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Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, a production of Kaleidoscope

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Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what give? What's that Mango? So, as

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Speaker 1: you know, I love spy stuff. I love detective stuff.

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Speaker 1: And as a kid, I was very into creating secret

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Speaker 1: codes and ridiculous ways to communicate to my friends and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that, like what exactly what are we talking about?

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Speaker 1: It was like secret knocks to get into a clubhouse,

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Speaker 1: or passwords or phrases sometimes code words for other people.

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Speaker 1: My friend Rajish made up this nonsensical language that was

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Speaker 1: honestly just goofy, and so it was funny phrases for

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Speaker 1: like passing the salt or pepper at the table and

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Speaker 1: things that would make our parents confused. And then I

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Speaker 1: had a friend later, this is more like sixth grade,

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Speaker 1: we came up with a way of writing and passing

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Speaker 1: notes that was really easy to write super quickly, but

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Speaker 1: really hard to decipher if a teacher or like another

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Speaker 1: kid found it. And so I was into that type

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Speaker 1: of stuff. It was just like fun to do. And

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Speaker 1: this week I was reading about one of the earliest

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Speaker 1: secret languages, and honestly, it might be the weirdest communication

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Speaker 1: method I've ever heard of, and not one I would

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Speaker 1: have ever schemed up. It is scalp tattoos sounds painful,

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Speaker 1: What is this? It definitely was, But sometimes you have

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Speaker 1: to deliver a message. So this goes back to the

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Speaker 1: fifth century VCE, when Isteos, the ruler of Malatas in

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Speaker 1: Anchi in Greece, needed to get a very sensitive message

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Speaker 1: to his buddy Aristogoros, and the message was maybe it's

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Speaker 1: time to revolt against the Persians. Right, he can't exactly

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Speaker 1: just send a courier with a scroll, because you know

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Speaker 1: there are Persians everywhere. So here's what he does. He

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Speaker 1: shaves the head of his most trusted servant, tattoos the

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Speaker 1: message right onto the scalp, and then waits and weeks later,

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Speaker 1: once the hair GRoWES back, the servant is sent off

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Speaker 1: to Malatos, and when he arrives, Arista Goas shaves the

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Speaker 1: poor guy's head again and boom, the revolt is on.

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Speaker 1: Is both ingenious and horrified totally, but I guess it

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Speaker 1: worked because the Germans apparently used it again in World

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Speaker 1: War Two, which is insane. Anyway. I like it because

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Speaker 1: it's like the ultimate don't shoot the messenger, and mainly

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Speaker 1: because you have to shave him first. But that is

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Speaker 1: the first of nine facts we've got today about secret languages,

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Speaker 1: So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to

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Speaker 1: Part Time Genius. I'm Munga Shiti there and Will is

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Speaker 1: out today, but I'm here with writer extraordinary Gabe Lucier

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Speaker 1: on the line.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Gab, how's it going pretty good? How are you

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Speaker 2: doing well?

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Speaker 1: And of course, over in the corner, that's our wonderful

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Speaker 1: friend and producer Dylan Fagan, who is holding up two

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Speaker 1: giant que cards with random pictures of a banana, a biscuit. Oh,

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Speaker 1: he's adding a few three squirrels on another one, which

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Speaker 1: I guess is a secret language of his own.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I honestly can't believe he said that on air.

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Speaker 2: That's pretty scandalous. I mean he added a tomato card.

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Speaker 2: Uh uh Okay, Yeah, I see what he's saying now.

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Speaker 2: That's actually really sweet, So thank you, Dylan.

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Speaker 1: I take it back. Yeah, Dylan's a sweetheart. Okay, enough

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Speaker 1: of that game. I mentioned I was into codes and

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Speaker 1: secret languages. Also at home, we spoke like this obscure

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Speaker 1: Indian dialect, so I practically had a secret language with

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Speaker 1: my parents. Anyway, But do you have any secret language experience? Well,

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Speaker 1: as a kid, I actually I used to talk out

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Speaker 1: of the side of my mouth, and so pretty much

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Speaker 1: only my family could understand what I was saying. They

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Speaker 1: kind of had to interpret it. So that was a

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Speaker 1: kind of secret language. I think it was more of

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Speaker 1: a nervous habit really, But which side? Let me see

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Speaker 1: if I can get back into the Yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: the right side. Also, my brother and I we tried

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Speaker 1: to teach ourselves pig Latin at one point, but we

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Speaker 1: could never really understand what the other word's saying, so

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Speaker 1: it didn't work out. I love it, so gave what

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Speaker 1: is your first fact today? All right?

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Speaker 2: So I am reasonably certain that neither of us have

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Speaker 2: scalp tattoos. I can't really tell, I guess until one

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Speaker 2: of us gets lice. But a little call back there.

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Speaker 2: But one ancient form of secret messaging that I bet

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Speaker 2: we've all tried before is writing with invisible ink. So

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Speaker 2: most of us discover this as kids writing with lemon

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Speaker 2: juice or vinegar and then holding the paper up to

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Speaker 2: a light bulb to make the letters appear. But when

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Speaker 2: the technique was developed in ancient Greece and Rome. It

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Speaker 2: wasn't a game. It was used for military and political espionage.

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Speaker 2: And the way it works is the acid weakens paper

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Speaker 2: fibers and reduces their burn temperature, so when you apply

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Speaker 2: heat to those areas, they turn brown faster than the

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Speaker 2: rest of the paper. You can also write with a

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Speaker 2: base ink like baking soda, and trigger a similar color

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Speaker 2: change by applying an acid.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because on one hand it is

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Speaker 1: seriously clever, right, but it also seems like it would

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Speaker 1: only work the first few times, Like, once someone knows

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Speaker 1: the trick, it's much easier to check for a hidden messages,

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Speaker 1: I'd imagine.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, right, yeah, And by the time the American Revolution

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Speaker 2: rolled around, both sides were using invisible ink, and both

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Speaker 2: sides knew it. It became standard practice, you know, to

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Speaker 2: test intercepted messages with heat and acid, which kind of

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Speaker 2: made the whole thing pointless. Luckily, though, an amateur chemist

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Speaker 2: named James J was on the case. He developed a

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Speaker 2: formula for a new kind of ink, one that could

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Speaker 2: only be made visible by a specific corresponding chemical or reagent.

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Speaker 2: So no matter how much heat the British applied, the

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Speaker 2: invisible message would stay invisible. Once this ink was ready

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Speaker 2: to go, James teamed up with his more famous younger brother,

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Speaker 2: John Jay. Perhaps you've heard of it. Oh yeah, He

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Speaker 2: helped get the ink into George Washington's hands. So Washington

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Speaker 2: distributed it to spies in British occupied New York during

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Speaker 2: the war, and they used it to write messages on

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Speaker 2: blank pages of books. And despite being searched on multiple occasions,

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Speaker 2: none of this secret writing was ever discovered by the British.

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Speaker 1: That is incredible, And that's also incredible that John Jay

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Speaker 1: had a connection to this. I didn't even know you

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Speaker 1: had a brother, So what was in this secret formula?

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Speaker 2: Jay never revealed what was in the ink because writing

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Speaker 2: down the recipe would have been too dangerous. Fortunately, though,

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Speaker 2: some of the letters written in his invisible ink survived

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Speaker 2: the war, and in the nineteen thirties, a doctor named

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Speaker 2: Lodovic Bendixen studied those samples to determine the ink's composition.

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Speaker 2: Turns out it was made from the tannic acid of

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Speaker 2: gall nuts, which aren't nuts at all.

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Speaker 1: See when a wasp.

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Speaker 2: Blazed its eggs on the branches of an oak tree,

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Speaker 2: the tree defends itself by entombing the eggs inside a

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Speaker 2: big woody growth. And that's what a goal nut is.

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Speaker 2: It's a wooden cocoon full of dead wasp eggs. That

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Speaker 2: is gross. I love it. I also love that like

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Speaker 2: it took to the nineteen thirties for people to figure

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Speaker 2: out what this was. You know, it's pretty amazing. But

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Speaker 2: what was it about the reagent that revealed ink?

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Speaker 1: Like? Do we ever find out what that was? And

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Speaker 1: was it as disgusting as a call nut? Because if so,

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Speaker 1: you can you can just not tell us. We did

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Speaker 1: find out, but don't worry. It was just an iron

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Speaker 1: supplement called ferris sulfate, which is often used to lower

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Speaker 1: the pH level and soil. It was a pretty obscure

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Speaker 1: pair of chemicals to put together. But that's exactly why

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Speaker 1: the British didn't figure it out.

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Speaker 2: Way to go, James, j right, Seriously, he's the lesser

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Speaker 2: j But I don't know we could make the case for.

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Speaker 1: Anyway. What do you got next, Mago? Well, I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: take it to the Victorian area. And if you were

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Speaker 1: a fancy lady back then, you were actually fancy, by

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Speaker 1: which I mean, of course you didn't go anywhere without

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Speaker 1: an elaborate handheld fan, typically made of silk or fine parchment.

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Speaker 1: In fact, you'd have different fans for different occasions, and

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Speaker 1: the one you took to church might have a Bible

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Speaker 1: scene painted on it, while the one you use for

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Speaker 1: parties would have a festive image of people dancing. Right. But,

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Speaker 1: according to a famous French fan maker, women also used

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Speaker 1: fans to send secret messages to their gentlemen admirers. For example,

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Speaker 1: if a woman held a fan in front of her

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Speaker 1: face with her right hand, that meant follow me. Twirling

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Speaker 1: the fan in her left hand meant we're being watched.

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Speaker 1: And perhaps my favorite, opening the fan and snapping it

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Speaker 1: shut meant you.

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Speaker 2: Are cruel, amazing. But how did the gentleman admirers understand

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Speaker 2: all this? Was there some kind of codebook you had

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Speaker 2: to buy. Yeah, so that's the thing that famous fan

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Speaker 2: maker I mentioned. His name was Jules de vell Roy

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Speaker 2: and he ran the family fan business with locations in

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Speaker 2: London and Paris. Now, during the French Revolution, the French

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Speaker 2: fan maker's guild had shut down and demand for fans

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Speaker 2: had dropped because you know, they were really the symbol

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Speaker 2: of the aristocracy. So many decades later, and this is

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Speaker 2: In the eighteen fifties, Jewels decides to make fans a

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Speaker 2: must have item again, and he publishes a pamphlet titled

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Speaker 2: The Language of the Fan, with a list of over

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Speaker 2: two dozen gestures and romantic meanings. And this is all

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Speaker 2: just a marketing play, but you got to give them credit.

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Speaker 2: The stunt worked sales took off, and devell Roy actually

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Speaker 2: became Queen Victoria's go to fan guy. Huh, So it

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Speaker 2: was all a hoax then, like the fancy Ladies weren't

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Speaker 2: sending secret messages via fan.

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Speaker 1: So first of all, let's call it marketing. Second, devell

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Speaker 1: Roy didn't invent that idea out of thin air. In

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Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, there were party games that involved fans

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Speaker 1: printed with like trivia questions on one side and answers

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Speaker 1: on the other. There were also some fans with the

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Speaker 1: letters of the alphabet in the fold, so you could

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Speaker 1: use them to spell out messages, and historians believe fans

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Speaker 1: may have been used in pre revolutionary France to display

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Speaker 1: political slogans. But none of this rose to the level

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Speaker 1: of an actual widespread messaging system that everyone was using. Right,

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Speaker 1: That part was all made up. On the other hand,

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Speaker 1: you don't really need a codebook to figure out what

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Speaker 1: it means. If someone flutters they're faning giggles, or if

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Speaker 1: they suddenly point their fan towards the door where their

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Speaker 1: angry father is running in through it, I think you

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Speaker 1: pretty much get the gist there. Yeah, all right.

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Speaker 2: So, as you know, I moved to Tennessee two years ago,

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Speaker 2: and one of the most unexpected pleasures about that has

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Speaker 2: been acquainting myself with the South's ubiquitous breakfast chain, the

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Speaker 2: waffle House. Are you familiar, of.

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Speaker 1: Course, I mean I went to school in North Carolina.

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Speaker 1: We lived in Atlanta for a bit. I took photos

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Speaker 1: of Ruby's first baby's first waffle house a milestone. It's

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Speaker 1: a traditional Southern milestones.

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Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you really can't miss them, I guess if

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Speaker 2: you drive through the South or the Midwest. But you know,

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Speaker 2: the food is standard diner. Fair waffles are obviously a

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Speaker 2: big draw, as are the hash browns, which you can

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Speaker 2: order at least eight different ways. But what really won

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Speaker 2: me over is the intensely complicated plate marking system that

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Speaker 2: the staff uses to keep track of orders. So, unlike

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Speaker 2: most restaurants, waffle House doesn't use a ticket system to

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Speaker 2: relay orders to the kitchen. Instead, servers call them out verbally,

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Speaker 2: and cooks immediately start marking plates with condiment packets and

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Speaker 2: little scraps of ingredients so they won't forget the specifics.

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Speaker 2: For example, if a customer wants a plane waffle, the

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Speaker 2: cook puts one packet of butter on the plate right

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Speaker 2: side up. For two waffles, they stack two packs of butter,

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Speaker 2: and for a pecan waffle, they flip the butter upside down.

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Speaker 1: I'd heard tell of like a system, but I haven't

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Speaker 1: actually like watched for it. I feel like I need

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Speaker 1: to look the next time there. But you know, it

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Speaker 1: sounds easy enough, I guess if you figure it out.

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Speaker 2: Well, Yeah, I started with waffles because they're the simplest

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Speaker 2: the things spiral pretty.

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Speaker 1: Fast with the other items.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, to signify a standard order of two eggs,

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Speaker 2: you put a right side up jelly packet on a plate.

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Speaker 2: But if a customer wants just one egg, then you've

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Speaker 2: got to put a ketchup packet underneath the jelly obviously,

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Speaker 2: And if they want three eggs, you put a mustard

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Speaker 2: packet underneath instead. Yeah, and it gets weirder from there. Actually,

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Speaker 2: the position and orientation of each item on the plate

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Speaker 2: communicates how the order should be prepared. So a jelly

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Speaker 2: packet at the bottom center of the plate means two

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Speaker 2: eggs scrambled, but for sunny side up the jelly goes

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Speaker 2: at the top center, and for regular fried eggs, the

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Speaker 2: jelly goes in the middle of the plate, on the

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Speaker 2: left hand side for over easy, middle for over medium,

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Speaker 2: and right for over heart.

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Speaker 1: I don't know whether I'm dizzy from trying to like

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Speaker 1: keep up with it or hungry from hearing about all

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Speaker 1: these breakfast orders. But what if someone just wants like

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Speaker 1: toast with their eggs? Okay, So in.

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Speaker 2: That case, the cook would use a platter instead of

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Speaker 2: a plate, and the jelly packet pulls double duty by

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Speaker 2: indicating both the eggs and the toast. The jelly is

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Speaker 2: placed right side up for white toast, upside down for wheat,

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Speaker 2: and for raisin toast, just swap out the jelly for

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Speaker 2: a packet of apple butter. As for those famous hash browns,

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Speaker 2: they're indicated simply by sprinkling a few potato shreds at

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Speaker 2: the top of the plate. And once you get into

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Speaker 2: omelets and breakfast sandwiches, things get complicated again, but I'll

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Speaker 2: let you discover those for yourself. There's actually a twenty

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Speaker 2: minute training video online that breaks down all the possible

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Speaker 2: permutations of the marker system, which every waffle House cook

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Speaker 2: has to learn.

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Speaker 1: You know, I am weirdly fascinating enough that I feel

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Speaker 1: like I would go watch that twenty minute video but

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Speaker 1: also recommend it. It doesn't it feel well, It feels

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Speaker 1: one like it should be playing in the background of parties.

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Speaker 1: But yes, I haven't made a few people watch it.

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Speaker 1: But also like, wouldn't if you just so much easier

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Speaker 1: to write down the orders like every other restaurant.

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Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, sure, but I do kind of admire

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Speaker 2: how needlessly elaborate it is. It's a very Rube Goldberg

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Speaker 2: approach to to ordering breakfast.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guess you know, waffle House already has

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Speaker 1: endeared itself to people, and it makes it a little

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Speaker 1: more special. Okay, so we have to take a quick break,

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Speaker 1: but when we get back, we have four more weird

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Speaker 1: messaging techniques that everyone should maybe not learn, but hear

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Speaker 1: about it. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back to part time Genius.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about nine of the strangest, most elaborate ways

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Speaker 1: of sending messages. But if you want to send us

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Speaker 1: a message, we have made it super easy. Just email

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Speaker 1: us at high Geniuses at gmail dot com. That's Hi, Geniuses,

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Speaker 1: or call our hotline at three oh two four oh

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Speaker 1: five five nine two five. You can ask us a question,

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Speaker 1: share an idea for a future episode, tell us what

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Speaker 1: you think of the show, tell us what you think

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Speaker 1: of waffle house. Whatever we want to hear from you.

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Speaker 1: So please get in touch. Okay, So, Gabe, here's one

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Speaker 1: I like, mostly because of the name. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard of Wigwag? I don't think I've had the pleasure. No, Well,

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Speaker 1: get excited. Wigwag goes back to the eighteen fifties and

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Speaker 1: it was invented by an Army surgeon. His name was

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Speaker 1: Albert J. Meyer. Meyer had actually done his doctoral thesis

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Speaker 1: on a language for the hearing impaired. He'd been a

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Speaker 1: telegraph operator in med school and later while stationed in Texas,

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Speaker 1: he thought, what if you could take the idea of

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Speaker 1: telegraph signals and do it visually, kind of like smoke signals.

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Speaker 1: And so his solution was get one big flag and

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Speaker 1: instead of semaphore, which uses two flags, wigwag just decided

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Speaker 1: to use one right, so you wag it left for

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Speaker 1: one symbol, right for another, and you'd use repeating motions

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Speaker 1: to make letters. So I was a wag left, T

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Speaker 1: was a wag right, and letter V was one left,

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Speaker 1: followed by three rights, which from a distance to people

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Speaker 1: who didn't speak, I'm sure either looked like you were

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Speaker 1: trying to shoe bees or the world's saddest interpretive dance.

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Speaker 2: I love that this is just as complicated as the

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Speaker 2: waffle house marker system. But was there just like one

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Speaker 2: colored flag that they were using for this, or could

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Speaker 2: you use any flag you had handy?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually a good question. The flags were square,

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Speaker 1: and they could be red, white, or black, and basically

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Speaker 1: it was for whatever stood out against the background you

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Speaker 1: were against right. And this is in the eighteen fifties

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Speaker 1: into the eighteen sixties. So once the Union Army got

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Speaker 1: serious about it, they actually built towers and used church

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Speaker 1: steeples so the messages could be seen for miles. And

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Speaker 1: there's a famous story where at Gettysburg, when the actual

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Speaker 1: Signal Corps officer retreats, a Union soldier famously grabs a

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Speaker 1: bed sheet and just keeps waving. Of course, there was

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Speaker 1: a hitch here because you know, both sides had trained

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Speaker 1: together before the war, so the Confederates actually knew the code,

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Speaker 1: so the Union started using cipher dis to scramble their messages. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: here's my favorite part. So after the war, Meyer's successor

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Speaker 1: publishes the entire code in a book and then he

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Speaker 1: gets fired for basically leaking state secrets. That is.

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Speaker 2: It also just dawned on me that wigwag is probably

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Speaker 2: short for wiggle waggles.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's horrible.

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Speaker 2: So how long did wigwag last?

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Speaker 1: It was around for a while, but by World War One,

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Speaker 1: you know, standing in a field waving a big red

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Speaker 1: flag was basically making yourself a target. So the system

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Speaker 1: was retired in favor of Morse code. Okay, mango, there's

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Speaker 1: a piece of paper on the table in front of you.

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Speaker 1: Don't worry about how it got there. Just take a

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Speaker 1: look at it and tell.

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Speaker 2: Me what you see.

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Speaker 1: Okay, got it. It's a normal sentence, typed up. It

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Speaker 1: says we should do more episodes about peanuts. I've heard

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Speaker 1: this from you before. I know you love the peanuts.

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Speaker 1: I love the peanuts, but Mary might kill us.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I still think you guys are wrong

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Speaker 2: about this, but I don't mean the words on the page.

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Speaker 1: Look closer, after.

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Speaker 2: The words, what do you see, just the punctuation like

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Speaker 2: the period no memi zens bingo. Yes, except that's not

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Speaker 2: a period at all, It's a micro dot. So this

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Speaker 2: is an incredible miniature messaging system that has its roots

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Speaker 2: in the Franco Prussian War of eighteen seventy. A Parisian

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Speaker 2: photographer named Renee de Grann invented microfilm, which allowed French

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Speaker 2: troops to shrink messages onto tiny bits of film that

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Speaker 2: could be flown out of occupied Paris by carrier pigeons.

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Speaker 2: So at the nineteen twenty five International Congress on Photography,

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Speaker 2: an inventor named Emmanuel Goldberg took this idea further. He

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Speaker 2: shrank a page of text to an area of about

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Speaker 2: zero point zero one square millimeters. Wow, and at that

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Speaker 2: size you could print the entire Bible fifty times in

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Speaker 2: a single squirt inch. That is insane, I know. And

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Speaker 2: so Goldberg called his invention Mikrotz, which became known as

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Speaker 2: micro dots, and during World War Two and the Cold War,

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Speaker 2: micro dots played a huge role in secret communication spies

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Speaker 2: shrank thousands of documents and hid them in eyeglass frames, dolls,

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Speaker 2: book bindings, jewelry, even under their fingernails. And of course,

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Speaker 2: because the average micro dot was about the size of

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Speaker 2: a period, they'd sometimes adhere the dots to books and

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Speaker 2: newspapers where they just looked like, you know, part of

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Speaker 2: the printed page. And what's really impressive to me is

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Speaker 2: that they were doing all of this before computers. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's that's really fascinating. I mean, you think about that

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Speaker 2: as something that's so easy to do with computers, but

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Speaker 2: I hadn't considered that this is like an elaborate old process.

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Speaker 1: It's so much more work.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it could all be done with photography equipment today.

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Speaker 2: There were different techniques, some more sophisticated than others, and

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Speaker 2: along the way people did invent special cameras to generate

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Speaker 2: micro dots. But even with a regular camera you could

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Speaker 2: do it. Basically, you'd photograph a document so it filled

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Speaker 2: a frame of film, develop that, then mount the negative

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Speaker 2: on black cardboard with a whole cutout so you could

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Speaker 2: light it from behind. That way the text on the

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Speaker 2: negative was visible. And finally you take a close up

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Speaker 2: photo of the negative, creating an image less than a

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Speaker 2: millimeter long, and in order to see what was on

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Speaker 2: the image, you just needed a microscope.

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Speaker 1: That is so cool. But right now, more than anything,

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Speaker 1: I'm curious what is in the micro dot that you made.

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Speaker 2: It's a script for an episode about the greatest peanut

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Speaker 2: strips in history. You know, it just incaded.

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Speaker 1: So I know, I told you about the secret language

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Speaker 1: of fans and the marketing trick behind their sales, which

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Speaker 1: I love. But because I'm a little obsessed with how

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Speaker 1: repressed people were in the Victorian era, I've actually got

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Speaker 1: another one from those times. Now. As we've alluded to,

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Speaker 1: social etiquette at the time was insanely strict. You basically

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Speaker 1: couldn't say I like you without you know, fainting into

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Speaker 1: a lace handkerchief, right. It was too much emotion, and

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Speaker 1: so they had their fans. But people also invented another workaround,

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Speaker 1: and that was floriography, aka the language of flowers, and

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Speaker 1: basically it let you send text messages with bouquets. Now,

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Speaker 1: men were particularly blunt about this. If they handed someone

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Speaker 1: a nosegay, which was a little mini bouquet, they were

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Speaker 1: basically trying to slid to your dms right, And so

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Speaker 1: there's the obvious. There's a red rose, which means I'm

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Speaker 1: in love with you, a yellow carnation which means I

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Speaker 1: disdain you, and buttercups, which means you're childish. So a

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Speaker 1: little negging perhaps there, but it gets more elaborate. Women

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Speaker 1: in high society would wear flowers in their hair, are

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Speaker 1: tucked into their gowns as accessories, but these were more coded.

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Speaker 1: A sweet pea meant thank you. If you pair it

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Speaker 1: with zinias, suddenly you've opped it to thank you, dear

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Speaker 1: friend forever. If you add white lily's to the mix,

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Speaker 1: now you're saying thank you, dear friend forever. Also, I'm

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Speaker 1: pure and innocent, but not in a weird way.

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Speaker 2: That's a complicated sentence, especially to send through flowers.

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Speaker 1: I know. It feels like when Ruby was a kid

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Speaker 1: and would send out emojis to friends from my phone

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Speaker 1: and would just be a string of nonsense and people

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Speaker 1: would be trying to decode it, like what does twenty horses,

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Speaker 1: a few winks, arrows, gymnastics and an apple mean right?

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Speaker 1: Like total sense. But luckily for Victorians there was, like

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Speaker 1: the fans, a guidebook, the whole phenomena had started with

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Speaker 1: Charlotte de la Tour's eighteen nineteen book Li Language def Fleur,

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Speaker 1: which became a decoder ring basically for floral messages, and

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Speaker 1: the idea caught fire because at the time, when women

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Speaker 1: especially weren't encouraged to speak their minds, flowers became a

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Speaker 1: sly way of pushing back. Right. You could gossip, you

417
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Speaker 1: could flirt, you could dump someone, all while looking like

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Speaker 1: you were just accessorizing and playing your role. Men actually

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Speaker 1: found this useful as well, like there are cases where

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Speaker 1: men would sneak more emotion into things, like if you

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Speaker 1: look at the wreaths that noble men and kings placed

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Speaker 1: on their mother's graves, historians have actually realized that there

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Speaker 1: are actually more layers of emotion and feeling woven into

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Speaker 1: the symbols when you look at the flowers and the

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Speaker 1: specific flowers that were pulled in. In one case, I know,

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Speaker 1: there was one king who they didn't think had a

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Speaker 1: very deep relationship with the mother, and they realized just

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Speaker 1: how much respect through the wreath, which is incredible. Yeah,

429
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:59,560
Speaker 1: that's lovely. Anyway, the system was not perfect like emojis today.

430
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,600
Speaker 1: Content that mattered a pink flower in Thailand could be trust.

431
00:23:02,880 --> 00:23:05,959
Speaker 1: In Japan, the same flower might mean health, and in Victoria.

432
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:08,800
Speaker 1: In London it might mean I'm into you, but chastely,

433
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,880
Speaker 1: which is you know, confusing, but also the Victorian way.

434
00:23:12,200 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 2: I actually think, you know, we can bring this back.

435
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:18,200
Speaker 2: It's cool. But all right, this next one is something

436
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:21,160
Speaker 2: that should probably stay forgotten. It is one of the

437
00:23:21,200 --> 00:23:25,359
Speaker 2: weirdest footnotes in the history of telecommunications, a little something

438
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 2: called the psychic snail telegraph.

439
00:23:29,240 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: I feel like you're making this up, but I'm very

440
00:23:33,520 --> 00:23:36,200
Speaker 1: excited to hear more. Well, you know, sometimes the truth

441
00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:38,480
Speaker 1: really is stranger than fiction, and this is one of

442
00:23:38,520 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: those cases. So in the eighteen fifties, a French occultist

443
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: named Jacques Benoit developed a theory that when two snails

444
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,879
Speaker 1: made it, their exchange of fluids forged a telepathic bond

445
00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: that would connect them across any distance. So if you

446
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,480
Speaker 1: poked one snail, its mate would flinch as if it

447
00:23:56,520 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: had also been touched. So, in ben Wah's this kind

448
00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:04,679
Speaker 1: of sympathetic action at a distance was really no different

449
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:08,159
Speaker 1: than electricity, and he figured that if those forces, you know,

450
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:12,119
Speaker 1: electricity and magnetism, could be harnessed for telecommunications as they

451
00:24:12,119 --> 00:24:15,840
Speaker 1: recently had been with a telegraph. Then maybe this animal

452
00:24:15,880 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: magnetism could serve the same purpose. I mean, in one sense,

453
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,440
Speaker 1: it sounds vaguely credible until you remember that snails are

454
00:24:24,480 --> 00:24:25,560
Speaker 1: not psychic, you know.

455
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is kind of a sticking point, I guess,

456
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:30,719
Speaker 2: but it didn't stop ben Wah from testing his theory.

457
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 2: In eighteen fifty one, he claimed to have devised a

458
00:24:33,640 --> 00:24:36,960
Speaker 2: telegraph that would use the psychic link between twenty four

459
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:40,280
Speaker 2: pairs of snails to send messages from one side of

460
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,199
Speaker 2: the world to the other. He even managed to smooth

461
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:47,479
Speaker 2: talk a wealthy Parisian named Monsieur Triat into funding his

462
00:24:47,560 --> 00:24:50,960
Speaker 2: experiments and providing lodging and a stipend for him while

463
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 2: he worked on the machine, which I'm sure was money

464
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 2: well spent. But how is this supposed to work? So

465
00:24:56,400 --> 00:24:59,639
Speaker 2: the final build consisted of two paired sets of twenty

466
00:24:59,680 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 2: four snails each so forty eight snails total, which were

467
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 2: glued to a pair of wooden boards alongside the letters

468
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,760
Speaker 2: of the French alphabet. And the idea was that if

469
00:25:08,760 --> 00:25:11,280
Speaker 2: you pressed a snail on one board, its mate on

470
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:14,400
Speaker 2: the other board would stick out its tentacles in response,

471
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:16,640
Speaker 2: and those are the little things on top of its head,

472
00:25:16,680 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 2: by the way. And just like regular telegraphs, this required

473
00:25:20,040 --> 00:25:22,800
Speaker 2: an operator on each end, one to send the message

474
00:25:22,840 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 2: and one to monitor the snail's movements to see which

475
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:26,880
Speaker 2: letters had been pressed.

476
00:25:30,160 --> 00:25:33,720
Speaker 1: There is something both fishy and gross about the psychic

477
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:34,720
Speaker 1: snail telegraphy.

478
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you're not the only one to think that.

479
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,879
Speaker 2: So after months of frustration and nothing to show for it,

480
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 2: Monsieur Triat demanded a demonstration, you know, to see where

481
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 2: all his money was going. Benoa agreed, but surprise, surprise,

482
00:25:47,359 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 2: it didn't go so well. During the trial, Benoa ran

483
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:53,439
Speaker 2: back and forth to make sure the operators were reading

484
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 2: the snails correctly, so it was blatant cheating, and the

485
00:25:57,119 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 2: messages still wound up totally garbled. Triot called for a second,

486
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,600
Speaker 2: more rigorous demonstration, but when the day of the second

487
00:26:04,600 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 2: test arrived, Benoah didn't show up. He never contacted Triot

488
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: again and died the next year. So it was all

489
00:26:12,280 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 2: a big scam. But it's fun to imagine a world

490
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:18,200
Speaker 2: where ben Wah's vision became reality, Like he had plans

491
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 2: to make personal snail telegraphs the size of a pocket

492
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:23,960
Speaker 2: watch because there are snail species, you know, as small

493
00:26:24,000 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 2: as a pinhead, and if that had happened, we could

494
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 2: all be carrying around psychic snail telegraphs instead of smartphone.

495
00:26:33,560 --> 00:26:36,480
Speaker 1: You know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. But all right,

496
00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,879
Speaker 1: let's wrap this thing up with one last fact. So

497
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 1: over the summer we did an episode where we took

498
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: a virtual trip across Australia. Now I have never been

499
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,119
Speaker 1: to Australia in real life, but that episode was so

500
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: much fun. I ended up doing some more reading about

501
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: the landown under and I learned about a fascinating tool

502
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: called message sticks.

503
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:59,480
Speaker 2: Which I'm assuming is Aussie slang for post it notes.

504
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:04,000
Speaker 1: Right. No, they're actual sticks, and they have an incredible

505
00:27:04,040 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: history that goes back centuries. So, as you may know,

506
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:11,600
Speaker 1: Australia's Aboriginal people are considered the world's oldest continuous living culture,

507
00:27:12,080 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: and within that culture are hundreds of different nations. They

508
00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,359
Speaker 1: speak over two hundred and fifty languages eight hundred dialects,

509
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:22,400
Speaker 1: and yet for hundreds even thousands of years, Indigenous people

510
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,639
Speaker 1: were able to communicate with each other despite differences in

511
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:28,919
Speaker 1: their spoken language and the challenges of traveling across remote

512
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: wilderness areas. So early European colonists witnessed thousands of First

513
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 1: Nations people gathering from hundreds of kilometers away, all arriving

514
00:27:38,119 --> 00:27:40,680
Speaker 1: at the same place at the same time, and they

515
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 1: just assumed it was telepathy, right, a little like your

516
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:47,960
Speaker 1: snail telegraph. It was actually something simpler but just as impressive.

517
00:27:48,359 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: They had these carved wooden sticks inscribed with images that

518
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 1: gave precise instructions for meeting times and places, as well

519
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,320
Speaker 1: as other important news. So the process begins with an

520
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: oral message that would be communicated to a messenger. As

521
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:04,440
Speaker 1: the stick was carved. That way, the sender could explain

522
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: to the messenger how the symbols on the stick related

523
00:28:06,560 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: to the message. Then the messenger carried the stick to

524
00:28:09,240 --> 00:28:12,400
Speaker 1: the recipient and repeated the oral message that he'd memorized.

525
00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: So if there were any language barriers, the stick would

526
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 1: make sure that he points got through. If the recipient

527
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 1: wanted to send a message back, they'd repeat the process

528
00:28:19,520 --> 00:28:20,880
Speaker 1: before the messenger went home.

529
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 2: Have these message sticks been preserved in any way, It

530
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 2: seems like they'd be an amazing cultural record.

531
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,439
Speaker 1: They have, and they are so. An anthropologist named Pierce

532
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: Kelly has created the Australian Message Stick Project, which tracks

533
00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: down message sticks and museums and private collections. He actually

534
00:28:36,840 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: works closely with Indigenous elders to decode the meaning of

535
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 1: their symbols, and oddly enough, there are people alive today

536
00:28:43,720 --> 00:28:46,480
Speaker 1: who understand the symbols because in some parts of Australia

537
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: message sticks were still in use until the nineteen eighties.

538
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 2: Wow.

539
00:28:50,680 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 1: Plus many of the symbols refer to places and practices

540
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: that remain important to Aboriginal life. So in fact, according

541
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: to Kelly, there's been this message stick revival in Australia,

542
00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: particularly for formal interactions between institutions. So while message stakes

543
00:29:04,400 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: are a connection to the past, they still have meaning

544
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 1: in the present, which I really love. Yeah, I love

545
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:10,320
Speaker 1: that too.

546
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,120
Speaker 2: It's you. You somehow made this a little heartwarming. So

547
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 2: think I think for that and floriography, you should probably

548
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:17,840
Speaker 2: take the trophy this time.

549
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:22,719
Speaker 1: I don't think I can because snail messaging is too gross.

550
00:29:23,040 --> 00:29:27,160
Speaker 1: And also the John j fact about that what was

551
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:33,880
Speaker 1: it called something? Not? It was son nuts a new

552
00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: scravel word. Shout out to John Jay and Monsieur Benoa. Awesome.

553
00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: Well that does it for today's Nine Things episode of

554
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 1: part Time Juniors. I do want to thank our good

555
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:48,920
Speaker 1: friends at CDM for letting us record here today. And

556
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 1: I know I mentioned this earlier, but we love communicating

557
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: with our fans, so send us your stories, ideas, messages, whatever.

558
00:29:56,560 --> 00:29:58,560
Speaker 1: We would love to play some of those messages on

559
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: the show. That number again and for the hotline is

560
00:30:00,800 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: three two four oh five five nine two five. But

561
00:30:04,120 --> 00:30:08,640
Speaker 1: from Will, Mary, Gabe, Dylan and myself, thank you so

562
00:30:08,760 --> 00:30:25,160
Speaker 1: much for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of

563
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This show is hosted by Will Pearson

564
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: and Me Mongas Chatikler and research by our good pal

565
00:30:33,720 --> 00:30:37,640
Speaker 1: Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode was engineered and produced by

566
00:30:37,640 --> 00:30:41,360
Speaker 1: the wonderful Dylan Fagan with support from Tyler Klang. The

567
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: show is executive produced for iHeart by Katrina Norvell and

568
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 1: Ali Perry, with social media support from Sasha Gay, trustee

569
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:53,240
Speaker 1: Dara Potts and Vine Shoory. For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope

570
00:30:53,280 --> 00:30:58,160
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

571
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.

572
00:31:01,440 --> 00:31:01,480
Speaker 2: The