The Second Book of General Ignorance (21 page)

It wasn’t the British. Unlikely as it may sound, it was the Americans.

To keep a stiff upper lip is to remain steadfast and unemotional in the face of the worst that life can throw at you. Though long associated with Britain – and especially the British Empire – the oldest-known uses of the term are all from the USA, beginning in 1815. Americans were going around with ‘stiff upper lips’ in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s
Uncle
Tom’s Cabin
(1852) and in the letters of Mark Twain (1835–1910) and it was only towards the end of the nineteenth century that the expression first appeared in print in Britain. By 1963, when P. G.Wodehouse published his
ninth Jeeves and Wooster novel,
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves!,
the phrase, if not the concept, had become almost entirely humorous.

The idea behind the expression is that a trembling lip is the first sign you’re about to start crying. Why it should be the
upper
lip, in particular, that needs to be stiff is not clear. It may be because the saying originated in an age when most men wore moustaches, which would make shakiness more obvious in the upper lip than in the lower one; or perhaps ‘stiff bottom lip’ just sounded odd, like some obscure naval flogging offence.

Is a stiff upper lip good for you? That depends on whose research you choose to believe. Cancer Research UK recently published a survey conducted by the University of Leeds that showed that British men were 69 per cent more likely to die of cancer than women. This is due in part, they claimed, to men adopting ‘a stiff upper lip attitude to illness’: in other words, they ignore persistent symptoms and refuse to have regular check-ups.

On the other hand, psychologists in the USA, studying the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, found that – contrary to their expectations, and to popular belief – people who ‘bottled up’ their feelings suffered fewer negative mental and physical symptoms than those who were keen to talk openly about their experiences.

In Victorian times, the ‘stiff upper lip’ had a practical application: it was attached to a German contraption called the
Lebensprüfer
(‘Life-prover’). This was a device intended to prevent premature burial. Wires were clipped to the upper lip and eyelid of someone who had apparently died. A mild electrical current was sent through their body and, if the patient’s muscles twitched, you knew not to bury them quite yet.

Forty-three. (Not forty-four, as Barack Obama claimed at his inauguration.) Barack Obama is the forty-fourth president of the USA, but only the forty-third
person
to become president. This is because Grover Cleveland held the position twice – with a four-year break in between – making him both the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth president of the United States.

Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) was the only Democrat in an otherwise unbroken fifty-year run of Republican presidents from 1860 to 1912. Almost no one has a bad word to say about him. ‘He possessed honesty, courage,firmness, independence, and common sense,’ wrote one contemporary biographer. ‘But he possessed them to a degree other men do not.’

In the 1888 presidential contest Cleveland should have been elected for a second consecutive term. He actually polled more votes than John Harrison, but Republican electoral fraud in Indiana cost him the election. As she left the White House, Cleveland’s young wife Frances – at twenty-one the youngest ever First Lady, and the only one to have been married in the White House – told her staff: ‘I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again.’ When asked when that would be, she said: ‘We are coming back four years from today.’

Which is just what happened. In the 1892 campaign, universally considered the cleanest and quietest since the Civil War, Grover Cleveland beat President Harrison by a landslide. He decided not to fight for a third term, which he was then still allowed to do. (President Roosevelt served for four consecutive terms from 1932–44.) It wasn’t until the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution was passed in 1951 that presidents were limited to a maximum of two terms.

Cleveland died in 1908. His last words were: ‘I have tried so hard to do right.’

He is the only president to appear on two different $1 bills.

Despite putting a cross next to the name of the candidates on the ballot paper, the American people do not
directly elect their president and vice-president. This is done a month after the popular vote by a ‘college’ of 538 state electors, allocated according to the size of the state’s population: California (55) and Texas (34) have most;
Vermont (3) and Alaska (3) the fewest. This system dates back to the beginning of the Union and was adopted because George Washington hoped it would reduce the amount of divisive party politics.

It’s not perfect. The ‘electors’ have no power: they are a constitutional formality, pledged to vote for whichever candidate wins the popular vote in their state. Just as in British general elections, where votes don’t always translate into seats, so in America. As long as a candidate wins the eleven biggest states they can be elected president with fewer votes overall. This is how Cleveland lost in 1888 and how George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in 2000.

The USA.

Every year, the Boy Scouts of America and military veteran organisations like the American Legion burn thousands of US flags between them.

This is because Section 176(k) of the US Flag Code (a set of rules on the correct treatment of the Stars and Stripes) provides that: ‘The flag, when it is in such condition that it is no longer a fitting emblem for display, should be destroyed in a dignified way, preferably by burning.’ Flag burnings (or ‘retirements’, to use the official term) are usually held on Flag Day, 14 June.

Although the Code allows for burning the flag ‘in a dignified way’, it also warns sternly against (and lays down the legal penalties for) anyone who ‘knowingly mutilates, defaces,physically defiles, burns, maintains on the floor or ground, or tramples upon’ the flag for other, possibly nefarious reasons. However, in 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that this was a restriction of ‘freedom of speech’ and thus violated the First Amendment to the US Constitution. So, even though the US Flag Code says you mustn’t, you can legally burn the US flag in America for any reason you like.

The US Flag Code is a comprehensive document. Among other things, it sets out in precise detail how to fold the flag, showing where all of the twelve folds must be made and the symbolic reasons for each fold. It also makes it clear that the flag is not to be embroidered on to cushions or handkerchiefs;not to be ‘used as a covering for a ceiling’ or as ‘a receptacle for receiving, holding, carrying, or delivering anything’; or to be used in advertising; or to form part of a ‘costume or athletic uniform’.

Contrary to myth, the flag does not have to be burned if it ever touches the ground, and it’s perfectly OK to clean it if it gets a bit grubby, rather than rushing straight to the burning option.

The anxious concern of Americans for the well-being of their flag strikes many foreigners as faintly comical or even fetishistic. But in the USA, where the President serves as both head of state
and
head of the government, there is no symbolic
figurehead (such as a ceremonial monarch) to unite the nation. For many Americans, the flag plays that role, providing a non-partisan rallying point for all patriotic citizens,irrespective of their political differences.

That explains why the US Flag Code insists that the Stars and Stripes ‘is itself considered a living thing’.

The Netherlands.

Groningen is definitely not in Holland and, even if it were, Holland isn’t a country.

The city of Groningen is capital of the northern Dutch province of Groningen. It is one of twelve provinces into which the Netherlands is divided. ‘Holland’ refers only to the two western provinces, North Holland and South Holland, which together represent an eighth of the country’s total land mass. To call the Netherlands ‘Holland’ is like calling the UK ‘England’ or ‘the Home Counties’.

The reason Holland is commonly used in this way is that it punches above its weight in the Netherlands – both in terms of population (40 per cent), and economic and political power (the three largest cities in the Netherlands – Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague – are all in Holland). In the sixteenth century, when the Dutch navy ruled the waves, most Dutch ships came from these three ports, so any Dutchmen found abroad usually came ‘from Holland’.

‘Holland’ is from Middle Dutch
holtland
(‘wooded land’). The origin of ‘Dutch’ is more complicated. Its original meaning was ‘of the people’: the word ‘Dutch’ is a corruption
of the ancient Indo-European root
teuta
‘people’, from which we also get ‘Teutonic’. In Old High German this became
duit-isc
(‘people-ish’ or ‘the language of the people’) and was used about Germanic languages generally.

The Old English variant of
duit-isc
(‘people-ish’) was
þeodisc
(pronounced ‘thay-odd-ish’). It originally meant ‘English’ and then, in about the ninth century, came to mean ‘German’. As
þeodisc
evolved into ‘Dutch’ it continued to mean ‘German’ right up until the early sixteenth century. At that point English rivalry (and frequent war) with the Hollanders or ‘Low Dutch’ meant the word ‘Dutch’ was exclusively applied to them, usually as part of a term of abuse. Examples from the time include ‘Dutch courage’ (bravery brought on by alcohol) and ‘Dutch widow’ (a prostitute).

For this reason, even as late as 1934, Dutch government officials were advised to avoid using the expression ‘the Dutch’ in international communications, in favour of the officially sanctioned ‘of the Netherlands’.

Confusingly, but entirely logically, the Dutch word for Germans is
duitsch
.

Groningen, the Netherlands’s eighth largest city, is the Dutch equivalent of Manchester: a lively university town full of bars. Students make up more than a quarter of its 185,000 population. As Groningen is the only city of any size in the northern Netherlands, locals simply refer to it as ‘Stad’, which means ‘city’. Until Groningen’s sugar beet factory closed recently, it gave the city a distinct sweet smell during the summer.