Today is Nylon Day

Never serve nylon food to a Serbo-Croat in polyester

By Nury Vittachi
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Today, as everyone knows, is Nylon Day: the anniversary of the day the world’s most celebrated (in the journalistic sense of “hated”) synthetic fabric was invented.

                You may be thinking: why would anyone want to celebrate nylon? It’s icky stuff that makes the wearer fidget and sweat and smell funny. To which I would reply: Are you implying that there’s something wrong with being fidgety and sweaty and smelling funny? Huh? Huh?

                Nylon has an amazing history. In the 1930s, a scientist made blobs of transparent plastic. When he went out to lunch, his naughty young assistants pulled them into pizza strings. When one string turned out to be several metres long, they realized that they had stumbled on an amazingly useful invention: plastic pizza strings.

                No, I mean synthetic thread. They made vast amounts of it and then tried to think of a purpose for it.

                But thinking is not that easy, especially for young males. Scientific tests prove that ninety per cent of male thoughts are about leggy women (the other ten per cent are about busty women). So not surprisingly, the first thing the guys came up with was the Nylon Stocking, launched in 1938. These led to the invention of sex in the 1940s, the baby boom in the 1950s, and Bob’s your uncle (or, quite possibly, your father).

                Although stockings came first, nylon was soon being used for a variety of garments, along with its sister fabric polyester (Latin for “cheap and revolting”), invented in the same lab.

Nylon eventually reached Europe and Asia.

But this tale has a sad ending. The Serbo-Croats noticed that French were unable to mention nylon without sneering.  “Zut alors! Sank God you are wearing tres chic Parisian leather trousieurs instead of ’orrible American nylon pants,” they would say.

                The Serbo-Croats thought nylon meant nasty, and that’s what the word now means in their language. “Don’t stay there, it’s a nylon hotel,” they advise tourists. “It’s got nylon food and it’s near a nylon beach.”

                If a Serbo-Croatian approaches you wearing a suit made of man-made fibres, never say: “You’re looking very nylon today.” You could start another war.

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BAFFLING INSTRUCTIONS DEPARTMENT: A reader from Malaysia sent the following message: “The cardboard cupholders at Starbucks each contain a small block of text making two points. One is that the things are recycled. And other is that they are for single use only. Er?”
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READERS’ LETTERS DEPARTMENT: I wrote recently that in Swaziland, the most powerful woman had to be addressed as “The She-Elephant”. I also said you should not try this at your home or workplace. Well, I got a sad note from one reader.  “I ignored your warning and tried the She-Elephant thing in my office,” wrote Peter Emmett. “I should have heeded your warning.” Too bad, Peter. My office also has a powerful woman at its heart. We just call her “Sir”.
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BAFFLING ROAD INSTRUCTIONS DEPARTMENT. Reader David Wijekoon-Perera saw a sign on the road in Kurunegala, Sri Lanka: “Tourists bewearing, all cars have right of turns at the left corner road.”
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GRATUITOUS ABUSE OF WESTERNERS DEPARTMENT: When a French Canadian politician was applauded by an American audience, he beamed, "Thank you for giving my wife and me the clap. I thank you from the heart of my bottom.”

Comments

[Jan]

A parallel story of fabric invention was told in film -'The Man in the White Suit' which starred Alec Guiness as the obsessive boffin inventor....... and look what happened to that fabric! [ pity it wasn't the same with nylon - then we'd never have suffered bri-nylon sheets, ever! Yuk! There was a time when B+B establishments in UK used these as they were so easy to launder, but the static electricty build-up was amazing]

[Nury]

Thanks for your comment, Jan. I remember bri-nylon sheets.

The sad thing is that it takes years for people to realize that a wonderful new invention is not so wonderful after all. A while generation has to suffer with nylon sheets before we realize that they are horrible things and go back to cotton.

Incidentally, I understand that the latest fur coats are made entirely of nylon and look and feel great. So there is a use for it after all.

[Mrs Wicking]

Nylon IS nasty.

Living in the tropical north of Australia proves that - school uniforms have a nylon component and teenagers wear nylon gangster/ basketball clothes all the time and they smell!

Surely that can not be considered cool!

100% Indian cotton any day.

[Jan]

Except there are some very clever people out there - I was looking at some beautiful scarves in a little town in Yorkshire, last summer, only to be told that they were made from recycled plastic carrier bages - and they were sooooooooo soft! Absolutely gorgeous.