Nevermind debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart on January 11, 1992. The album dethroned Michael Jackson's Dangerous, which had held the number one spot for four weeks in a row. Nevermind was dethroned a week later by country superstar Garth Brooks' Ropin' the Wind, the year's top album. Nevermind remained at the top of the charts for one more week in February 1992, just before Brooks took over for another eight weeks.
When Nevermind was released, Geffen only sent 46,521 copies to American retailers. The label hoped to sell 250,000 copies, as Sonic Youth did with Goo in 1990. Upper-level forecasts predicted that Nevermind would achieve gold status and sell 500,000 units. Then came "Smells Like Teen Spirit," which completely demolished all sales projections. The album was selling 300,000 copies per week at the height of Nirvanamania. It was certified 10x platinum in the United States by 1999. Overall, it has sold over 30 million copies worldwide.
Bath soaps are now a multibillion-dollar industry, fueled by increasing awareness of the importance of hygiene and a thriving, almost aggressive marketing industry. Although soap may no longer appear to require much promotion, the advertising industry was once eager to capitalize on the new idea of soap as a necessity item by inextricably linking it with vitality symbols such as sunlight and honey - a trend that continues to this day. Exotic and desirable ingredients in soap recipes, such as brightly colored oil palm from West Africa and copra (dried coconut flesh) from the Pacific Islands, fueled such marketing campaigns. These marketing decisions were critical in transforming the image of soap from a rough, abrasive scrubbing too
When P&G brought its influential advertising style to radio, it sparked an entire movement: the dark, dramatic, and often downright heinous world of the soap opera. In order to generate advertising revenue, early radio stations created daytime serials aimed at housewives and, as a result, began approaching household manufacturers for sponsorship. P&G was the first to capitalize on the opportunity and commit to a serial. Because of their success, not only did they continue to sponsor serials and eventually produce their own, but it also inspired a number of other soap manufacturers to enter this new marketing arena. The association of daytime serials with soap ads quickly led to the term "soap opera,&quo
Procter & Gamble, an American corporation, was one of the most active participants in the aggressive soap advertising campaigns that characterized the twentieth century. It all began in 1879 when a worker accidentally mixed too much air into a batch of the "white soap" that P&G had begun manufacturing a year before in order to compete with the popular castle soaps of the time. Despite the error, the soap was shipped, which resulted in widespread demand. To help provide some distinguishing brand characteristics and avoid banality, the label was quickly changed from "white soap" to "ivory soap," and a staggering $11,000, a frankly colossal sum for the time, was com
Port Sunlight is a picturesque village near Liverpool that attracts thousands of tourists each year due to its charming setting and outstanding examples of nineteenth-century English architecture. Its origins, however, are deeply entwined with the gritty life of nineteenth-century industrial workers. Indeed, following the expansion and subsequent relocation of his firm, the Lever Brothers, in 1888, William Lever built the village to provide a comfortable home for his workers. Lever continued to build a business empire while supporting his workers by campaigning for shorter working hours, better education, and better conditions, naming the village Port Sunlight after his most successful brand of soap. The town is still as charming a
Who would have guessed that soap had so many - not always legitimate - connections to money and power? Jefferson Randolph Smith, an American con artist, gangster, and crime boss, earned the moniker "Soapy" at the end of the 1800s after making a fortune with his prize soap sell con. It was a simple crime designed to quickly swindle unsuspecting passers-by, involving wrapping bars of soap in various denominations of notes, covering them with plain paper, pretending to mix them in with bars devoid of money, and then selling off these latter bars at an inflated price while maintaining the façade that some of the packages contained money. In reality, only members of Smith's notorious Soap Gang, who w
Soap's popularity skyrocketed as a result of the technological advances that defined the Industrial Revolution. Throughout the 1800s, advances in plumbing enabled more frequent bathing, while a growing body of evidence linking health to hygiene worked to shift soap's image from a luxury item to a necessity item, putting it squarely in the public eye. Despite the fact that soap makers were able to meet this brisk demand due to increased manufacturing and production efficiency enabled by significant industrial and scientific advances of the time, soap's popularity grew at an alarming rate throughout the century. The removal of the soap tax in 1853, scientific advances resulting in better smelling and gentler s
Pagan beliefs underpin witchcraft. The majority of pagan belief systems are not Christian. Because these pagan systems have no concept of Satan, worshipping him makes no sense. In contrast, Satanists worship Lucifer. Satanism has been around almost as long as Christianity.
Halloween is more fun than serious, but contrary to popular belief, it is not particularly important in a witch's calendar. They are also thought to celebrate Beltane, the first day of May, and Midsummer's Eve, which coincides with the summer solstice. In fact, in Sweden, Easter is associated with witches.
Sheep was Nirvana's working title for their sophomore album. This was apparently a snide remark about the people who might buy the album, as Cobain wrote in his journal, "Because you don't want to because everyone else is." According to bassist Krist Novoselic, the title reflects the band's cynicism.
If you went to your neighborhood Sam Goody or Tower Records on September 24, 1991, chances are you spent your entire allowance on CDs. Aside from Nevermind, the new release shelf that day would have included Badmotorfinger by Soundgarden, Blood Sugar Sex Magik by Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Low-End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest.
It may sound absurd, but soap production was once strictly regulated to prevent illegal production. According to the Telegraph, the soap tax, which was implemented in 1712, was once a major source of revenue for the Exchequer, raising roughly the same proportion of income as alcohol duty does today. The imposed levies were so high that the tax collector decided to lock the lids on soap boiling pans every night to prevent illegal soap production after hours.
In order to produce the increasingly popular product, European soap manufacturers had to overcome a number of challenges. Large areas of British woodland, for example, were destroyed in an attempt to obtain enough wood chips to meet demand, resulting in a nationwide shortage of winter fuel. Furthermore, the production of certain types of soap was heavily taxed and eventually prohibited due to the threat these varieties posed to the nation's tallow reserves, the depletion of which threatened to drive up the price of candles to the point where they were no longer affordable to the masses. Although candles remained reasonably priced, soap remained heavily taxed in Britain, making it available only to the upper crust of society
Although it may appear to be the most obvious application to us, it was not until the second century CE, at the suggestion of the Greek physician Galen, that soap was used as a cleaning agent. Indeed, prior to this period, it appears that soap, which was coarse, skin-irritating, and foul-smelling, was primarily used for medicinal purposes, with Pliny the Elder, a first-century CE chronicler, somewhat grotesquely documenting its use for 'dispers[ing] scrofulous sores' in his Natural History. In short, it's not something we'd want to put in our Scrubba wash bags, let alone apply to our skin. Even after the second century CE, however, the use of soap for cleaning was relatively limited, with European so
To provide an extremely brief overview that does not do the saponification process justice: When fats or oils come into contact with an alkali, they are broken down into fatty acids and glycerine, which then combine with the sodium or potassium component of the alkali. Excavations in Ancient Babylon unearthed a soap-like material produced by a process consistent with this, namely boiling fats with ashes, according to accompanying inscriptions. Similarly, the Ebers papyrus, dated 1550 BCE, reveals that Ancient Egyptians washed with a mixture of animal and plant oils and alkaline salt, while the Chinese, during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 700-221 BCE), mixed plant ash with crushed seashells to produce an alkaline chemical used for staining.
Gerald Gardner, an Englishman, founded and popularised this religion in 1954. Gardner claims that Wicca evolved from a European witch-cult that was persecuted during the witch trials. This religion's core is made up of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs.
Malleus Maleficarum became the go-to handbook for both the hysterical masses and witch-hunters on how to deal with a witch. It was a legal and theological document written by two clergymen that offered advice like shaving the witch's hair off her body so she can't hide magical objects. Go figure.
This doesn't make much sense, but it happened in a society riddled with superstitions. 'Evidence' such as appearances in a dream was sufficient to file a case against someone.
For the longest time, it was assumed that witchcraft was primarily a female activity. However, there are male counterparts to witches, who are commonly referred to as wizards, warlocks, or sorcerers. Throughout history, countless men and women have been persecuted on suspicion of practicing witchcraft.
In 2010, a Southern California school district temporarily removed all copies of Merriam-10th Webster's Collegiate Edition from elementary school classrooms. Why get rid of the dictionary? The school district decided to remove the books after a parent informed the principal of Oak Meadows Elementary School that the dictionary contained an explicit definition of a sex act. The dictionary was deemed age-appropriate by a committee of teachers, administrators, and parents, and the copies of Merriam-Webster were returned to the classroom. Let's hope that parent never finds out about Urban Dictionary!
Middle schoolers and anyone trying to understand the latest slang terms loves Urban Dictionary, an online, crowdsourced listing of millions of slang words and phrases. However, Urban Dictionary is more than just a dictionary. It also has an online store where you can buy mugs, T-shirts, an official card game, and plush dolls based on dirty phrases popularised by the dictionary (like Golden Shower and Donkey Punch). If you don't know what those disgusting phrases mean, we'll let you look them up, but don't say we didn't warn you.
Although most people are familiar with Webster, the OED, and Dictionary.com, there are numerous obscure or bizarre dictionaries. There are numerous rhyming dictionaries and reverse dictionaries available, for example (that are organized by a theme rather than alphabetized). Wye's Dictionary Of Improbable Words: All-Vowel Words And All-Consonant Words may help you find some unusual words to help you win your next Scrabble game. Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words also contains strange English words that have previously appeared in at least one dictionary. You might discover, for example, that junkettaceous means worthless and hugger-mugger means whispered gossiping.
You might think that all of the sample sentences in the dictionary are random, but you'd be wrong. The phrases are purposefully chosen to place the word in a clear context with other words with which it is frequently associated and are ideally so boring that you don't even think about them. Jez Burrows, an illustrator, has turned these random sentences from the New Oxford American Dictionary into short stories. "Often, I'll find at least one [word] that makes a good jumping-off point, and I'll start fleshing out some sort of vague narrative, then work backward to imagine what kind of words might give rise to the sentences I'm looking for," Burrows said of his method.
Although many scholars regard the OED as the ultimate authority on dictionaries, the OED requires your assistance. At any given time, the dictionary's editors are researching the history of specific words and phrases, and The OED Appeals allows the public to submit evidence of the earliest record of certain words (via the comments section). Camouflage and Arnold Palmer are two recent entries in the OED, so if you have old books or magazines that mention some strange word, please let the OED know. You might just see your contribution in the next edition of the dictionary.
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