The most widely spoken language in the world is not English.
The death of a son brings back a mother's lost voice.
A hand leads a police department astray.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, those statements are all true.
Can you imagine that?
And this is Lindsay McCurry, back with another assortment of odds and ends of out of the way
knowledge and news items gleaned from every imaginable source.
Until we come back in just a minute and a half to fire our first salvo of can you imagine that?
Wait around for us, won't you please?
And here's the first can you imagine that item for this session.
From a newspaper of February 27, 1931, I've dug up what I think is a strange story and here it is.
It was on February 26 of that year that 60 year old Mrs. Catherine Zanito of Newark, New Jersey,
was sitting in her home.
For four years, Mrs. Zanito had been speechless and was now spending her days in the quiet solitude of her own thoughts.
In the next room, Mrs. Zanito knew that her son Joseph, age 22, was preparing to...
To do what?
She didn't know.
But you could hear him moving around.
Then suddenly she heard...
My boy, my boy, oh my boy!
For the first time in four years, through the impulse of that sudden gunshot, Mrs. Zanito spoke.
Then she collapsed and fell into a deep coma.
When she was revived, she miraculously regained the power of speech.
But the tragic potency of the story lies in the fact that the revolver shot which brought back that mother's speech
after a lapse of four years had been the suicide shot which had caused the death of Joseph, her son.
Can you imagine that?
What would your guess be as to the most widely spoken language in the world today?
Would it be our own English?
Well, if that's your guess, you're wrong.
Yes, because there is one other language which is spoken by more persons than the English tongue, Chinese.
The Chinese language and its various dialects are spoken by more than 475 million persons.
And English is second.
English is spoken by nearly 225 million persons, more than half of whom are Americans.
By the way, how many actual languages do you think there are in the world today?
A recent study of the French Academy lists 2,796 separate and distinct languages spoken on this earth.
Can you imagine that?
Of course, all of you have used the expression, here's a little pin money for you.
Well, I wonder if you know just how the expression pin money originated.
You want to know, all right?
We'll go back to the 14th century, go back to the household in which the man and the wife were having a little discussion.
My dear, I simply have to have more money.
More money? More money?
My dear wife, has it ever occurred to you that money doesn't grow on bushes?
But Will, I don't know what became of it.
No, no, of course you don't know what became of the money.
I can't understand it.
For the past three months you've been running out of the money I give you.
What's doing it?
Will, well, I bought some pins.
Pins, pins, those inventions of the devil. Stop buying them.
Will, Will, they're so handy.
I can use them to hold a seam together.
But I repaired your jacket only last week with them.
I absolutely forbid you to buy any more pins.
They're too expensive.
Besides, they're a lazy woman's way of repairing things which are better done by good honest sewing.
But...
No buts. I absolutely forbid you to buy any more pins.
But the lady did buy more pins because they were so handy.
In fact, many of the women of the 1300s found themselves very short of money because they had bought pins.
The situation went from bad to worse and finally a government decree was issued which said...
Hear ye, hear ye, all ye merchants selling pins.
It is hereby forbidden to sell pins to anyone except on the first and second of January.
Can you imagine that?
But now let's go back to our husband and wife again.
The lady is doing something with a little box.
What are you doing there? What is that box?
It's my pin money.
Pin money? What are you talking about?
Well, don't you see? I put a little money aside each day so that on the first and second of January I can buy pins.
That way I don't miss the few coins I put aside.
And I can buy my pins without using the money that shouldn't be used for something else.
Isn't that clever of me?
Yes, sir. And there you have the origin of the expression pin money.
Nowadays, of course, we use it to denote a little extra spending money.
Not so long ago we told you the story of Franz Liszt and the duel fought over him by the Countess d'Agou and Madame George Sand with fingernails.
Well, literature about Franz Liszt seems to be replete with stories.
And I've dug one up which I think is very amusing.
One day a young man, rather conceited and sure of himself, went to Liszt with a piece of music he had written.
The young man put it in front of Liszt who said...
My dear dear young man, this passage right here, what is it?
Why, it is music, Herr Liszt, music.
Music? But look, the dissonances, the wrong harmonies.
Well, that simply isn't done in music. It must not be done.
Ah, Herr Liszt, but I have done it.
Ah, yeah, you have done it.
Young man, I am going to show you something.
Now here, do you see what I have in my hand?
Why, a pen full of ink.
Oh, I see. You are going to make corrections in my composition.
No, no, I am not going to make corrections in your composition.
I am going to do this and this and this.
Oh, Herr Liszt, Herr Liszt, you are ruining my new waistcoat, my beautiful new waistcoat.
Yeah, I have ruined it, young man. I splattered ink all over it.
That I have done. But it must not be done.
Do you understand? Now come along, young man.
And I will buy you a new waistcoat.
And so Franz Liszt bought the young man a new waistcoat,
but not before he had taught him a very valuable lesson.
Can you imagine that?
Some time ago, a man named Will Shakespeare wrote a play called The Comedy of Errors.
As a play, it is funny and very good, but it remained for the police of Durham, North Carolina,
to write one of their own Comedy of Errors.
It was on a day in February 1939 that a desk sergeant of a Durham police station received a telephone call.
Police, desk sergeant speaking.
My name is Bram. I want to report a theft.
Yes, sir. Just a moment, I'll write it down.
All right, Mr. Bram. Go ahead.
I had a ham in an aluminum roaster sitting on the back porch.
What was it?
A ham. A ham, you know. The kind you make sandwiches on.
Oh, okay. Go ahead.
The ham was in a roaster. An aluminum roaster.
Ham in an aluminum roaster. Yes, sir. Go ahead.
That's all. Somebody stole it.
A ham in an aluminum roaster stolen from your back porch.
Well, give me the address, please.
The sergeant made a blotter report, and then...
Calling car five. Calling car five.
And says... Yeah.
Calling car five.
Go to the 592 Manchus Gate and investigate stolen ham in an aluminum roaster from back porch.
And that's all.
Did you get the address?
Yeah, but what did he say we should get?
A roadster.
Are you sure?
Sure, I'm sure. Come on, let's go.
Okay.
The radio patrol car and others were a little puzzled. They didn't quite get it.
Then, at the police station once more...
Police. Desk sergeant speaking.
Hey, Sarge. Maybe we're crazy, but we still can't figure out what it was doing there.
Maybe you're crazy? What are you talking about?
What can't you figure out got where?
We want to know what a roadster was doing on a back porch.
A roadster on a back porch. Who said anything about that?
I said a ham in an aluminum roaster on a back porch was stolen.
Ah, goodbye.
But that wasn't all.
Another officer got hold of a somewhat blurred carbon copy of the sergeant's report and said he...
Yeah, we sure get some funny things to cover.
Now they got me looking for an aluminum rooster.
And anybody knows or ain't such a thing as an aluminum rooster. They just don't come that way.
And so, over the simple report of a stolen ham in an aluminum roaster,
the police of Durham, North Carolina went out hunting for a roadster that was missing from a back porch
and a very, very improbable aluminum rooster. Can you imagine that?
Protect the country! Destroy the foreigners!
That was the cry that rang through parts of China during the turn of the century.
It was the watchword of a band of rebellious Chinese known as Yi Ho Chuan.
Freely translated, the name of the band is Righteous Harmony Fists.
And because of the word fists appearing in their title, the uprising came to be known as the Boxer Rebellion.
It was under the goading of the doughty and crafty old Empress Dowager, Tzu Si,
that these bands undertook to rid China of what they deemed to be foreign aggression.
On the last day of 1899, an English missionary was murdered.
And when the foreign powers tried to throw more troops into Peking,
the situation was tremendously aggravated, and the Empress Dowager ordered all foreigners killed.
Beginning with the murder of the German ambassador, the lives of other ministers, their staffs and families,
the lives of Christian missionaries and their families became pawns on the ancient chessboard of Oriental versus Occidental conflict.
It was during these arduous times that one group of missionaries gathered at the close of a fearful day
under the guidance of Helen Knox Strain.
Please, friends, we must not be afraid.
Afraid? Well, how can we help it? No way to get word and frown for help.
Our friends are being destroyed by scores. None of us know when we'll be next.
Perhaps those thieves... Listen, there they are. They're coming for us.
They're coming! They're coming for us!
Please, please be quiet. We must all be calm.
How can we be calm?
Through the grace of God, my friends.
Though destruction walk around us, though the arrows past us fly,
angel gods from thee surround us. We are safe if thou art nigh.
My friends, let us sing that grand old hymn.
Through that solace we shall gain strength of spirit.
Savior, breathe an evening blessing.
There we pose our spirit's seal.
Sin and want become confessing.
Thou canst save and thou canst heal.
Though destruction walk around us,
though the arrows past us fly,
angel gods from thee surround us.
We are safe if thou art nigh.
Though the night be dark and dreary,
darkness cannot hide from thee.
Thou art He who never weary,
waters where thy people be.
Shouldst weep death this night, or take us,
and our cows become our tomb?
May the morn in heaven awake us,
glad in life and deathless bloom.
Yes, it was through the inspiration of that great evangelical hymn
that Helen Knox Strain and her beleaguered colleagues
braved the threat of death at the hands of enraged and savage boxers
and lived to tell the story.
Well, now I'm going to turn you over into the good care of your own announcer
until our next session of Can You Imagine That?
And until then, this is Lindsay McCarry saying, goodbye now.
Thank you.