WEBVTT - How Did the Lazy Susan Get Its Name? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:10.400 Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Bogelbaum. Here. If your home has 0:00:10.440 --> 0:00:13.840 a corner cabinet, odds are it has a lazy Susan 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:17.440 tucked away inside. Perhaps there's a lazy susan a top 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.240 the center of your dining room table, or you've spun 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:22.799 one around to reach a tasty dish well seated at 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:27.200 a round restaurant table. Whatever its use or location, the 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.560 lazy susan arguably has the most enigmatic moniker of all 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.840 household appliances. We don't call a napkin holder holder helen, 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.200 or a mixing bowl mix and max, or at least 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.800 we haven't until now. So how did the lazy susan 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.599 get its name? First, let's take a closer look at 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.159 how a lazy susan works. A lazy susan refers to 0:00:50.240 --> 0:00:53.040 a round disk that rotates on a set of bearings 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:57.000 located underneath. This spinning platform can be made of any 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.560 number of materials, ranging from wood or plastic to gloss 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:04.760 or marble. Commercially crafted sizes come in even number diameters, 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.520 with the most common sizes ranging from twelve to forty 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.480 eight inches, which is about thirty centimes. Even a small 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.119 lazy susan often is used to store condiments in silverware 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:20.240 on a tabletop, putting them with an easy reach of diners. However, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.200 in some restaurants and homes, a large lazy susan of 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.200 at least twenty two inches or fifty six centimeters is 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:28.360 placed in the middle of the table to hold dishes 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.080 of food that can then be rotated to each person. 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.080 It may be a derivative of the European dumb waiter, 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.000 which was a piece of furniture situated near the hostess 0:01:38.040 --> 0:01:40.760 at a dinner table. The dumb waiter had three or 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.040 four round trays that decreased in size from the bottom 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.680 to the top. The trays were used to store desserts, cheeses, 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:51.120 silver and extra plates, anything the hostess might need to 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:56.320 quickly access. While the exact origins of the lazy susan 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.840 are lost to history, there is a plausible theory about 0:01:59.880 --> 0:02:04.120 a name. Susan was a generic term popularized in the 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:09.480 seventeen hundreds by employers referencing their female made servants, and 0:02:09.639 --> 0:02:11.960 at the time it was fairly common for people who 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:15.760 employed servants to complain that they were lazy According to 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:18.760 Marcus Kreevsky, a professor of media history at the University 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.760 of Basel, Switzerland, the term lazy Susan was probably common 0:02:22.800 --> 0:02:26.520 at the time. Later, in the two decades leading up 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:30.959 to World War One, technological advances became substitutes for human power. 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.360 With the advent of the ring or washing machine and 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.960 similar inventions, it became prohibitively expensive for some households to 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.160 continue to hire servants, as rotating wooden trays cropped up 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.160 in kitchens and on dining room tables, replacing the need 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.760 for servants to dish food. The term lazy Susan likely 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:51.560 became a mashup of a reference to both the lazy 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:57.079 employee and the substitution of technology for human power. There 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.160 are other theories as well. Although most experts agree that 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.840 this ubiquitous household aid probably didn't have a single inventor 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:08.000 or a solitary namesake, some believe that Thomas Jefferson may 0:03:08.040 --> 0:03:11.120 have invented the lazy Susan in the eighteenth century, referencing 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.280 a daughter in the naming. As the story goes, his 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.040 daughter Susan wasn't a fan of being served last at 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:21.280 the dinner table, and thus became his inspiration. The only 0:03:21.280 --> 0:03:24.120 problem with the story is that Thomas Jefferson doesn't seem 0:03:24.120 --> 0:03:27.320 to have had a daughter named Susan. Others point to 0:03:27.320 --> 0:03:30.120 Thomas Edison as the inventor, believing that the turntable he 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:35.240 created first phonograph evolved into the Lazy Susan. Despite the 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:38.080 murky origins of its name, the Lazy Susan was forever 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.400 cast into the American lexicon in nineteen seventeen when an 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:45.720 advertisement appeared in Vanity Fair touting a rotating round tray 0:03:45.880 --> 0:03:49.480 called a Lazy Susan. Turns out the name may have 0:03:49.560 --> 0:03:53.800 been invented by an anonymous copywriter tasked with increasing sales 0:03:53.880 --> 0:04:01.560 during the holidays. Today's episode was written by Laurie L. 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.120 Dove and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.560 and lots of other rotating topics, visit how Stuff works 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.800 dot com. Brainstuff is a production of iHeart Radio or 0:04:09.800 --> 0:04:12.560 more podcasts my Heart Radio visit the iHeart Radio app, 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.440 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.