DICTATIONS SECOND SENIORS (18,19,20)

 

The Potato Crisp    

       The potato crisp was the invention of George Crum, in 1853. He worked as a chef at a popular resort in the USA. One day, a customer decided that he didn’t like the thickness of his fried potatoes, and sent them back to the kitchen.  Crum made some more, but the man returned these as well, making the same complaint.  Crum got angry and hoping to annoy the man, he made a third batch which were much thinner and could not be eaten with a fork. To his amazement, the man loved them – and so potato crisps were invented. Since then, their popularity has increased dramatically, and they are eaten all over the world. But George Crum was unaware at the time that his invention would cause great confusion in the future between the Americans (who call them chips) and the British (who call them crisps). He also didn’t know that his crisps would cause the number of obese people in the world to rise enormously!  

  

The Invention of Toothpaste 

         Toothpaste is an invention which doesn’t seem to have a definite inventor or date. Something like it was known in ancient Egypt, where people used a paste made of a mixture of ash and powdered egg shells, which they rubbed on their teeth with their fingers.

         In 1873, the Colgate Company – the same one that makes toothpaste today – introduced Colgate Dental Cream, which smelled and tasted much nicer than anything used until them. Soon after this, people began to use toothbrushes instead of sticks or fingers, which made cleaning teeth much easier.

         However, most Americans didn’t brush their teeth regularly until the 1940s, when American soldiers who had spent several years in Europe and learned the habit there, went home after the Second World War.

  

 Tea  Bags 

         These days, in millions of homes around the world, people make cups of tea with tea bags.  But who first thought of putting tea leaves into small bags? It was an American, in 1919. At that time, the bags were mainly used by tea companies to allow customers to try the tea before buying it. But the idea of the tea bag too hold, and by 1935 most were being bought for use at home.

 

         Soon tea bags started to become popular outside the United States. But they were not an immediate success everywhere. In Britain, people held very strong views on how to make a good cup of tea. There was a strict procedure which involved warming the teapot, putting one spoonful of tea for each person into the pot and then filling it with boiling water. The pot was then left for five minutes before the tea was poured into cups, and milk and sugar were added.

          However, times have changed, and due to the busy lives people lead nowadays, over 75% of the cups of tea drunk in Britain are made with tea bags.