Friday, August 27, 2010

The Match is now a Has-Been

Yesterday's post had some good guesses to yesterday's Question of the Day. Melissa's correct answer was "the match".

The question was prompted by my reading an 1898 book by D H Montgomery that dealt with the flow of English history from pre-historic times to the year 1898. Montgomery had made the statement (in regard to matches) that the match was the "commonest, and perhaps at the same time the most useful domestic article in existence".

Folks, I want to emphasize that 1898 was a mere 112 years ago. That is not a great deal of time. Imagine! The match being the most common and useful item in the home in 1898!

Compare that with today's home with its TV, DVR, internet, game room, iPods, cell phones, microwave, dishwasher, automobiles, yada, yada, yada.

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6 comments:

Elle Bee said...

I went to your previous post first from my blogroll, not seeing the answer post from today. I could NOT figure it out! The concertina came up once in google when I just entered the years and "invention". Then I entered the whole quote and the first google search result was your blog! Upon which I found the answer on today's post! HA!

Kelly said...

Interesting! And there I was thinking it was a sewing machine....

Unknown said...

Interesting fact.
Have a lovely eve ~
TTFN ~ Marydon

melissa said...

Man, wish you were offering an iPod or Kindle as a door prize.

(yuck, yuck, yuck!)

Cheryl said...

WhiteStone for me farm life means the humble match is still a very useful invention so I appreciate the post.
Haydn uses them frequently to burn off in the paddocks at the appropriate time and we require them to light the combustion heater in winter.For those of us limited to the use of only one hand, Redhead make a firelighter wand that I use with the flick of a switch.
Gets me thinking about life 112 years ago...

S. Etole said...

That seems such a short time ago for such a useful product.