As a sea going mariner, Hanson Gregory of Maine U.S.A. was posed with a dilemma while sailing one night and about to bite into a delicious doughnut.  A fierce wind had sprung up and both of his hands were required for steering the ship, so what to do with the doughnut? After a quick glance at the ship’s wheel, he promptly stuck it onto one of the wheel spokes, thereby punching the center out.  After getting the ship under control and returning to his snack, he noted that the doughnut tasted much better without the center portion which he had always found to be a little too undercooked and soggy. He therefore requested the ship’s cook to prepare his doughnuts with a hole in the middle, thus inventing the ring doughnut.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So in old England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It’s where we get the phrase “mind your P’s and Q’s.”

Many years ago in England, pub frequenters had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. “Wet your whistle,” is the phrase inspired by this practice.

In Shakespeare’s time, mattresses were secured on bed frames by ropes. When you pulled on the ropes the mattress tightened, making the bed firmer to sleep on. That’s where the phrase, “goodnight, sleep tight” came from.

The term “the whole 9 yards” came from W.W.II fighter pilots in the Pacific. When arming their airplanes on the ground, the..50 caliber machine gun ammo belts measured exactly 27 feet, before being loaded into the fuselage. If the pilots fired all their ammo at a target, it got “the whole 9 yards.”

The name Jeep came from the abbreviation used in the army for the “General Purpose” vehicle, GP.

It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride’s father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the “honey month” or what we know today as the “honeymoon.”