Warm-ups or wrap-ups for ESL classes

1. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
WHY DO DOUGHNUTS HAVE A
HOLE?
Homer Simpson loves to eat doughnuts, you
know, those small ring-shaped cakes with a
hole in the middle. Surely, you love them too!
But what do doughnuts have a hole?
There are several theories:
1.- Dutch and German settlers emigrated to
America. In the journey they brought a dough
made with nuts. To carry more food in the
ships, they put them in long sticks, making a
hole.
2.- Captain Crockett (c. 1847) brought some
doughnuts made by his mother in his voyages.
Once while he was with the helm, a terrible
storm burst. Captain Crockett needed his two
hands for the helm but also wanted to eat, so
he decided to put the doughnut in one of the
holders of the helm, making the hole.
3.- Another legend says that Captain Crockett
used to remove the centre of the doughnuts
that his mother made because it was always
raw.

2. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 WHY DO WE CALL FAST FOOD
“JUNK FOOD”?
 Junk is rubbish, so junk food is food
without nutritious value, for example
hamburgers, chips and crisps. Junk
comes from the Middle English word
jonk, which was a nautical term meaning
old rope. The rope wasn´t thrown away,
but was used on the ship in other ways.
Later there were junk shops which sold
old materials from ships. Today junk
shops sell second-hand articles, such as
furniture, ornaments and clothes.

 Junk is also a slang term for heroin, and
a person addicted to drugs is called a
junkie. A person obssessed by healthy
food is a health food junkie and person
addicted to body building is a gym junkie.


3. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Barbie fun facts:
 Ruth Handler is the creator of Barbie. The doll
was named after Ruth´s daughter Barbara
(nicknamed Barbie).
 Barbie appeared in the mid 1940´s.

 Every second, two Barbie dolls are sold
somewhere in the world.

 Barbie has had over 43 pets, including 21 dogs,
12 horses, three ponies, six cats, a parrot, a
chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a
zebra.
 There was an international exhibition in 1985,
showcasing Barbie in clothes designed by Yves
St Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Jean-Paul Gaultier
and Christian Dior. The doll´s own couture
wardrobe includes designs by Givenchy,
Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci.


4. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 What´s the origin of the term “OK”?
 The term “OK” is probably America´s single most
successful export, but where does it come from?
The answer is that nobody really knows – OK?—
but here are some of the theories:
 1.- THE FRENCH CONNECTION:
 a) OK is an echo of the name Aux Cayes, the
name of a port in Haiti which exported rum to the
American colonies. This rum was apparently the
best available at the time, so its name may have
been used as a term of approval.
 b) General Lafayette came to the aid of the
American colonists during the War of
Independence, bringing hundreds of French
soldiers with him. Supposedly, they often made
dates with American girls “down at the docks” or
“aux cayes”.
 2.- THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
 a) OK comes from the Orrins-Kendall
company, which furnished biscuits to the Union
Army in boxes prominently marked “OK”.
 b) OK means “zero killed” on a battle report
written by a military officer
 3.- THE NATIVE INDIAN ORIGIN
 President Woodrow Wilson (1912-20) is said to
have been fond of a Choctaw word meaning
“indeed” or “it is so” and he would write “okeh” on
papers.
 4.- ALL CORRECT
 Another president, Andrew Jackson (1829-27)
had no formal education and his opponents
thought he was semi-literate. They believed that
he wrote OK on documents as an abbreviation
of “all Korrect”. This tallies with the work of
lexicographers who have discovered that OK
made its first printed appearance in 1839. The
quotations taken from newspapers in Boston
and New York refer to it as a corruption of “all
Korrect”.
 5.- OLD KINDERHOOK
 Jackson´s succesor, Martin Van Buren, was
nicknamed “Old Kinderhook”after his home town
in upstate New York. When he ran for re-
election, his democrat supporters formed the
OK Club and 500 of them raided a meeting of
the rival Whig Party. The attack began when
they entered the room, repeating “OK” to each
other, as a signal to break up the meeting.

5. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Text message was invented by the
Finnish company Nokia.They wanted to
help Finnish teenagers, who were very
shy. They found it easier to text their
friends than to phone them.
 SMS LANGUAGE 
2day=today pls=please
b4=before QT=cutie
bf=boyfriend r=are
c=see u=you
d8=date asap=as soon as possible
gf=girlfriend b4n=bye for now
gr8=great brb=I´ll be right back
l8r=later btw=by the way
FYI=for your information
luv u=love you

6. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 The first bikini was designed by two
Frenchmen. It was named after Bikini
Atoll, the island where the atomic bomb
was first tested. The Frenchmen thought
that the bikini would have a similar effect
on a man as a bomb exploding.

7. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 The first Harry Potter book was written in
a café in Edimburgh. JK Rowling was
unemployed, and she didn´t have enough
money to pay for heating, so whe wrote it
in the café where it was warmer.

8. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Spiders were used as a
cure for toothache in
the 17th century. They
were first made into a
paste and then put on
the bad tooth

9. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Kissing under the Mistletoe
The Druids dedicated mistletoe to the
Goddess of Love, which explains the
kissing that goes on under it. Originally,
when a boy kissed a girl, he plucked a
berry from the cluster and presented it to
her. When the berries were gone, so
were the kisses.
 A traditional rhyme about mistletoe is:
 'Pick a berry off the mistletoe
For every kiss that's given.
When the berries have all gone
There's an end to kissing.'
 Victorians bound the mistletoe to a frame
to make a "kissing ring." Each time a
gentleman caught a lady under the
mistletoe, he was allowed to claim a kiss.

10. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Christmas stockingsWhy do the
children in England hang up
christmas stockings?
From 1870 children have hung up
Christmas stockings at the ends of
their beds or along the mantelpiece
above the fireplace.
 Father Christmas once dropped
some gold coins while coming down
the chimney. The coins would have
fallen through the ash grate and
been lost if they hadn't landed in a
stocking that had been hung out to
dry. Since that time children have
continued to hang out stockings in
hopes of finding them filled with
gifts.

11. DID YOU KNOW THAT…?
 Cocktail
 Whilst sipping a cocktail, have you ever thought about the meaning of the word?
 cock + tail = cocktail
 Why is that? – Well, nobody knows for sure, but there are numerous theories about the origin of the name.
Here are just a few, which we like most:
 1. Theory
 The drink used to be decorated with a plant that looked like a cock’s tail. Today, colourful stirrers and picks
(e.g. umbrellas) are used instead.
 2. Theory
 Alcoholic leftovers that could not be drawn off through the taps of the barrels were all put into one jar and
sold. Cock is said to have been the name of what today is called tap (or spigot). Alcoholic leftovers were
called tailings. So according to this theory, the drink was first called cock-tailing, which later became
cocktail.
 3. Theory
 Alcoholic leftovers from bottles and barrels were put into a large cock-shaped ceramic vessel, the tap of
which was at the tail of that cock. According to this theory, the drink was first called cock’s tail.
 4. Theory
 A pharmacist in New Orleans used to offer his guests a drink (brandy, sugar, water and bitters) in an egg-
cup. He called the drink egg-cup cocquetier. His guests shortened this to cocktay, which later became
cocktail.
 5. Theory
 The term derives from cock ale, a drink for which the blood of a cock was used – yuck!

12. This salute dates back to the
English Longbowman who fought
the French during the Hundred
Years War (1337 – 1453). The
French hated the English archers
who used the Longbow with such
devastating effect. Any English
archers who were caught by the
French had their Index and
middle fingers chopped off from
their right hand- a terrible penalty
for an archer. This led to the
practice of the English archers,
especially in siege situations,
taunting their French enemy with
their continued presence by raising
their two fingers in the ‘Two-

13. At the very least, everyone has probably heard the name of the fourth
Earl of Sandwich (born John Montagu), the British statesman whose
name is forever affixed to our favorite lunchtime staple. What people
may not know is that the foundations of this comfort food were laid long
before the Earl's time. In fact, Arabs had already started stuffing meat
inside pita bread centuries before the Earl came up with his delicious
snack
He may not have been the first to eat meat between two slices of bread,
but Sandwich did lend the now-famous food his name. According to
one account, on Nov. 3, 1762, the Earl was deep into a marathon poker
game and couldn't be bothered to leave the gaming table for dinner. As
a solution, he asked a servant to bring him a piece of meat -- stuffed
between two slices of toast so he wouldn't smear food on his cards.

14. • The origin of the @ symbol
It's called the "at" or "ape tail" in English, the "arroba" in Spanish, the "chiocciola" in Italian. Everyone familiar with the
internet knows we're talking about the symbol in an e-mail address separating the addressee's or sender's name from the
server name : the "@" symbol. But where does this funny looking symbol come from ?
Following a few indications given by the School for Palaeography in Rome, Stabile consulted a collection of documents of
16th century Italian business men. The documents belong to the International Institute for History of the Economy
"Francesco Datini" in Prado. After some browsing in the documents Stabile found that the @ symbol was formerly used to
designate an "amphora". In those days this antique unit of measure was used a lot in the wine commerce, especially in
Venice. But the origin of the @ symbol even goes back much further than the 16th century Venice. In an Arabic-Italian
dictionary from 1492 Stabile found that the Arabic word written as "@" meant simply "amphora", confirming the previous
finding.
That the @ symbol finally became part of cyberspace is due to Ray Tomlinson, an American engineer who is one of the
founding fathers of the internet, or actually the Arpanet, the predecessor to the present internet. In 1972 Tomlinson invented
a system for individual electronic mail, introducing the first "hot" application of the Arpanet. He used the @ symbol to
distinguish a sender's or addressee's name from the name of the electronic mail box. According to Stabile, Tomlinson chose
this symbol "just because it was on the keyboard".
(