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The “Boston Red Sox: 26 Time World Champs” Prediction Was Slightly Inaccurate
In December 1900, Ladies’ Home Journal published a list of 29 predictions of what life would be like in the Year 2000. (Strangely enough, “Unelected Dipshit Gains Oval Office Through Widespread Fraud, Tears Down Constitution Piece by Piece, Declares War on Entire World” was one they missed.) Reading through the list offers a fascinating look back at a simpler time, when we still labored under the quaint and touching delusion that humanity was evolving towards greater rationality and intelligence. Awww, that’s so cute!
(link via Stupid Evil Bastard)
Some highlights:
Prediction #3: Gymnastics will begin in the nursery, where toys and games will be designed to strengthen the muscles. Exercise will be compulsory in the schools. Every school, college and community will have a complete gymnasium. All cities will have public gymnasiums. A man or woman unable to walk ten miles at a stretch will be regarded as a weakling.
Obviously, in 1900 no one could have predicted the invention of television.
Prediction #16: There will be No C, X or Q in our every-day alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary. Spelling by sound will have been adopted, first by the newspapers. English will be a language of condensed words expressing condensed ideas, and will be more extensively spoken than any other. U no teh Kewlest Old Skool Wordz EVAR!!!1!!
People in 1900 were really fixated on the idea of oversized foodstuffs (#12, “Peas and beans will be as large as beets are to-day.”) The concept of strawberries growing as large as apples is mentioned not once, but twice.(#13 and #26.)
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