In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes: High Heels Were Originally Meant for Men Taikhar Chuluu Is a Mongolian Landmark Featuring 1,500 Years of Graffiti The Copy Machine Study Shows That One Word Can Help You Get Your Way Much more impressive figures strode out of Mongolia than a legendary giant and a pair of unfortunate lovers. Pick up "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" (free with your Audible trial) and see whose shadow you're standing in. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase through that link, Curiosity will get a share of the sale. Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus: https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018 Learn more about these topics and more onCuriosity.com, and download our5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable ourAlexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
In this podcast, Cody Gough and Ashley Hamer discuss the following stories from Curiosity.com to help you get smarter and learn something new in just a few minutes:
Much more impressive figures strode out of Mongolia than a legendary giant and a pair of unfortunate lovers. Pick up "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" (free with your Audible trial) and see whose shadow you're standing in. We handpick reading recommendations we think you may like. If you choose to make a purchase through that link, Curiosity will get a share of the sale.
Want to support our show? Register for the 2018 Podcast Awards and nominate Curiosity Daily to win for People’s Choice, Education, and Science & Medicine. Just register at the link and select Curiosity Daily from the drop-down menus: https://curiosity.im/podcast-awards-2018
Learn more about these topics and more on Curiosity.com, and download our 5-star app for Android and iOS. Then, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Plus: Amazon smart speaker users, enable our Alexa Flash Briefing to learn something new in just a few minutes every day!
Full episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/high-heels-were-originally-meant-for-men-persuasive-magic-words-and-ancient-graffiti
[MUSIC PLAYING] CODY GOUGH: Hi. We've got three stories from curiosity.com to help you get smarter in just a few minutes. I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: And I'm Ashley Hamer. Today, you'll learn about some magic words for helping you get your way, a landmark featuring 1,500 years of graffiti, and the story of how high heels were originally meant to be worn by men.
CODY GOUGH: Let's satisfy some curiosity.
ASHLEY HAMER: Cody, have you ever tried wearing high heels?
CODY GOUGH: No. My feet are huge so--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah, that would be difficult.
CODY GOUGH: Really hard to find-- yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. High heels are definitely a skill that you have to master. They don't feel normal.
CODY GOUGH: I would imagine, yeah, they look difficult, and I'm not averse to trying them.
ASHLEY HAMER: Sure.
CODY GOUGH: But like I said, I wear men's 11.5, which is a women's-- I don't know-- 200 or something. So--
[LAUGHTER]
I mean I just don't know any women that tall or have that bigger feet so.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, we do live in Chicago, and Drag Race is huge here. So I'm sure you could find somebody.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure there's plenty of places. I could go out of my way. If I ever pop into one of those shops on Halstead, I'll give it a shot and let you know how it goes.
ASHLEY HAMER: Take it for a spin.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, actually, high heels used to be for men. They came to Europe in 1599 when a group of horse-riding Persian diplomats rode from Moscow to Lisbon, looking for allies in the war against the Ottoman Empire. The heels were actually a technological innovation that kept the riders secure in their stirrups.
Fast forward about 50 years and King Louis XIV of France was really into Persian culture. He also happened to be 5 foot 4, which was short, even back in those days. There's actually a portrait from 1701 that shows him dressed to the nines. And in it, he's wearing high-heeled shoes with red painted heels that he decreed, that only certain people could wear.
So why did women start wearing them? Believe it or not, it's because European women were starting to assert their equality. Author Elizabeth Semmelhack wrote, quote "you had women cutting their hair, adding epaulets to their outfits. They would smoke pipes. They would wear hats that were very masculine. And this is why women adopted the heel. It was in an effort to masculinize their outfits." unquote.
Eventually, you ended up with thick heels for men and skinny heels for women. And the trend died off in men around the turn of the 19th century. That's around the time period fashion scholars call the great male renunciation, which is when men's colorful, flamboyant clothing became more drab and uniform. Think cloaks and jerkins going to great business suits. Lame. But hey, it's never too late for a comeback.
CODY GOUGH: I do have a cloak.
ASHLEY HAMER: Nice.
CODY GOUGH: I'm also surprised heels aren't still popular with guys in today's dating worlds because you always hear from short guys that they complain because they say girls like tall guys.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right.
CODY GOUGH: And then there you go. That's why God invented high heels.
ASHLEY HAMER: Well, you still have cowboy boots. Those have heels.
CODY GOUGH: Oh, true.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. You got a loophole there.
CODY GOUGH: Wow. I like it. There's your life pro tip for the day for dating. Cowboy boots.
ASHLEY HAMER: Perfect.
CODY GOUGH: All right, Ashley, have you ever defaced a monument or landmark?
ASHLEY HAMER: Never a monument. I mean, I've definitely written in a bathroom stall before.
CODY GOUGH: Really?
ASHLEY HAMER: I really love bathroom graffiti. And actually, the women's bathrooms always have the best graffiti.
CODY GOUGH: You are such a rebel.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm such a rebel.
CODY GOUGH: I never would have thought that. Wow. I've never ever left my mark on anything.
ASHLEY HAMER: Wow.
CODY GOUGH: I don't know if I'm a rule follower, or I'm just--
ASHLEY HAMER: You should try it. If there's already a bunch of graffiti, it's not that big of a deal, right? That's how I think of it.
CODY GOUGH: I've taken some pictures of graffiti and put them on Instagram.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yes.
CODY GOUGH: There's some really funny stuff in bathrooms.
ASHLEY HAMER: It really is.
CODY GOUGH: It's good to know that it's not just in the men's stalls.
ASHLEY HAMER: Mm-hmm.
CODY GOUGH: Well, I don't know if you plan on going to Mongolia anytime soon. But there's a rock there with graffiti that dates back 1,500 years. It's called Taikhar Rock, and it's covered top to bottom with 150 pieces of writing, the date all the way back to the sixth century when the Turks controlled Mongolia. The earliest writing therefore is in Turkish. But there's writing from passing soldiers, warlords, and politicians, and Tibetan, Chinese, runic scripts, and modern Mongolian. You can put away your spray paints because the rock has been under historic protection since 1994. So you're not going to leave your mark on it now.
But my favorite part of the rock is its origin story. So you've got to picture this. It's a 66-foot tall rock, jammed into the ground with nothing around it for miles, except for flat plains and a river. So how did it get there? The best known story says that the stone is on a spot that used to be a giant hole, and an enormous serpent would emerge and terrorize the countryside until a giant wrestler got sick of the snake's antics. He grabbed the snake, threw it back in the hole, and sealed it away with a giant rock.
There's another more romantic origin story of two star-crossed lovers, but I like the wrestling one. Geologists say the rock is probably the last chunk of granite left over from millions of years of erosion from the nearby river, but I'm going to go with the giant wrestler theory. It just feels right.
ASHLEY HAMER: You would.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: You can learn other origins and theories and see pictures today on curiosity.com and on the Curiosity app for Android and iOS.
ASHLEY HAMER: All right, Cody. Do you ask and seek permission? Or do and seek forgiveness?
CODY GOUGH: I'm a forgiveness guy.
ASHLEY HAMER: And yet you don't draw in bathrooms.
CODY GOUGH: That's because I don't feel like it. But I have anxiety over asking permission being told no.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: I don't know why. There's some psychological thing, where if I hear no, it damages--
ASHLEY HAMER: Interesting.
CODY GOUGH: --physically. So in that way, it's just so much easier to just do it.
ASHLEY HAMER: I'm a big permission seeker.
CODY GOUGH: Really?
ASHLEY HAMER: Like, to a fault.
CODY GOUGH: Really?
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. I probably need to just go ahead and do things a lot more than I do.
CODY GOUGH: All right. We should meet in the middle and probably both temper that.
ASHLEY HAMER: Right, right. Well, according to a classic psychology study, you need one thing to help you get what you want. Ready? It's a reason. Doesn't matter what kind of reason. Just a reason.
CODY GOUGH: Just need a reason.
ASHLEY HAMER: You just need a reason.
CODY GOUGH: All right. This comes from the copy machine study. It's a famous experiment conducted by Dr. Ellen Langer in the 1970s. For the experiment, researchers went up to people who are waiting in line for a copy machine at the City University of New York Graduate Center. They all said excuse me, I have five pages. Then made one of three requests.
The first was, may I use the Xerox machine? The second gave a nonsensical reason. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make copies? And the third gave a generic reason. May I use the Xerox machine because I'm in a rush? So one request just to use the machine, one request giving a nonsensical reason. I mean because I have to make copies, we all have to make copies, dude.
And one request gave a valid reason, saying they're just in a hurry. Well, only 60% of subjects agreed when there was no reason given. For the other reasons, 93% of subjects agreed when the nonsensical reason was given, and 94% agreed when the "I'm in a rush" reason was given. That's a huge increase but not much of a difference between those two reasons.
CODY GOUGH: Yeah. Any reason is a good reason.
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah. The researchers did repeat the experiment and asked to make 20 copies instead of 5, and the reason-giving effect disappeared. So there's a limit to how well this works. But the next time you're handing in a late paper, you might be better off saying because I didn't have time when you turned it in. A reason is a reason, even if it's not a good one.
CODY GOUGH: Though, we don't advocate turning in late papers.
ASHLEY HAMER: No. Turn everything in on time.
CODY GOUGH: We have a very studious listenership. We get emails from Mechanical Engineering majors, and PhD candidates, and--
ASHLEY HAMER: Yeah.
CODY GOUGH: You're smart out there.
ASHLEY HAMER: It's intimidating.
[LAUGHTER]
CODY GOUGH: Before we wrap up the show, I just want to quickly remind you to please nominate our show as a finalist for the 2018 Podcast Awards. Visit podcastawards.com and click on Listener Nominations Now Open at the top of the page then follow the instructions on the site to register.
ASHLEY HAMER: Once you're signed up, you can vote for Curiosity Daily using the dropdown menus in each category. You can find us under the categories of People's Choice, Educational, and Science and Medicine.
CODY GOUGH: There are lots of other categories and shows you can vote for, but that's up to you if you want to participate. We really just need your help with a few quick clicks and believe us. It really would help us out.
ASHLEY HAMER: Again, that's podcastawards.com or follow the link in today's show notes. It's free and should only take a couple of minutes. Join us again tomorrow for the Curiosity Daily and learn something new in just a few minutes. I'm Ashley Hamer.
CODY GOUGH: And I'm Cody Gough.
ASHLEY HAMER: Stay curious.
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