and thousands were carried out in what became a virtual epidemic. The abduction of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s infant son in March 1932 was the highest-profile example, but anyone of means could be a target. And Nell Donnelly certainly fit the criteria.

Born Ellen Quinlan on March 6, 1889, Donnelly first drew attention in 1916 for her ruffled dress designs, which became popular as a contrast to the plain cotton dresses common in pre-World War I America. Stylish attire was usually more expensive, but Donnelly’s Nelly Don label offered flair for a modest premium—a Nelly Don dress might cost $1 compared to 69 cents for a comparatively drab outfit. The styles and textiles were inspired by her trips to Paris and Vienna, but she kept them pragmatic: Most Nelly Dons, as they were called, had pockets. Donnelly also recognized a need for attractive clothing for customers of all sizes, fashioning dresses not just for trim consumers but for anyone who wanted them.

Sales soared; her Donnelly Garment Company would eventually grow into a $3.5 million business employing over 1000 people, most of them women. But Donnelly’s business acumen went beyond knowing what her buyers wanted. Despite the economic strain of the Great Depression, she treated her employees equitably, offering pension plans, health insurance, and paid tuition for workers looking to further their education. She also established a scholarship fund for the children of her employees.

On the surface, her domestic life seemed as orderly as her business affairs. Donnelly was married to husband and business partner Paul Donnelly, with the two permanently relocating to Kansas City after Nell graduated from Lindenwood College in St. Charles, Missouri. The couple and their adopted son, David, settled into a life of social prominence.

Unfortunately, Donnelly’s social stature and success made her a target. On the evening of December 16, 1931, she exited her office and climbed into a car driven by her chauffeur, George Blair. As they arrived home, the entrance to the driveway was suddenly blocked by another vehicle. A man appeared in front of the car holding a gun. He quickly entered Donnelly’s car and subdued Blair by forcing him to the floor.  In the back seat, Donnelly struggled with two men attempting to put a sack over her head. Realizing she was being kidnapped, she began to kick and scream.

Donnelly and Blair were soon ushered out of their own car and into another vehicle. Donnelly was far from a docile victim—she managed to kick the car door open at one point. After roughly an hour or so of driving, they arrived at a modest cottage doubling as a safe house, one in which her kidnappers would plot their next move.

“We took you because we want money,” Donnelly later claimed they told her. “We are not going to hurt you if you will do as we tell you. We will treat you all right, but we want $75,000.” Donnelly was ordered to write her own ransom note, in which she communicated their demand for money or else they’d kill Blair and blind her. Grievous injury was also promised if anyone contacted the police. Donnelly told them she didn’t want to address the note to her husband, Paul, who had been ill for weeks and wasn’t in the shape to receive such news.

Eventually, she agreed to write one to Paul and one to James E. Taylor, the family’s personal attorney. Then Blair and Donnelly were taken to a room where he was bound on a cot and blindfolded with a towel. Donnelly was allowed to lay on a bed but was not blindfolded, as she had promised not to look at any of the abductors. Their captors provided milk and crackers.

The next morning’s mail delivered the note to Taylor. The lawyer had initially dismissed a call notifying him that Donnelly’s car had been abandoned at a Kansas City theater, but the letter was a clear signal that someone had taken her. Now aware this was no joke, Taylor raced over to consult with Donnelly’s husband, Paul, who was shocked by the news. While he had taken note of his wife’s absence the evening before, he assumed she had gone out with friends and would be home after he fell asleep. “What is done now means the difference between life and death,” Paul told reporters. “We must find a way to get the $75,000 into the hands of those men who are holding my wife. If more is needed we’ll get it. But let’s have her released at once.”

Paul and Taylor decided to enlist Taylor’s law partner James Reed, a former U.S. senator and onetime mayor of Kansas City from 1900 to 1903; he had even run for presidential office in 1924 and 1928. Not only that, Reed was a neighbor of the Donnellys and a family friend. But requesting Reed’s help had an unintended consequence: When Reed asked to be excused from court to come to the Donnellys’ aid, he inadvertently tipped off reporters to the kidnapping. Police quickly arrived on the scene, and the kidnappers’ preference for a private transaction was out the window.

Reed, feeling a sense of urgency, did two things: He made a public proclamation that the ransom would be paid providing no harm came to Donnelly and Blair, and he made a crucial phone call. In addition to all of his political connections, Reed also had a line to the criminal underworld. He called Johnny Lazia, a notorious Kansas City organized crime boss with strong ties to local government, and barked out a demand. Either Lazia could use his manpower to help search for Donnelly, or Reed would begin a campaign to shame Lazia publicly and go after his criminal enterprise with whatever legal means he had at his disposal.

It was a kind of blackmail, albeit for a noble cause. Lazia agreed. Quickly, Kansas City was overrun with hoods knocking on doors and colluding with one another to find out if anyone in their criminal circle had kidnapped Donnelly. They patrolled the city in cars, guns hanging from their hips, as though they had been deputized.

While Lazia’s patrol canvassed neighborhoods, Kansas City police were short on leads and opted to put pressure on Savannah Blair, the wife of driver and victim George Blair. Officers were reported to have physically assaulted Savannah in an attempt to extract information before she was arrested. When a neighbor tried to intervene, he, too, was attacked. It was a futile and cruel episode that demonstrated that Reed may have had the right idea about enlisting Lazia rather than to trust police to settle the matter.

Roughly 34 hours into the ordeal, some of Lazia’s underlings were able to discern that the kidnapping victims were being housed in a farm near Edwardsville, Kansas. The kidnappers were told in no uncertain terms that the crime had not been blessed by Lazia and was therefore a fool’s errand, and they’d never get away with it.

The men were convinced. Soon, Donnelly heard an unfamiliar voice. “These are out of town men,” the strange man said. “They made a mistake.” The blindfolded Donnelly and Blair were then guided into a waiting car, driven to the outskirts of Kansas City, and dropped off, where police acting on an anonymous phone call tip retrieved them unharmed at roughly 4:30 p.m. on December 18. But the story was far from over.

Back home, Donnelly was able to make a positive identification of one of her kidnappers: Martin Depew, a steam shovel operator.

Curiously, Depew’s wife, Ethel, was a nurse who had been to the Donnelly residence a year prior to attend to Paul. It’s possible that’s when a plan to squeeze the family for money was hatched and that perhaps Paul was Depew’s initial target before they stumbled upon Nell. Depew was tracked down in South Africa and extradited to the U.S. in 1932, and later given a life sentence (though he would be released when he came up for parole in 1947). Walter Werner, one of his accomplices who also fled to South Africa, was given a life sentence as well, with his defense resting on the argument he believed the kidnapping had all been a harmless publicity stunt approved by a “banker and an attorney for Mrs. Donnelly’s husband.” Charles Mele, the third kidnapper, got a comparatively light 35-year sentence.

Donnelly’s recovery caused a media firestorm: Her accounts of being held hostage and threatened took up inches of newspaper space and raised her profile even more. The incident also seemed to strengthen her bond with George Blair, whom she promised a job for life.

Her relationship with Paul was a different story. In November 1932, about a year after the kidnapping, the Donnellys divorced; Nell purchased Paul’s stake in her company.

The next year, Nell remarried, exchanging vows with none other than the man who had been her savior—James Reed. Nell was 44 at the time; Reed, 72. Decades later, members of Nell’s family would disclose that Nell and Reed had a preexisting relationship, one that predated the kidnapping and resulted in a son, David. Nell and Paul had “adopted” David to raise as their own rather than risk a public scandal.

It was Reed’s affection for Nell that likely provoked him into taking the highly unusual step of turning to the criminal underworld for help after her abduction. He was searching not only for a family friend, but his son’s mother. Without that emotional investment and Lazia’s pressure, it’s unknown whether Kansas City police would have been successful in locating Donnelly and Blair, or if kidnappers would have delivered on their gruesome promises.

After the abduction, Donnelly’s success continued to grow. In 1935, Forbes described her as probably the most successful businesswoman in America. She remained married to Reed until his death in 1944; she lived until the age of 102.

Johnny Lazia didn’t quite share in their happy ending. Though he continued to amass power and influence in Kansas City, even using his jurisdictional ties to help staff local police with former criminals, he couldn’t avoid the violence that the underworld thrives on: He was gunned down in 1934. Although the killers were never captured, it seemed that the criminal circle that had once spared Nell Donnelly’s life was all too happy to take Lazia’s.

While you might not think of your daily bowel movements as a potential source of extra income, it turns out that you could be flushing good money down the drain right now.

That’s because Seres Therapeutics, a biotechnology company and research facility, is offering up to $1500 per month for stool donations through its GoodNature Program.

The company aims to study stool samples from healthy adults between the ages of 18 to 50 to advance therapies for C. difficile infections. This bacterium can cause hard-to-treat gastrointestinal issues that may lead to diarrhea and colitis (inflammation of the colon), and that could be potentially fatal for some if left untreated. Up to 30,000 Americans die from chronic C. difficile infections every year.

Essentially, this program is one of the few instances where sitting on the toilet could actually help save lives. But the criteria are selective. The GoodNature Program wants only the best of the best poop from eligible donors who fit the following requirements, as listed below:

If you think you’ve got what it takes to donate, just fill out this online survey and the people at the GoodNature Program will contact you if you’re eligible. It pays between $25 to $75 per visit (depending on which area you go to), for up to $1500 per month. You could even get a bonus for donating more than three days per week.

Samples are dropped off onsite (in a restroom) at one of the research facilities. Unlike past programs (like this one at the University of California, San Diego), mail-in donations are not accepted. Along with stool samples, the GoodNature Program may also draw blood from you once every two to six weeks. All in all, it’s not exactly the crappiest way to make a few extra bucks.

[h/t Lifehacker]

Nothing makes a person feel more like a flivver than getting too peloothered and waking up with the woofits. Any self-respecting beezer around during the early 20th century wouldn’t need a dictionary to decipher this intro, but you might.

Here are 20 colorful slang terms from the 1910s.

Everyone knows someone who loves to be the voice of opposition. To us, they’re a hater or a contrarian. To our early 20th-century counterparts, they were an againster.

An Annie Oakley was a free ticket to a performance or sporting event. According to the famous sharpshooter herself, the phrase was coined by baseball player Ban Johnson.

“A man was brought to him one day,” she recounted in a 1922 newspaper interview, “who had rented out his baseball pass. Ban Johnson looked at it, filled with neat holes, and suggested that the man had been letting me use it for a target.”

While we’re on baseball, a bean ball was a pitch chucked straight at the batter’s head. Getting beaned by anything—a shoe, a fist, etc.—meant you got walloped in the head by it.

In the 1910s, beezer could either refer to an intelligent person or a nose. The origins of both senses are unclear, but the former is believed to hail from Scotland.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, James Justinian Morier’s 1834 novel Ayesha, The Maid of Kars popularized the word bosh—from the Turkish for “empty, worthless”—among English speakers. Victorians used it as a noun or interjection meaning “nonsense.” Bosher, which came along later, described a person who talked bosh.

It’s extremely chucklesome that a bunch of people in Poland once mistook a croissant in a tree for a terrifying beast. (In other words, it’s funny.)

Conchie was an (often derisive) abbreviation for conscientious objector popular in the UK during World War I. It was later used in reference to men who refused to serve in World War II, too.

Flivver was used as both a noun that described a cheap car or plane and a verb that described going somewhere in a flivver. But it could also more broadly refer to any failure, be it a thing or a person. Pretty versatile for a term whose provenance is a mystery.

During World War I, it wasn’t uncommon for a soldier to call their rifle (or any gun) a “hipe.” It’s been suggested that the term started out as an unspecific utterance that military leaders shouted in place of the word arms during commands—a theory slightly less strange when you understand how hut became so popular in the military (and football).

World War I soldiers were also known to shout “Imshi!” to get someone to go away—derived from the Arabic for “go away!”

In the 19th century, a jake was “a rustic lout or simpleton,” per the OED. But by the 1910s, people had started to use the term as an adjective meaning “excellent, admirable, fine.” Australians and New Zealanders favored slightly jazzier spin-offs: jakeloo, jakealoo, and jakerloo.

Someone leading an untroubled, happy life in the early 20th century was said to be living the life of Riley. Though the surname’s popularity makes it hard to pinpoint which Riley or Reilly inspired the expression (the real McCoy has the same issue), there are theories. One is that it came from a song written in the 1880s by Irish vaudevillian Pat Rooney called “Is That Mr. Reilly?” In the chorus, people greet the titular Reilly—a self-proclaimed “man of renown”—as such:

“Is that Mr. Reilly, can anyone tell?
Is that Mr. Reilly that owns the hotel?
Well if that’s Mr. Reilly they speak of so highly,
Upon me soul, Reilly, you’re doing quite well.”

This track doesn’t mention the phrase the life of Reilly in so many words, but an older Irish folk song does. In it, Willie Reilly risks execution for allegedly abducting Colleen Bawn (one of several variations of her name), who saves his life by asserting that she loves him—and fleeing home to be with him was her idea. The two presumably live happily ever after.

In today’s meme-speak, any animal that exceeds expectations when it comes to size—be it a bunny or a human baby—might be called an “absolute unit.” It’s also a lunker.

Nineteenth-century Americans were fond of calling melodrama “mellerdrammer,” which eventually got shortened to meller. Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is 21st-century meller at its best.

During the late Victorian era, the single youths of London’s East End took to strolling up and down Bow Road in droves to mix and mingle with each other—prompting people to nickname the road “Monkey’s Parade.” By the early 20th century, the custom had caught on in other neighborhoods, and people had started calling any such gathering a “monkey parade.” British writer Edwin Pugh described a monkey parade in colorful detail in his 1914 story collection The Cockney at Home: “It’s a place where the elite of the beau monde of Suburbia meet nightly, for purposes of flirtation. It’s generally a big main thoroughfare. The fellahs and the girls wink and smirk as they pass, and break hearts at two yards with deadly precision.”

Of all the slang coined during the Great War, French expressions mispronounced by British troops may be the funniest. Il n’y en a plus or il n’y a plus—translated as “there is no more”—became napoo. It described something (or someone) that was finished or dead, not unlike kaput. Too bad the term napoo is now napoo.

Peloothered was an Irish term for drunk that may have derived from blootered, an earlier word used to the same effect. James Joyce described the character Tom Kernan as “peloothered” in Dubliners. (Kernan cops to the accusation.)

Per the OED, any “thankless or fruitless task that involves getting wet through” could be considered Saltash luck. In Saltash, a riverside town in Cornwall, UK, fishers “sat by the ferry … for hours, and caught nothing but colds,” according to Rick Jolly’s Jackspeak: A Guide to British Naval Slang and Usage. 

And if you fail to come home with a fresh catch for dinner, you could say your fishing attempts were “up to putty” or just “upter”—early 20th-century Australian slang for “worthless” or “futile.”

There are plenty of evocative old terms to describe depression or malaise. Among them is woofits, which could be brought on by anything from drinking too much to not sleeping enough.

Some people are forever in search of greener grass, eager to shake up their routine by relocating. For some, that means moving to another state. For others, it means exchanging their currency or even learning a new language to relocate to another country.

If wanderlust is a factor for you, a new online calculator from insurance company William Russell may be able to help. The program offers a rough estimate of what it would cost to relocate you from the U.S. or UK to a number of countries, including Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Canada, and more.

The site factors in basic expenses like one-way travel and shipping your belongings. The most inexpensive change would be from the U.S. to Canada, where it may be as little as $659; Mexico is also cheap at $813; heading to the UK wouldn’t be much more at $840.

The farther away a country is, the more expensive a move will be. New Zealand, for example, could run you over $2000. So would Australia.

Obviously, there are many variables to relocation, and data may not reflect real-world conditions like shipping rate increases, connecting flights, and other expenses. Additionally, the ongoing cost of living is the real question mark. Switzerland may run about $1173 in moving costs, but living in what’s considered one of the most expensive countries in the world, with somewhat reasonable rent but high income taxes, can be challenging; costs also rise exponentially for families. Greener grass isn’t cheap.

[h/t William Russell]