If you said Winston Churchill's famous March 5, 1946 speech in
Fulton, Missouri, you're wrong!

Several people using the phrase “iron curtain” were quoted in the
media in the years before 1946. The earliest recorded use of “iron
curtain” was from Ethel Snowden, the wife of labor leader Philip
Snowden. She used it in a 1920 book titled “Through Bolshevik
Russia”. It is not clear if she coined the phrase. The phrase
appeared in the media again in 1924. A 1945 appearance of the phrase
was attributed to Josef Goebbels, the German propaganda minister.

However, it was Churchill's speech that made the term a lasting
part of history, outliving the Soviet Union!

When they shot a movie scene, why did they snap the two boards
together after they said “Murder scene 2, Take 4” CRACK! Or
“Love scene 3, take 5” CRACK!

What was that device called?
=====================================================
You can catch this in old movies that included the making of
a movie as part of the story!

The device was called clap sticks and it was attached to a slate.
The slate had the scene name and number written on it.

Movies had the early sound track recorded (actually exposed with
light) right on the film along side the visual picture frames.

Most of us know that the sound track and the picture can get out
of synchronization (sync). We have heard this many times on TV
and at the movies (assuming your old enough! – With digital control,
it has become less frequent.)

When they first edit film from different strips, each strip can have
the sound “image” in a slightly different place on the film with
respect to the appropriate picture frame.

The CRACK from the clap sticks is very loud and very sharp. When
the sound is “exposed” on the film audio track it makes a very
distinct and crisp spike image [which you can see].

First, the film editor looks for the particular picture frame where
the closing clap sticks just touch. Then he looks for the sound
“spike” image on the audio portion of the film track. Since he
can literally “see” the exposed spike sound image he can exactly
line it up with the visual clap sticks! Presto! The picture and
sound for that clip will now be in sync and in sync with each
successive splice he/she sets up!

Some studios put a little switch in the clap sticks that set off a
loud buzzing horn to create the visible sound spike.

Quiet on the set! Hooooooooooonk!

Also . . . What other tin ___ “slang” can you think of?

Tin Pan Alley is a district or street where composers and publishers
congregate, hang out or have offices. The term first appeared in
print in 1908, (Hampton’s Broadway Magazine). In New York it was 28th
Street and in London it was Denmark Street.

Tin Pan Alley also refers to the body of composers and publishers.

Tin pan use to be slang for an old beat-up piano.
--------------------------------
Tin hat an army helmet (1903)
Tin can a naval destroyer (no date)
Tin horn someone who pretends to have money (1885)
Tinny cheap, junky (no date)
Tin man a movie character in the Wizard of Oz

We also used tin man phase (in industry) for a project that
progressed one step beyond the straw man phase.

There was never a real Aunt Jemima but there was an impersonator!

Chris Rutt came up with the pancake mix in the 1880s and was looking
for a gimmick to sell it. Rutt saw a minstrel show with a fellow
impersonating a black southern cook. The person was dancing to a
song called “Aunt Jemima”. He took the name and hired a woman named
Nancy Green to impersonate Aunt Jemima. Green played that roll until
her death at age 89 in 1923.

There was never a real Betty Crocker. Her name was created to
answer letters with baking questions that women sent to General
Mills (then called Washburn Crosby Co.). Later, her image was
created from different features of various women that worked in
the baking department.

There was a Betty Crocker voice on the radio during the 1930s and
during the war in the 1940s.

The interesting thing about the Betty Crocker image was that it
was constantly updated, and she got younger in each rendition.

There was a real Duncan Hines. He wrote a book in the 1930s about
restaurants on American Highways and the book was a big success.
Restaurants sought out the prized sign “Recommended by Ducan Hines.”

He was such a hit and so well respected that he teamed up with Roy
Park to form the Hines-Park Food, Inc. Because the Hines name was
so respected, their cake mix grabbed 48% of the market in only 3
weeks.

There is conjecture about this . . . Here is my story.

As a young boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I remember that
it was not called pizza. The neon signs flashing in all the pizzeria
windows in southern CT spelled out APIZZA! I guess that it makes the
word pizza and aphetic of apizza.

While my family was not of Italian heritage, we lived in multi-
ethnic neighborhoods and my parents probably learned the word
from Italian neighbors. Whenever we went out for “pizza” they
would order “ah-beets” with scamozza. I have no Idea what the
real spelling of “ah-beets” should be but I assume it was their
understanding of the Italian pronunciation of Apizza. In any case,
I never used the word pizza until I went off to college in ‘61.

Later, I asked my father-in-law (who was of Italian Heritage)
what “ah-beets” meant. He said that he thought it meant “the pie”.
Indeed Frank Pepe’s in New Haven still calls them “tomato pies”.
Frank Pepe’s was reputed to be the oldest pizzeria in the United
States and has a unique coal fired brick oven (1922). This is real
pizza! (A NYC pizzeria claims 1908 and is coal fired.)

For fear of alienating our friends from Chicago, I should note
that Chicago may be the thick crust capital of the world but
New Haven is the thin crust capital of the world!

I looked up the word once in an Italian-English dictionary and it
called pizza “a savory Neapolitan bun”.

Merriman-Webster suggests it might be of Germanic origin, from
the Old High German words of bizzo or pizzo for bite or bit.
Bizan, to bite.

Why brick ovens? It turns out that brick transfers heat to dough
at just the right rate so as to cook the center and not burn the
outside. By the way, coal gives a better heat (+950F different
infrared spectrum) than wood fired. Today, pollution laws make
new coal ovens prohibitive to build.

In the old days, you could see right into the brick ovens from your
seat. As kids, we were intrigued watching the cheese (excuse me
- the scazzoma) through the shimmering red heat, bubble up into
giant blisters while it was still in the oven.