[Mental_floss intro music]

(0:08)
Alright, Mike, before we even talk about this one, I gotta put a quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund.
Xavier offers A History of the Pig in America With Especial Reference to the City of Cincinnati, Otherwise Known as Porkapolis. The class looks at swine, from their arrival with Columbus to current meatpacking issues. ... Meatpacking issues...
(0:28)
We don't know exactly how hogshead came to be the name for a measurement of wine, 63 gallons of it, to be exact, and I don't think we want to know. Oh, that reminds me – every time I mention hogs I have to put a quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Picnic Jar.
If you've got two hogsheads, that's called a pipe, or a butt. So, when someone tells you that they drank a butt-load last night, they are either lying or dead.
(0:47)
Legend has it that in 1894 stockbroker Lemuel Benedict drank some tequila and ended up with a hangover. He wandered over to the Waldorf Hotel and requested poached eggs, buttered toast, bacon, and hollandaise sauce, and then constructed what is now known as Eggs Benedict.
Oh, did someone mention bacon? We are ever closer to our Staff Pork Chop Party.
(1:07)
This bag of groceries is often called a sack of groceries in the South or, even less commonly, a poke, as in 'pig in a poke.'
Pig?! Staff Pork Chop Party Fund!
(1:17)
Speaking of hunting, 'beat around the bush' has been around since at least the 1400s, when hunters would literally beat bushes so scare birds or boars out of hiding.
Wait, did someone say boars? Time to put another quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund.
(1:29)
Those statistics, by the way, come from the National Turkey Federation, which is apparently a thing. I mean, does every animal have a national federation? Because my campaign starts now to get on the board of the National Pig Federation.
What's that? Did I say the word pig? Time to put a quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund!
(1:46)
When E. B. White was asked why he wrote Charlotte's Web, he responded with a two-and-a-half page letter about spiders in his barn, and pigs.
Wait, did someone say pigs? Time to put a quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund! Man, that's some pig.
(1:59)
Before he became a famous author by the way, Sendak illustrated Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's Farm, which I bring up entirely because somebody just said pig!
Two quarters in one video? What is it, my birthday?
(2:09)
The 1909 book Passing English of the Victorian Era: A Dictionary of Heterodox English Slang and Phrase captured some great phrases that were falling out of favor even back then.
For instance, they called sausages 'bags o' mystery,' which they are.
Meredith, what kind of sausages? Pork sausages? Another quarter for the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund!
(2:28)
And scrapple, which is all the parts of the pig that you usually don't eat, like heart, head, etc. broiled, then mushed up, then made into a loaf with cornmeal. It's like meatloaf, except disgusting.
Did I just say pig? Time to put a quarter in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund! Oh! And we forgot the quarter for chitlins!
(2:45)
Kummerspeck is a German word that refers to excess weight gain from emotional over-eating. Its literal translation? Grief-bacon.
That's another 25 cents toward the Staff Pork Chop Party.
(2:56)
If you like meat puns, and frankly, who doesn't, look no further than the Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota. It's also affectionately referred to as GuggenHAM, PORKopolis, and the MOMA, or Museum of Meat-themed Awesomeness.
Wait a second, did someone just say Guggenham and Porkopolis? That means I get to put two quarters in the Staff Pork Chop Party Fund!

[End Screen]