Speaker 1: Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick and Robert. I'm going to start off with
Speaker 1: a question that may seem totally unrelated to today's topic,
Speaker 1: but we'll get there. How often do you encounter a
Speaker 1: belief in fate in the modern world, in this technological
Speaker 1: society that we live in. Oh, that's a good question, um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it certainly shows up in narratives that we
Speaker 1: encounter and even put a great deal of thought into,
Speaker 1: you know, and in our modern society. But in terms
Speaker 1: of like personally believing in fate, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're certainly various. Particularly I'm thinking of various sort
Speaker 1: of New Age belief systems that put a lot of
Speaker 1: emphasis on sort of setting your own fate and manifesting
Speaker 1: something in the future and therefore like creating this this
Speaker 1: line of fate that you're going to follow. But so
Speaker 1: many other like religious world views are going to depend upon,
Speaker 1: like the the importance of free will. You're making a
Speaker 1: choice to do, you know, to go this way or
Speaker 1: go that way, and perhaps things are more or less
Speaker 1: on the rails once you have made that choice. But
Speaker 1: then I feel like in the secular world there's more
Speaker 1: of an understanding of um of chaos and and chance,
Speaker 1: and maybe we you know, we exaggerate our chances regarding
Speaker 1: various things, but for the most part we realize that
Speaker 1: where it's we're kind of at the whim of the universe.
Speaker 1: I feel like it shows up some in UH, in
Speaker 1: some context more than others. Like you still very often
Speaker 1: get the feeling of people falling in love and believing
Speaker 1: they were meant for each other. That's true if you
Speaker 1: do encounter it there. That's like a certain kind of
Speaker 1: belief in faith. And I would say that belief in
Speaker 1: faith is not exactly the same thing as the sort
Speaker 1: of personality trade of fatalism, which you do encounter sometimes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, when you get into the whole, you know,
Speaker 1: question free will, which we certainly have quite a bit
Speaker 1: on our other show stuff to all your mind. You know,
Speaker 1: there's always that, you know, that view of looking at
Speaker 1: things is just completely you know, everything is predetermined by
Speaker 1: your environment and UH and the brain, and that we're
Speaker 1: you know, we're not that the argument that we're not
Speaker 1: even necessarily making any choices. We're just on this trajectory,
Speaker 1: and I guess you could you could very much align
Speaker 1: that worldview with an idea of fate. You know, what
Speaker 1: else could we be? What else could we do being
Speaker 1: what we are? Yeah, But then again you have the
Speaker 1: idea that I mean, it's very common belief among say
Speaker 1: philosophers and uh and and physicists and stuff, that there's
Speaker 1: this this principle of compatible is m, which says that, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we do live in a physically deterministic universe. And
Speaker 1: yet nevertheless, because of some features of the way we
Speaker 1: conceive of free will, the idea of determinism and physics
Speaker 1: and free will in our lives are not really actually
Speaker 1: in conflict. And of course, I mean they're gonna be
Speaker 1: cultural differences here as well. I mean, certainly in the
Speaker 1: United States there's still the you know, this idea of
Speaker 1: you know, America and exceptionalism, and combine that with celebrity
Speaker 1: worship and celebrity culture, and you have, like you have
Speaker 1: some kind of weird warped takes on what fate is
Speaker 1: and how it works, you know, like is the is
Speaker 1: there's just sort of this idea in society that you
Speaker 1: were you know, your destined for greatness or are you
Speaker 1: defying the fates by uh, you know, grasping after your
Speaker 1: own greatness. Well this all came to mind because we're
Speaker 1: talking about scissors today. So what's the connection here. Well,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how the ancient Greeks were, in
Speaker 1: many ways really into fate and destiny. I think you'd
Speaker 1: probably find some some counter strains of thought running in
Speaker 1: through ancient Greece, But it was a It was a
Speaker 1: common folk belief among the ancient Greeks that a person's
Speaker 1: life was already a sort of pre written text, decided
Speaker 1: in total for them at the moment of their birth.
Speaker 1: And then a more limited version of this was that
Speaker 1: even if all the exact details of your life weren't predetermined,
Speaker 1: the length of one's life, the time in the nature
Speaker 1: of one's death were all decided in advance, and even
Speaker 1: the gods couldn't intervene. But if even the gods couldn't
Speaker 1: intervene to change your fate, who's deciding your fate in
Speaker 1: the first place? If it's not Zeus, then who? And
Speaker 1: here is where a trio of excellent creepy characters from
Speaker 1: mythology comes in. According to one popular form of Greek
Speaker 1: religion and folk belief. The deciders of each person's individual
Speaker 1: destiny are the more ray or the three fates. These
Speaker 1: are depicted as three divine women spinning out our lives
Speaker 1: as strands of thread or twine, and that they've got
Speaker 1: they've each got their own name and personality. So there
Speaker 1: is clothes though, the spinner, who creates the thread of
Speaker 1: life upon her spindle, and then there's Lacess, the allotter,
Speaker 1: who measures out a certain length of the thread of
Speaker 1: your life. And then there is Atropos, the inflexible or
Speaker 1: the inevitable, who makes the decision final and secures the
Speaker 1: circumstances of each person's death by snipping off the threat
Speaker 1: of life with a pair of scissors or shears. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's it's they get worse as they proceed, you know
Speaker 1: they do. Yeah, there's a great line of the poet
Speaker 1: John Milton wrote about them in the poem Lycidas, in
Speaker 1: this section where he I think he's sort of talking
Speaker 1: about the cruel ironies of fate, and he writes that,
Speaker 1: you know, just when we think we're about to come
Speaker 1: to some great reward quote and think to burst out
Speaker 1: into sudden blaze comes the blind fury with the abhorred
Speaker 1: shears and slits the thin spun life. Now that one
Speaker 1: of the interesting things about this, to bring everything back
Speaker 1: to invention for a second, is that is that we're
Speaker 1: we're looking at just to yet another example of technology,
Speaker 1: and in this case essentially manufacturing, like linear manufacturing, being
Speaker 1: used as a metaphor for something about life or understanding
Speaker 1: the mysteries of the universe. Yeah, coming to see the
Speaker 1: most fundamental attributes of human life, it's elf through our
Speaker 1: ancient technological innovations like the wheel. How many metaphors about
Speaker 1: life and death involved the wheel and now spinning an
Speaker 1: ancient textile technology. But I love the idea of Atropos,
Speaker 1: the the inevitable, because it's it's so it's so spooky
Speaker 1: and empowering. The next time you're scrap booking, the next
Speaker 1: time you're wrapping Christmas presents and you've got that pair
Speaker 1: of scissors in your hand, you think of yourself as Atropos,
Speaker 1: the inflexible, the blind fury with the abhorred shears, who
Speaker 1: cannot be reasoned with, cannot be bargained with, who doesn't
Speaker 1: feel pity, who will not stop until the snip. You know,
Speaker 1: Stephen King wrote an excellent novel years back titled Insomnia
Speaker 1: about a man who's having increasing trouble getting to sleep,
Speaker 1: experiencing insomnia, but he begins to sort of waken up
Speaker 1: to all these the sort of supernatural goings on in
Speaker 1: the town and in the world, uh, you know, just
Speaker 1: outside of the uh you know, the vision of the
Speaker 1: waking people, and three three fates that actually show up
Speaker 1: in that story as well, with their authentic Greek names.
Speaker 1: But instead of being uh, you know, these three women,
Speaker 1: they're displayed as is three little bald doctors with scissors. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's appropriate. Little bald doctors are about creepy
Speaker 1: enough to match this myth and it's actually rather I
Speaker 1: don't know to what extent King was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: but one of the things we end up we're gonna
Speaker 1: end up discussing in this episode is that you is
Speaker 1: this that of course, shears and scissors are used not
Speaker 1: only for domestic purposes but also for surgical purposes. So
Speaker 1: it makes sense that both you know, these these sort
Speaker 1: of archetypical um uh you know, you know, homemakers from
Speaker 1: Greek mythology would have the scissors at their disposal, but
Speaker 1: also some sort of an imagined doctor as well. So
Speaker 1: I was looking around at, you know, for other examples
Speaker 1: of scissor related mythology, and you know that this is
Speaker 1: not an exhaustive list, but a few different examples came
Speaker 1: up from different points in time. Um, some certainly more
Speaker 1: modern than others. One of my favorite it has always
Speaker 1: been the English nursery bogie, the red legged scissor man.
Speaker 1: There's a whole rhyme about the red legged scissor man,
Speaker 1: and basically this is just like a vile goblin creature
Speaker 1: that will come and cut off your thumbs if you
Speaker 1: keep sucking your thumb. Oh okay, So we talked about
Speaker 1: English nursery bogies back in our stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind episode about Jenny Green Teeth, where I think generally
Speaker 1: the idea is that many of these UH stories are
Speaker 1: about monsters that were made up in order to teach
Speaker 1: children a lesson, in order to discourage a prohibited activity,
Speaker 1: has to scare them into obedience, where you're like, look,
Speaker 1: I'm tired of arguing with you. Just look at it
Speaker 1: this way. If you don't stop sucking your thumb, a
Speaker 1: monster is going to come and cut those thumbs off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you don't stop playing by the filled in marl pits,
Speaker 1: then Jenny Green Teeth is gonna pull you under. Now.
Speaker 1: Another example that came up is an entity known as
Speaker 1: Kuchasaki on a. This is the Japanese slit mouth woman,
Speaker 1: uh spirit that's said to brandish a pair of scissors
Speaker 1: and also has like a gaping slit mouth like her
Speaker 1: cheek you know, has been cheeks have been cut up
Speaker 1: on either side, which I think is also called what
Speaker 1: a Glasgow grin, you know the Joker has in what
Speaker 1: the Dark Knight returned before the second Batman the Dark Knight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, Basically the idea is like she appears to
Speaker 1: you and if she and then she'll ask you if
Speaker 1: she is beautiful, and you just have to say yes
Speaker 1: because if you say no, she'll slash you with her scissors.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. And I was reading a little about this.
Speaker 1: I read that the the idea has caused a public
Speaker 1: panic as recently as nineteen seventy nine, and the idea
Speaker 1: itself dates back possibly to the Edo period. But it's
Speaker 1: very much an example of the overall Japanese vengeful vengeful
Speaker 1: ghost motif and that motif, of course, goes a long
Speaker 1: ways back, and it's a staple in Chinese mythology and
Speaker 1: other East Asian myth cycles as well, just you know,
Speaker 1: often without the scissors. Now, I can't remember where the
Speaker 1: are any scissors or shears among the possessed demon tools
Speaker 1: that we talked about in an episode of Seschal in
Speaker 1: Your Mind not too long ago. I don't recall specifically,
Speaker 1: but I you know, I would almost assume they would
Speaker 1: be on the list. Now. Another example I came to
Speaker 1: was I was reading spindle, shuttle and scissors ambiguous power
Speaker 1: in the Grim Brothers Tales by Celia Catlet Anderson, and
Speaker 1: the author points out the quote the Teutonic tradition domesticates
Speaker 1: the Greek mythology in which spindle and scissors are personified,
Speaker 1: and so these implements factor into numerous of the Grim
Speaker 1: Grim Brothers tales, aiding heroines and villains alike with varying
Speaker 1: magical properties, and so they're they're frequently instruments we see
Speaker 1: here in some of these other examples of feminine power
Speaker 1: and a counterpoint to to the weaponry of male characters
Speaker 1: that you you see and say the Grim Brothers work.
Speaker 1: I often noticed this in Uh, in fiction where when
Speaker 1: scissors are wielded in a threatening way, you know, not
Speaker 1: just on you know, thread or whatever, but when they're
Speaker 1: wielded as a weapon, it's very often by women against
Speaker 1: men in movies and stuff. I think about the Hitchcock
Speaker 1: movie dial In for Murder. Oh yeah, that, but that
Speaker 1: was a class. I was looking up some some famous
Speaker 1: scissor kills and that one definitely made the list. More recently,
Speaker 1: Jordan's peels Us have feature scissors. Oh yeah, and then
Speaker 1: there's a wonderful scene, like the most memorable scene in
Speaker 1: the movie The Exorcist Part three? Do you remember this sequence? Horrifying? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's where it's not especially it's not even gory. It's
Speaker 1: just a wonderful jump scare involving like a gigantic pair.
Speaker 1: I think they're supposed to be like autopsy or necropsy
Speaker 1: scissors those shearing bones, though, I think they're ultimately an
Speaker 1: exaggerated prop Uh. Certainly listeners can write in and and
Speaker 1: correct me on this, but I believe that the shears
Speaker 1: that are displayed in that movie are are way larger
Speaker 1: than anything you would actually use. The Exorcist three is
Speaker 1: actually pretty scary. Yeah it is. It has some has
Speaker 1: some great parts and some some wonderful actors in it
Speaker 1: as well, Brad Dorrif isn't it, Yeah, he is. And
Speaker 1: of course would be remiss if we didn't mention Edward
Speaker 1: Scissor Hands the the Unfinished lower case F. Frankenstein with
Speaker 1: scissors for hands from Tim Burton's film Classic. I think
Speaker 1: they're deploy I haven't seen Edward Scissor Hands in a
Speaker 1: long time, but I remember it's basically like an ironic
Speaker 1: thing that he's got scissors for hands, because he is
Speaker 1: a gentle soul, right, and it's and it's it's part
Speaker 1: of the metaphor like, oh, he doesn't have he doesn't
Speaker 1: have hands. He can't he can't touch and uh and
Speaker 1: and have this this very human part of his sensory
Speaker 1: experience because instead he has these awful scissors. But then
Speaker 1: he still manages to do beautiful things with those scissors.
Speaker 1: And I believe you had had a favorite example from
Speaker 1: a cinematic history as well well, just because I can't
Speaker 1: get the Big Lebowski out of my hand, watched it
Speaker 1: a hundred times or whatever. Of course, there's the dream
Speaker 1: sequence with the big horrible you know the German nihilists
Speaker 1: from the band Auto Bond with their giant scissors. Yes,
Speaker 1: I actually think the other big Lebowski examples quite interesting
Speaker 1: because they're ultimately they show up as a manifestation, a
Speaker 1: dream manifestation of castration fear. And again, scissors and shears
Speaker 1: are often a part of castration fear. And here we've
Speaker 1: seen all these examples of them being attributed to malevolent
Speaker 1: female entities brandishing them as a result of male myth
Speaker 1: making throughout history. Yeah. Well, maybe now that we have
Speaker 1: suitably over dramatized and read a lot of like myth
Speaker 1: and horror into this common household item, let's come back
Speaker 1: to the common household item and think about scissors and
Speaker 1: shears as an invention. Oh yeah, I have to say,
Speaker 1: a big fantacissors where a big scissor household. My son
Speaker 1: has always been obsessed with crafting. He's seven now, and
Speaker 1: I actually cannot remember the last time he used safety
Speaker 1: scissors or children scissors, because he's just used just straight
Speaker 1: up kitchen scissors for the longest Um, it's like he
Speaker 1: prefers them. Maybe we try, Like years ago, we tried
Speaker 1: to get him to use other scissors like, no, I
Speaker 1: gotta use some real scissors, mom, he demanded the unsafe ones. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean he uses them safely, so I guess they
Speaker 1: are the safe scissors. But we also, you know, we
Speaker 1: tried to you know, get him like chopping vegetables pretty
Speaker 1: early too, and like treating him, you know, teaching him
Speaker 1: to be careful with these tools and to not take
Speaker 1: their sharpness for granted. So, oh that's great. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's good to get kids accustomed to using
Speaker 1: blades early on in their lives. I know, I encounter
Speaker 1: a lot of adults who I think are still afraid
Speaker 1: of knives in the kitchen, like it hampers their ability
Speaker 1: to cook because they kind of it looks like they're
Speaker 1: trying not to get too close to it they're using it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of kind of like trying to light a
Speaker 1: match when you're afraid of the fire that's going to
Speaker 1: spark on the end, you know, and you end up
Speaker 1: like just you know, destroying match after match to strike it. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: so when you look at a pair of scissors, what's
Speaker 1: actually going on here? I guess we don't need to
Speaker 1: explain too much about what scissors are and how they work,
Speaker 1: because you've all encountered them. But we'll do the short
Speaker 1: version and mentioned a couple of mechanical features of scissors
Speaker 1: that you might not realize. So the basic mechanics are
Speaker 1: a simple scissors or shears could also be referred to
Speaker 1: as a kind of double lever. The two arms are
Speaker 1: usually sharpened into blades, and those blades slide directly against
Speaker 1: one another at a kind of moving point of contact
Speaker 1: as they open and close. And I guess a variation
Speaker 1: on this would be the kind of scissors that or
Speaker 1: the kinds of shears that are not sliding scissors that
Speaker 1: go back and forth across each other, but like clippers,
Speaker 1: you know, you might see where there's like a flat
Speaker 1: surface and a blade that comes flush against it, which
Speaker 1: is somewhat different but also has has basically the same
Speaker 1: mechanism of action. Now, the purpose, especially with the crossing blades,
Speaker 1: is to apply sheer force in order to cut a
Speaker 1: target object that might be paper, might be fabric, might
Speaker 1: be the thread of life. But a slightly less intuitive
Speaker 1: mechanical feature of scissors that I did start thinking about.
Speaker 1: I thought this was kind of interesting when you describe
Speaker 1: the scariest scissors from Monster Folk Tails and Horror. What
Speaker 1: do they look like? Oh, they tend to be those big,
Speaker 1: big what I think of his big grandma fabric scissors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: long pointy blades, right, But the cutting power of a
Speaker 1: pair of scissors operates like a lever, which means to
Speaker 1: have stronger cutting power, a pair of scissors should actually
Speaker 1: have long handles and short blades. And this is why
Speaker 1: when you see scissors made for cutting weak targets like paper,
Speaker 1: they can have relatively short handles and long blades. Uh.
Speaker 1: The tip for using scissors is that they've got the
Speaker 1: most cutting power at a point of contact really close
Speaker 1: to the fulcrum, so down closest to your fingers um.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you see scissors or shears
Speaker 1: made for really powerful cutting of tough materials like metal
Speaker 1: or leather or thick plant matter, they tend to have
Speaker 1: longer handles and shorter blades. The longer handles function like
Speaker 1: a longer lever for more mechanical power at the cutting point.
Speaker 1: So really, the scariest scissors from our scissor Nightmares and
Speaker 1: Scissor Horror should have short blades and long handles. That's
Speaker 1: what could really hurt you. Yeah, and I think that's
Speaker 1: that's why those scissors in the Exorcist three are ultimately
Speaker 1: I think, ridiculous and why you also see you see
Speaker 1: various forums online where people were like, what are those scissors?
Speaker 1: What do you call those scissors? And I think the
Speaker 1: answers you call those big scary prop scissors because in reality,
Speaker 1: the scissors you would use to you know, to to
Speaker 1: cut a part of a cadaver during an autopsy would
Speaker 1: be powerful, but they would not be like visibly gigantic. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't remember the ones I remember did seem to
Speaker 1: have long handles from the movie. I think they did,
Speaker 1: like they did, well, they did have long handles, but
Speaker 1: I think they also had kind of like large blades. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they looked a bit like like like trimming shears, like
Speaker 1: you would trim on a used to trim a hedge. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to hear from all the medical professionals
Speaker 1: out there who are writing in like, no, I actually
Speaker 1: use those Exorcist three shears. Here's what I use them for.
Speaker 1: If that's the case, please tell us. Yeah, yeah, we
Speaker 1: would love to hear from you. But so a question
Speaker 1: we always like to ask when we're looking at an invention,
Speaker 1: is what came before? So how could we ask that
Speaker 1: about scissors? I don't know, but we'll try. Maybe we
Speaker 1: should take a break and then we'll come back and
Speaker 1: address that. Let's do it. Alright, we're back. So what
Speaker 1: came before scissors? Well, I think the obvious answer here
Speaker 1: is that, you know, ultimately scissors are an evolutionary step
Speaker 1: beyond a single cutting instrument, beyond like a single blade.
Speaker 1: And I think we should stop and think again about
Speaker 1: the challenges of cutting something, say a strand of hair.
Speaker 1: So to use a common blade, what are you gonna do.
Speaker 1: You're gonna need to to some way hold the hair
Speaker 1: in place for the blade to cut via that that
Speaker 1: pushing force and that sheer stress that we've talked about already.
Speaker 1: And if you have a sharp razor, which is of
Speaker 1: course a specialized knife, nothing more, um, you know, And
Speaker 1: if you're going to cut close to the skin, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're shaving, that's easy enough. The hair is basically
Speaker 1: in held in place due to the you know, the
Speaker 1: the close proximity to the skin, right, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: that's just shaving in a nutshell. But if you're gonna
Speaker 1: cut up further up the strand, you need to hold
Speaker 1: it in place. Somehow. Scissors do that. They hold the
Speaker 1: strand in place long enough for the pushing force and
Speaker 1: the sheer stress to act on it via a small
Speaker 1: area the edge of the blade. And you know, in
Speaker 1: a way, I think that forces us to stop and
Speaker 1: rethink what it is to cut anything. You know that
Speaker 1: it all comes down to, uh, you know, applying that pressure,
Speaker 1: of finding that force, and then it's all coming down
Speaker 1: to a very thin portion of the instrument. It's also
Speaker 1: important to note that scissors allow us to make very
Speaker 1: precise cuts. And for this I want to read just
Speaker 1: an excellent summary of this from a paper title Modeling
Speaker 1: the Forces of Cutting with Scissors by ma vosh at
Speaker 1: All and uh and ultimately, like this paper gets into,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot more technical areas, but I just
Speaker 1: found this particular summary just you know, you know, very
Speaker 1: very effective. Quote. Scissors are possibly the most effective and
Speaker 1: precise tools for cutting of thin tissues in open and
Speaker 1: laparoscopic surgery and thin objects in daily tasks. To see this,
Speaker 1: compare cutting of a sheet of paper using a pair
Speaker 1: of scissors with that of using a sharp blade. When
Speaker 1: cutting with a blade the paper should be firmly held,
Speaker 1: and it is difficult to make precise cuts. However, when
Speaker 1: cutting with a pair of scissors, the scissor blades themselves
Speaker 1: locally hold the paper, making it easy to have precise cuts.
Speaker 1: An interaction between scissors and an object involves two main
Speaker 1: physical phenomena, local deformation and fracture. As soon as the
Speaker 1: scissor blades contact the object, the object is locally deformed.
Speaker 1: When the deformation reaches a certain level, fraction occurs and
Speaker 1: the object is separated. Yeah, I think about the difference.
Speaker 1: But because I have tried to cut paper with a
Speaker 1: knife before, it's it's not easy. I mean, the paper tears.
Speaker 1: You kind of end up pushing on it, especially if
Speaker 1: the blade is dull. Even if the blade is sharp,
Speaker 1: it's hard to make straight or precise cuts with a knife.
Speaker 1: The knife kind of wants to go all over the place,
Speaker 1: so wants to curve off course and stuff. I also
Speaker 1: often think about this with another another invention that I
Speaker 1: often find irritating, and that is the big industrial paper
Speaker 1: cutter with the big like machette blade guillotine on the side,
Speaker 1: because like that is essentially generally what's happening is you're
Speaker 1: being forced to cut with the entire length of the blade,
Speaker 1: with the entire length of the scissors. So of course
Speaker 1: it cuts really well down there towards the the axis,
Speaker 1: but the further up you go, the like the just
Speaker 1: gonna go off to the side. It's gonna rip. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm using it wrong or trying to put too much
Speaker 1: paper in there, but I always find it a frustrating experience. Now,
Speaker 1: I was wondering about a question having to do with
Speaker 1: with cutting in the ancient world, in the prehistoric world,
Speaker 1: and that question is did prehistoric commonids cut their hair?
Speaker 1: And if so, how did they do it? Because obviously
Speaker 1: you can cut hair with a knife, it just doesn't
Speaker 1: seem like the best way. I mean, if you had
Speaker 1: scissors would be a lot easier. Yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is something I was thinking about a little while is
Speaker 1: back while back as well. I think it was at
Speaker 1: the zoo, and I was thinking about, you know, all
Speaker 1: the wonderful different varieties of hair and feathers and and
Speaker 1: and so forth you see on animals, but but humans,
Speaker 1: like we're the ones who can you have left to
Speaker 1: our own devices, grow enormous and ridiculous beards and grow
Speaker 1: enormously ridiculous long hair. You know, you know, you don't
Speaker 1: see that on say a gorilla or a chimpanzee. So
Speaker 1: it would make sense that as we, you know, it
Speaker 1: became more and more human, as we developed this ability
Speaker 1: to grow out ridiculous lengths of hair, we would start
Speaker 1: developing means of cutting it back just to keep from
Speaker 1: like strangling ourselves in the night with our own matted braids.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, I mean hair doesn't grow forever. I mean,
Speaker 1: at some point most hair will reach a certain length
Speaker 1: where it stops growing there, and hair grows from different
Speaker 1: follicles and stuff where it will fall out eventually. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we we don't know exactly what fashion and
Speaker 1: grooming trends were like in the ancient world. We have
Speaker 1: some evidence from like ancient artistic depictions of other humans. Uh,
Speaker 1: prehistoric people might not have had all the hair care
Speaker 1: practices of modern people, but there is some archaeological and
Speaker 1: artistic evidence that they did some stuff to their hair.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they took care of their hair, including a lot
Speaker 1: of indications of braiding, especially braiding of long hair and women,
Speaker 1: but sometimes cutting hair or shaving the head like. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of depictions of prehistoric peoples that appear
Speaker 1: to have no hair on their head, So why would
Speaker 1: that be. Well, again, it's really hard to know for
Speaker 1: sure why fashion and grooming trends arise, especially in the
Speaker 1: ancient world where there no written records. One possibility is
Speaker 1: that cutting hair short or shaving it would help prevent
Speaker 1: infestation of parasites like lice, it would make hygiene easier,
Speaker 1: and it might possibly have been involved in sexual selection
Speaker 1: or attractiveness. This is related to the hypothesis that are
Speaker 1: are hominid ancestors, Like why did they lose the thick
Speaker 1: covering of body hair that they had a few million
Speaker 1: years ago. One high pothesis is while they lost most
Speaker 1: of their body hair as a way of repelling parasites,
Speaker 1: and that would turn into a kind of honest advertising
Speaker 1: of hygiene and health to mates. You could say, like,
Speaker 1: look at my relatively hairless skin, no parasites hiding anywhere
Speaker 1: and there, and yet the ability to grow ridiculous beard.
Speaker 1: Right yeah. Um, So again, we don't know, but it's
Speaker 1: possible that something like that helped push hair grooming priorities
Speaker 1: such as cutting hair short or shaving the head or
Speaker 1: trimming the beard. But we don't know for sure, but yeah,
Speaker 1: so ancient people's did some things to their hair. We
Speaker 1: have some evidence of that, and it, uh, it seems
Speaker 1: likely that before we had good metal tools like bronze tools,
Speaker 1: they probably just use sharp knives or sharp like stone
Speaker 1: knives may be made from flint or obsidian or whatever.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound very pleasant, well, you know, but but it
Speaker 1: does show you want that they would develop, you know,
Speaker 1: increasingly better means of doing it. You know, you'd want
Speaker 1: you'd want it to be a more pleasant experience, and
Speaker 1: you'd want to have more, uh, you know, a athetically
Speaker 1: pleasing results, especially if it was something that was involved
Speaker 1: in mate selection, which I think is not a stretch
Speaker 1: to imatic because they essentially that's the case today. Right,
Speaker 1: we're just very fortunate today to have scissors for haircutting. Now,
Speaker 1: so the scissors were familiar with today are are usually
Speaker 1: based on what you might call the pivot model of design,
Speaker 1: and that that's where the two blades are actually two
Speaker 1: separate pieces of metal and they're connected that each one
Speaker 1: blade is connected to one handle for the fingers, and
Speaker 1: then they're joined together by a pin and then that
Speaker 1: becomes the fulcrum of the two lovers moving open and clothes.
Speaker 1: But an interesting design feature of the scissors of the
Speaker 1: ancient world is that they often did not have a pivot.
Speaker 1: They did not have multiple pieces. Even they're built out
Speaker 1: of a single piece of metal with no pivoting parts. Now,
Speaker 1: how would that work? Well, it's actually pretty simple if
Speaker 1: you think about it for a second. They worked on
Speaker 1: the principle of a spring. And I said, and by
Speaker 1: the way, I certainly want to come back and do
Speaker 1: an episode on springs to fully invoke coyly uh, the
Speaker 1: spirit of springs to the grimlin of springs, so that
Speaker 1: we can consider what what a world would be like
Speaker 1: with no springs. That is one of the best MST
Speaker 1: shorts of all time. I'm so excited. I got to
Speaker 1: show it to my son over the weekend because he
Speaker 1: was a ask in the car. He found a little
Speaker 1: spring and he asked, He said, what would happen if
Speaker 1: there were no springs? What? Yeah? And I was like,
Speaker 1: he asked, and I was like, well, I have a
Speaker 1: short to show you. And so he started watching it
Speaker 1: and and he was like, I think he's evil. I
Speaker 1: think Corey is evil. And I'm like, no, you gotta wait.
Speaker 1: Watch the whole thing. He's teaching a lesson. Everything's going
Speaker 1: to turn out okay. He's like Clarence the Angel and
Speaker 1: it's a wonderful life, except instead of for instead of
Speaker 1: George Bailey at springs exactly see what the world would
Speaker 1: be like. But yeah, anyway, so you can you can
Speaker 1: make a pair of scissors without any pivoting or moving
Speaker 1: parts out of a single piece of metal, just on
Speaker 1: the principle of a spring. And this is how most
Speaker 1: ancient scissors were made. For example, I just picked one
Speaker 1: random example I found in a museum collection online. It's
Speaker 1: part of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts collection, and this
Speaker 1: is a pair of scissors from the Tang Dynasty period
Speaker 1: of China. It's dated to sometime between the seventh and
Speaker 1: ninth century. It's an ornate pair of silver scissors with
Speaker 1: partial gilding showing birds in flight and vines and branches,
Speaker 1: and it has no pivot. Instead, try to picture this.
Speaker 1: The shears are they're they're all one piece of metal,
Speaker 1: and the handle is a rod of silver that's curved
Speaker 1: into an infinity sign or like a sideways figure eight shape,
Speaker 1: except that one of the halves of that infinity sign
Speaker 1: does not close. It's not another closed curve, but rather
Speaker 1: it turns into two straight blades shooting out that sort
Speaker 1: of cross each other, and then the handle functions as
Speaker 1: a spring. It's elastic and it stores the mechanical energy
Speaker 1: there in in the tension of the metal, and so
Speaker 1: you would sort of squeeze the infinity sign to close
Speaker 1: the blades upon each other. Bay sickly think of a
Speaker 1: pair of tweezers and you have the basic like mechanics
Speaker 1: of it in mind, except instead of pinching, it brings
Speaker 1: two blades together to cut. Uh. You can also compare
Speaker 1: this to the difference between like salad tongs that are
Speaker 1: scissor like and have the pivot, to like simple tongs
Speaker 1: that are one piece of metal uh lena with a
Speaker 1: little claw bits on each end. Exactly right. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so not all ancient spring based shears or scissors had
Speaker 1: an infinity shaped handle. You could also create them with
Speaker 1: just a simple you shaped bend as long as it
Speaker 1: had the right elastic properties to bring the shears together.
Speaker 1: And that's what a lot of the simpler ones I've
Speaker 1: seen look like. But so this was seventh to ninth century.
Speaker 1: That would be seventh ninth century CE. Scissors and shears
Speaker 1: go back a lot farther than this. You can find
Speaker 1: them even in the very ancient world. Yeah, we know
Speaker 1: of surgical shears and scissors used in ancient Mesopotamia. Um.
Speaker 1: I was looking in a paper by Adamson titled A
Speaker 1: Surgery and Ancient Mesopotamia, and the author points out that
Speaker 1: there there was a little or no difference between domestic
Speaker 1: tools and surgical tools. And this included, for instance, tweezers,
Speaker 1: which would have been used for hair removal, for you know,
Speaker 1: remove unwanted hair from the body, which, as we've kind
Speaker 1: of already discussed, has always been an issue. But but
Speaker 1: then also there were the shears of the scissors um uh,
Speaker 1: which I believe is sea or irpoo based on this text.
Speaker 1: And these would have been quote course metal instruments mainly
Speaker 1: used for shearing animals, but also good enough for surgery. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they were The ancient Mespotamians were carrying out a
Speaker 1: variety of procedures, including um the surgical creation of unus.
Speaker 1: But also they were using trepidation at times, so I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like they were tapping about getting in there
Speaker 1: with their household and livestock tools to you know, address
Speaker 1: issues or I guess create issues in the human body. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now the ancient Egyptians used shears as well. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was looking at Encyclopedia of Hair, a cultural history by
Speaker 1: Victoria Scherow, and she points out that the ancient Egyptians
Speaker 1: had scissors as far back as fifteen hundred BC. And
Speaker 1: you know, they would just they would use these tools
Speaker 1: and other tools to cut hair and uh and and
Speaker 1: address hair, along with combs, hair pins, and various hair
Speaker 1: removal devices that uh and I'm assuming those are we're
Speaker 1: talking about tweezers as well. I was reading a similar
Speaker 1: thing about shears from Iron Age Europe in the collection
Speaker 1: of the British Museum. A few of the items I
Speaker 1: found there that were like versions of shears or scissors
Speaker 1: seemed to also have been used to cut hair, or
Speaker 1: at least that's the current interpretation by the curators there.
Speaker 1: And they were commonly found among the grave goods of people,
Speaker 1: especially it seems like relatively high status people. So you're
Speaker 1: a guy who got buried in first century Roman Britain
Speaker 1: or something, you might have a pair of iron shears
Speaker 1: in your grave goods. Yeah, I mean, yeah, you want
Speaker 1: to look good for your funeral and then uh, I
Speaker 1: also have found a cool example from the ancient Roman
Speaker 1: times the ffects they were called, and this consisted of
Speaker 1: two blades on a common metal loop, essentially the spring
Speaker 1: loaded shears or scissors who were discussing earlier. And by
Speaker 1: the way, there was also a Roman gladiator class known
Speaker 1: as a scissor, meaning to cut, but apparently very little
Speaker 1: is ultimately known about it, and none of the theories
Speaker 1: involved a gladiator with like a big pair of dump scissors. Um.
Speaker 1: In fact, the depictions I saw, or the interpretations, are
Speaker 1: that it had something something like a pendulum shaped blade
Speaker 1: on the end of like a tube that was fitted
Speaker 1: over one of the gladiator's arms. Yeah, I mean pretty
Speaker 1: I mean if you're into gladiatorial combat, it still sounds
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Uh and I and I the thing was,
Speaker 1: I if I wouldn't put it above the Romans to
Speaker 1: have sent somebody out with a pair of livestock shears
Speaker 1: to try and battle somebody with a net and a trident.
Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, there's no evidence
Speaker 1: that they ever did that. Okay, time for a little
Speaker 1: exploration of the word scissors. Good word, because is there
Speaker 1: a singular scissor? Is that a word? Isn't that what
Speaker 1: happens when you take a pair of kitchen scissors and
Speaker 1: you snap them in half? You know, the kind of
Speaker 1: that where the pivot unlocks. I have one scissor and
Speaker 1: another scissor, and I must put both scissors into the
Speaker 1: dishwasher for the evening. No, it is not like that.
Speaker 1: There is a word scissor, but it's a verb, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: you can scissor something. You can cut up a piece
Speaker 1: of paper that seems to be a new coinage just
Speaker 1: comes from the word scissors. For instance, if I if
Speaker 1: I sleep with a body pillow, I might scissor the
Speaker 1: body pillow with my legs. Okay, you could do that too. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was an interesting little article on the word scissors
Speaker 1: by the editors and Miriam Webster a while back, and
Speaker 1: they they point out that scissors is an example of
Speaker 1: a of what's known as a plural e tontum, you know,
Speaker 1: an all plural, a word in which a singular object
Speaker 1: is represented by a plural form word and it's grammatically
Speaker 1: treated as a plural form word. Right, like you say,
Speaker 1: the scissors are on the table, even though it's just
Speaker 1: one pair of scissors are as for the plural verse. Uh,
Speaker 1: and this isn't always the case, but it happens with
Speaker 1: a lot of objects that I noticed or of, like
Speaker 1: bilaterally symmetrical and so like pants or trousers, that's plural
Speaker 1: e tantum. Right, there's no pant. But to see that
Speaker 1: really puts you in a bind, because what if you
Speaker 1: come in into a room and on the table there's
Speaker 1: a half a pair of kitchen scissors and there is
Speaker 1: a half a pair of pants, Like it would be
Speaker 1: easier to say somebody left a scissor in a pant
Speaker 1: on this table, but instead you have to, you know,
Speaker 1: go the extra distance to describe what you're you're actually seeing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another example glasses or spectacles. There are such thing as
Speaker 1: a singular spectacle, but that means something different mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But with glass, I mean you do it is a glass,
Speaker 1: it is it's not a looking it's a piece of Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. Yeah, a singular spectacle. Now, there is such
Speaker 1: a thing as a singular lens for one eye, but
Speaker 1: that's not a spectacles monticle. Yeah. Other examples of plurali tantums.
Speaker 1: These are not ones that are bilaterally cement iCal. But
Speaker 1: how about feces in trails, riches, alms. There's no singular
Speaker 1: of any of these words. So the word in English
Speaker 1: scissors is derived from the old French sires, I think,
Speaker 1: which means scissors or shears, which comes from the vulgar
Speaker 1: Latin sissorium, which means a cutting instrument. And this would
Speaker 1: have been the key to the Roman gladiatorial class. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. Now. The English spelling of scissors
Speaker 1: was changed at one point to include a C so
Speaker 1: s c I and scissors. Now why would that be Well,
Speaker 1: that's probably because English linguists incorrectly assumed that the word
Speaker 1: was derived from the Latin terms starting with s c
Speaker 1: I that have to do with splitting or cutting, the
Speaker 1: words that ultimately probably give us the sci route in
Speaker 1: the words science from the Latin skier a, meaning to know,
Speaker 1: related to the idea of cutting, because you when you
Speaker 1: know something, you make distinctions, you separate, you dissect. Yes,
Speaker 1: you must take could apart and figure out how it works. Right,
Speaker 1: So the moral of the story is that knowledge will
Speaker 1: cut you. One more weird fact that came across apparently,
Speaker 1: according to some dictionaries of usage. In the nineteenth century,
Speaker 1: a common exclamation of frustration in English was oh scissors.
Speaker 1: I've never come across this in the wild, like, oh scissors, right?
Speaker 1: Or or could you adapt and be like what the scissors? Alright?
Speaker 1: On that note, we're going to take one more break,
Speaker 1: and when we come back we will discuss the legacy
Speaker 1: of scissors. Alright, we're back, all right, So we've been
Speaker 1: talking about scissors. Scissors, of course, became a very common
Speaker 1: household implement, used in you know, they're used in professional
Speaker 1: settings and household settings. They're sort of general scissors, and
Speaker 1: then they're very specialized scissors. Of course we've mentioned that,
Speaker 1: like scissors that need that need to be you know,
Speaker 1: powerful for cutting through heavy duty stuff like metals, will
Speaker 1: often be designed with like long handles and short blades.
Speaker 1: But there are also other special designs for scissors that
Speaker 1: have arisen in the modern world. Right, Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean certainly, if you look at medical scissors, there are
Speaker 1: there are many different varieties to aid in a plethora
Speaker 1: of specific surgical tasks. So you have stitch scissors, you
Speaker 1: have suture scissors, you have umbilical scissors, you have operating scissors,
Speaker 1: cuticle scissors, nail scissors, etcetera. And that's not even getting
Speaker 1: into scissor like instruments that you know are that are
Speaker 1: more about pinching or clamping, such as hemostats. And then
Speaker 1: of course we have the world of crafting where you
Speaker 1: have so many different varieties of scissors as well. Robert,
Speaker 1: do you know what pinking shears are? I know that word,
Speaker 1: but I don't know what it does. These are like,
Speaker 1: these are little tiny ones, right, I think so they're
Speaker 1: or maybe I'm confusing them, but aren't these the ones
Speaker 1: that you use on Aren't these for like plants? Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I think they've got some kind
Speaker 1: of spec Maybe we shouldn't talk about it if we
Speaker 1: don't know what they are, and they're a thing. We
Speaker 1: do not pretend to have all knowledge of all scissors.
Speaker 1: We're not scissor masters. Here. The people out there in
Speaker 1: crafts that might use pinking shears that they've got like
Speaker 1: like ripple e blades or something. Oh well, you know,
Speaker 1: like the alligator type scissors for because that's the thing
Speaker 1: you have. You have varying, you know, sizes of crafting scissors,
Speaker 1: just as you have varying sizes of of medical scissors
Speaker 1: determining on what you're cutting, and you know how you
Speaker 1: know with the length of the cut, the precision of
Speaker 1: the cut, and then also you have the various designs
Speaker 1: they may cut, like, you know, the sort of alligator
Speaker 1: tooth to serrated blades scissors that you know allow you
Speaker 1: to leave behind a pattern ultimately useless for anything else,
Speaker 1: but but cutting making a cool pattern when you cut.
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody's come up with a good use for them.
Speaker 1: Uh now, another one is trauma shears. I think this
Speaker 1: is pretty interesting. Shears that are specially designed to be
Speaker 1: able to cut through heavy duty stuff while at the
Speaker 1: same time not stabbing or poking people, like cutting clothing
Speaker 1: from an injured individual exactly. They might be used by,
Speaker 1: say a paramedic responding to, you know, a medical incident
Speaker 1: where you need to get somebody's clothes off real quick
Speaker 1: to you know, a treat a wound or something, even
Speaker 1: just see what's wrong with them, to get under there
Speaker 1: and see the problem. But maybe they're wearing heavy duty
Speaker 1: jeans or something like that, or you know, you can't
Speaker 1: move them, so you just cut through the clothes so
Speaker 1: they're in an angle that makes it easier to cut
Speaker 1: through clothes without your hand getting in the way. But
Speaker 1: then also they've got like just a little barrier at
Speaker 1: the bottom so that they're not stabbing or cutting your
Speaker 1: skin while you're going along trying to cut them off,
Speaker 1: even if the clothes are tight. But another great example
Speaker 1: of of life saving scissors. I guess this would be
Speaker 1: the exact opposite of the the the abhorred shears of Atroposse.
Speaker 1: These would be the jaws of life. Now, this is
Speaker 1: this is interesting because, of course I prior to this episode,
Speaker 1: I had heard of the jaws of life, of course,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's just kind of like a common
Speaker 1: refrain of like, oh, you're gonna get the jaws of life.
Speaker 1: Sometimes even use as a joke, uh, weirdly enough, where
Speaker 1: someone's going to need to be removed from some sort
Speaker 1: of like a vehicle or something, get the jaws of life.
Speaker 1: And the thing is, I always imagined the jaws of
Speaker 1: life as being an instrument for prying something open, but
Speaker 1: they are ultimately more like scissors than I gave them credit. Well,
Speaker 1: it's actually both. I mean, it depends on what you
Speaker 1: call the jaws of life. But there are hydraulic tools
Speaker 1: for for doing both of those things. Um So I
Speaker 1: would consider the Jaws of Life not only a great invention,
Speaker 1: but a great example of branding, because how can you
Speaker 1: not remember that name. Whoever, whenever the company decided to
Speaker 1: start calling them jaws of Life, that was a smart move.
Speaker 1: But what are they so? Technically, the jaws of Life
Speaker 1: is a term referring to a set of hydraulic cutting
Speaker 1: tools that are used to help extract people who are
Speaker 1: trapped in hard enclosures, usually metal enclosures. Most often this
Speaker 1: is gonna be people who are trapped inside cars after
Speaker 1: auto accidents. So you picture the scene to understand the problem.
Speaker 1: A car has been in a high velocity freeway collision
Speaker 1: or maybe you know, wrecked on a racetrack or anything
Speaker 1: like that, and it's partially crushed and there are passengers
Speaker 1: inside the car who are injured but still alive. First
Speaker 1: responders need to be able to get the passengers out
Speaker 1: so they can get medical treatment, so they can stop
Speaker 1: bleeding and all that. But because of the way the
Speaker 1: car was deformed in the accident, the doors won't open,
Speaker 1: so how do you get them out? Well, there was
Speaker 1: an inventor and auto company founder named George Hurst who
Speaker 1: thought about this problem. It was in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: Supposedly the idea came to him after he was watching
Speaker 1: an auto race event where there was a crash and
Speaker 1: it took the emergency team a long time to get
Speaker 1: the driver out of the damaged car. And when you're
Speaker 1: injured in a car crash, that time waiting can be
Speaker 1: the difference between life and death. There's something first responders
Speaker 1: talk about this like sort of like the Magic hour
Speaker 1: or the Golden hour, like people need to get to
Speaker 1: the hospital within an hour if possible. That's different than
Speaker 1: the Golden Hour and photography, right, I mean, it just means,
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody's case is different, obviously, but like chances
Speaker 1: are better the sooner you get people there, basically, And
Speaker 1: so George Hurst and his company developed to this tool
Speaker 1: that would later come to be known as the jaws
Speaker 1: of Life and patented it in the early nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: And the common name, of course, comes from the expression
Speaker 1: of being snatched from the jaws of death. The jaws
Speaker 1: of life that snatch you first. I guess hopefully they
Speaker 1: don't snatch you because that wouldn't be good. They're they're
Speaker 1: actually multiple hydraulic power tools used in extractions like this today.
Speaker 1: So you've got a hydraulic spreader. This is kind of
Speaker 1: like reverse scissors. It spreads apart a gap in the metal.
Speaker 1: Imagine like prying open a crushed but partially open door.
Speaker 1: And this is basically what I assumed the jaws of
Speaker 1: life were. Uh. There's also a hydraulic ram that can
Speaker 1: be thought of as doing a similar kind of job
Speaker 1: like spreading things apart, but maybe at more distance or
Speaker 1: more powerfully. It can be used to, say, unfold partially
Speaker 1: collapsed auto body frames. For example, if the passengers legs
Speaker 1: are trapped under the dash of the car and the
Speaker 1: car is sort of folded in on you, the ram
Speaker 1: can be used to spread the car body apart so
Speaker 1: that they can get you out. And then the hydraulic cutter,
Speaker 1: which is what would be most analogous to shears. This
Speaker 1: would be like giant hydraulic scissors. This is used for
Speaker 1: cutting things off, so cutting off doors, but then also
Speaker 1: cutting through roofs and parts of body frames so that
Speaker 1: they can peel the roof off. These are often a
Speaker 1: safer solution than the old solution, which was circular saws,
Speaker 1: which took longer. They could throw sparks and debris at you,
Speaker 1: and they could injure the person trapped inside. If you've
Speaker 1: never seen Joseph Life in action, it's actually it's kind
Speaker 1: of all inspiring. There are lots of videos of it
Speaker 1: online where they just go in and they're just slicing
Speaker 1: up the car body to get the people out. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they're ever like just live demos of this
Speaker 1: technology where they just like come out to the local
Speaker 1: fair and uh, because there's various affairs. You know, people
Speaker 1: want to see a car destroyed, either by a big
Speaker 1: foot truck or as part of some sort of a competition,
Speaker 1: or you like pay you know, a few dollars and
Speaker 1: like you beat the car with a you know, the
Speaker 1: baseball bat or something or sledgehammer. Yeah. Yeah, donated an
Speaker 1: old junk car and then they cut it up with
Speaker 1: the with the hydraulic cutters, and then it would be
Speaker 1: a demonstration of the technology. Surely that is done somewhere.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll hear from a listener with an example
Speaker 1: of just such a demo. So if the shears that
Speaker 1: snipped the thread of life are the abhorred shears, of
Speaker 1: atroposse what are what are the life saving shears called it?
Speaker 1: What's the Greeks their Greek goddess of like life or
Speaker 1: birth or something. I mean you could go with Persephone.
Speaker 1: I guess okay, you know, I also can't help but
Speaker 1: think about natural inspiration for for scissors and shears, you know,
Speaker 1: because obviously even ancient people's would have seen the crab
Speaker 1: or the scorpion, and granted what we're talking about, there
Speaker 1: are generally instruments for pinching, uh, not for the sort
Speaker 1: of sheer cutting technique that we're talking about here. But
Speaker 1: I wonder if if still these biological adaptations might have
Speaker 1: served as some level of inspiration for you know, early
Speaker 1: attempts at scissors. Yeah. Well, and another thing you could
Speaker 1: look at just be like teeth, like cutting teeth coming
Speaker 1: together to chop at things. Yeah. Yeah, I mean our
Speaker 1: our jaws are essentially scissors. I mean it comes back
Speaker 1: to the jaws of life, the jaws of death. Right. Huh,
Speaker 1: all right, well I guess that's our scissors adventure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was This was a fun one. This was, you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately an example of a very simple invention and yet
Speaker 1: another one of these inventions that we we cannot tie
Speaker 1: to a specific even a specific time period necessarily, and
Speaker 1: certainly not to a specific inventor. But it's still just
Speaker 1: a fascinating chance to take a bit of just ubiquitous
Speaker 1: technology and uh and and stop and look at it
Speaker 1: in a new light and try to appreciate the glory
Speaker 1: of this particular invention and how it has changed, you know,
Speaker 1: the way that we live as humans. Would scissors be
Speaker 1: among your grave goods? I'm thinking probably not. I don't
Speaker 1: really have any need for scissors in the afterlife, but
Speaker 1: maybe you should pack some just in case. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you're going to be one of those shaggy haired ghosts.
Speaker 1: All right. If you want to check out more episodes
Speaker 1: of Invention, head on over to invention pod dot com.
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Speaker 1: That sort of thing helps out the show in the
Speaker 1: long run. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
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