Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Shoe Sizes

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy podcasters Brett Rader (Yahoo Sports) and Shelby Wolstein ('Keeping Records' podcast) for a look at why shoe sizes are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Shoe sizes. Known for being numbers. Famous for that. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why shoe sizes are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. I'm joined by Brett Rader and by Shelby Wolstein. Brett Rader is a returning guest, old pal. He was essential to everything we were doing with the Cracked podcast back when that was a thing, and with Kurt Vonnegise when that was a thing until it wrapped up naturally.

Those might be two podcasts you know me from, so really grateful to Brett for his collaboration on those things. He's currently a producer of many things over at Yahoo Sports. And then Brett is a wonderful guest all over podcasting, just everywhere. And then Shelby Wolstein is a very, very funny comedian. She's also the co-host of an excellent podcast called Keeping Records. That's a show over at HeadGum. The basic premise is that they bring guests on to select things for a new golden record for a new Voyager satellite, if we did that. I don't know if people know the story of Voyager. I will link some things about that. But it had some golden LP records that we tried to put the

most important things in the world on. And so on Shelby's podcast, Keeping Records, they develop a new record with a new guest every week. I am so glad she and Brett are here to dive into this topic today. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge Brett and Shelby each recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Wartongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. And acknowledge that in

all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about shoe sizes, which is a patron pick. Many, many thanks to Austin Gallman Brown for that suggestion and to the rest of the patrons and the fans for choosing such an absolutely perfect topic for this show. Really grateful Austin had that idea. I don't think I would have thought of it otherwise. Also, as far as how international we get with this, me and Brad and Shelby are all from the United States.

Also, in my research, I found out that the roots of the United States system match up with the British system and many other systems related to that. So this show will mostly talk about US sizes and the related British sizes and other kind of knock-on sizes from there. If you are in continental Europe, or if you were in Asia, your shoe sizing system is different, and we will talk about why. But beyond that, we mostly talk about US shoe sizes as we go. I still think it's an amazing episode for you because most of the stories are about, you know, how the human body works and just how strange the entire world can

be. Anyway, I think that's all the setup you need. Please sit back or prop your feet up on top of your desk like you are a sheriff or an executive. Those are those are the two things I associate that with. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Brett Rader and Shelby Wolstein. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Brett, Shelby, it is so good to have you. And of course, I always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about shoe sizes? This one's kind of a, this one's a bit of a slam dunk. Shelby, if you want to take it.

No, hey, you go ahead. All right. I got, I got two feet and I often wear two shoes. And I'm familiar with my own shoe size. Although sometimes it's different depending on if I'm buying from one sneaker company or a different one. They like to keep me on my toes a bit. Oh, on your toes. Oh, gosh.

Oh, no. Wow. How perfect is this? Right? Yeah. Keep you on your idioms. Shoes. My shoe size.

I my mom always told me that her feet could fit into like any shoes within three sizes. And that's always been how she's also treated because I had hand-me-downs and my sister's feet were bigger. I think she was just trying to be like, we don't need to buy you new shoes. They can fit up or down. So I was always like, yeah, I can fit into like a seven and a half, but I could also fit into a six. And it's what that means is that I'm a six, but I can like get roomy. So like, I always was confused by my own shoe size because my mom was like, you just adapt.

I was like, OK. Right. You can always go up. Right. You can always just get it. Anyone can theoretically size up. Yeah. You know, it's fine. Yeah. You can put your foot in it. It's smaller. It's hard. You can't get in there. But bigger. I mean, you can get in there. And as long as you're not falling out, you know, you're fine. And I used to like stuff my shoes for amusement parks because I was really short.

And so a bigger shoe actually was really helpful because you can get a little bit more in there. Wait, like stuff it. So you're taller for getting on a ride. Is that right? Like you're stuffing under your foot. Yeah. Oh, this is interesting. I didn't know people do this. This is great. Yeah. You got to get a couple more short, short friends. We, we had a whole kind of community around, but it's like, you go into like that bathroom, you put the tissue in and then you get, you know, three, four inches. Cause I'm, I'm both tall and afraid of roller coasters. So that was never like, I had the ability and didn't use it ever either. Well, that that's tough for me to hear but we were i was all about that my amusement park thing growing up was like

because i grew up in la too so there's there's lots of amusement parks it would always be someone like oh someone you know got a boot like a like a surgical walking boot from their brothers like they they show up to Disneyland. They're like, oh, I had surgery. I need to get a front of the line pass. Ass pass, yeah. Yeah. And they don't even really ask, but they're just like, sure.

This is probably bad and ableist in some way, but it was just like, oh, I had surgery or, oh, I had, you know, I tore my ACL last month, but I still wanted to go to Disneyland. So I'm here. And they just let you go. Yeah. The injury version feels OK, right? That's fine.

Yeah. No, it was never. It was never like, oh, I'm dying. Please let me go. My dying wish is to get one last thrill. Please. No, it was always like, oh, I sprained my knee at football practice, but I got this brace on, so I can't wait in line.

Anyways, great stuff. Great information about shoes so far. And yeah, and Shelby, you generally shared your shoe size. I'm a size 12 men's US, and I feel like it was a just constant process of being measured until it evened out, you know, like I felt like I was never done until I had gotten my adult height. And then it was like, okay, now we know what he is. He can just order online. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, that rocks. I also can wear little kids shoes as long as it's like with it, but so that's a different size. So I'm always sort of doing some math.

Oh, okay. Yeah. It's not easy. You gotta, there's like a size and a half difference, I think, but I can fit into them and they're cheaper. They're like always like $50 cheaper than adult shoes.

Oh, that's a, that's a racket. Yeah. Especially, I mean, with like going out shoes or things like that, it's like, I don't really want to wear like a kitten heel, but like for kids. But for like sneakers, like especially basketball shoes, they're priced so high. So like if you want a pair of Kyrie's and you're going to pay like, what is it, like 140?

You can instead get them for like 80 bucks for kids. That's awesome. It's a dream. We're just helping people out today. Folks, do this. I'm here for tips. Yeah, measure your feet. Get one of those devices

that I know we'll talk about later and find out what kid size you are and go to like adidas.com. No, I need a kid's 23. Right. Just like some of not, you know, it's like, oh, you sure you don't want. Yeah. Adults.

Adult size. No, no. I want a kid's one. My nephew is very busy and I am here to acquire them. He's very large. He's very huge. You wouldn't believe it. I think that would work. Don't be mean to him. He's very large. He's very huge. You wouldn't believe it. I think that would work.

Please don't be mean to him. He's really sensitive about it. Just give him the 23, please. Brad, since you foreshadowed slightly, I think we can get into the first chunk of the show. It's very exciting. Because on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. This week, that's in a segment called, I'm counting it my all, but I'm not the facts you're taking home. Ooh, I'll keep

stats in on my own. And that name was submitted by Mick Sloan. We have a new name every week. Please make them as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com. Thank you, Mick. At first, I didn't know where it was going. But once it got to the chorus, I was like, oh, yes. And my anthem about Statsy.

Yeah. Yeah. First number we'll do here is 1925. And that's a year 1925 is when the Brannock device was invented. It turns out the Brannock device is the name for that like metal measuring tool that at least when I was a kid, all shoe stores used to measure feet. That's the one with kind of scoops on each end to put your feet in. Those are kind of gross, huh? We're all just kind of putting our feet on them. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah.

And usually bare. I don't think people were often wearing socks on this. Oh, now I'm trying to remember. And also, I wonder if it's different for like, ladies, nice pumps or heels or something versus men's sneakers where you're just like in a gym sock, you know, but either way, a lot of foot touching. I feel like if you don't have socks, or at least my recollection is that there were sort of loner socks, sort of like if you showed up to PE class without your PE clothes, you get the loaners and everyone would shout loaner at you. But with socks at a store in the mall. But they had, maybe we had different, listen, you're from LA, fancier socks. I'm from Cleveland.

We were sort of, we were doing what we could have done. Blue collar socks. Yeah. We had like those like. The real socks. Really thin. The real America. They're like tights, but they were socks.

And you had to it was like it was like a glove for your foot if you were going to try on shoes. But it was not a sock. There's no real getting away with calling it a sock. A glove for a foot? Yeah. Like, OK, think about like women's tights. OK. But this is all genders.

This was not for like women's shoes. This was for everyone. Yeah. And it was just shorter than tights. Okay. But this is all genders. This was not for like women's shoes. This was for everyone. Yeah. And it was just shorter than tights and you put it over your foot. Like, I don't know if I can say this, but like, like a little condom for your foot. You can say that. Totally. Okay, cool.

It's a scientific term. It was like a little condom for your foot. And then you would put that in to the shoe so that you weren't like putting your bare foot in shoes that you weren't buying but it wasn't a sock and then you would know like okay well if it's a little big that's okay because this little foot condom is not thick enough to account for a sock oh interesting no i've never experienced that like i'm aware don't ask me how i know women in my life you know when you try on ladies undergarments when you try on is this similar to like if you're trying on a lady's swimsuit shelby you educate me but i know there's a little like plastic patch inside that's like there is rip

that off when you buy it oh yeah but you know if you want to try it on so it's like that but for shoes right yeah pretty much but it wasn't automatically in the shoe you would change it out each time whereas on the bathing suits kind of also the gross thing about that is like they're not changed until you buy it like so however many people have tried that on that little like plastic piece was there you know yeah so it protects the bathing suit but it really doesn't protect the people trying it on like it's equally gross this the i'm starting to feel like the mall should have one initial chamber where you get fully measured and then no one no none of the stores need to do this to their individual stuff and there's just like sanitized

mist the whole time yeah going through in that one chamber yeah it's like uh that that scene in awesome powers where he's like being completely like melted but for getting measured and desanitized and then you go yeah shelby that was exactly what was in my head it's very exciting it's the first thing i thought of yeah Yeah, it really did elicit that. I was like, oh, when he melts in the goo? Yeah, yeah. I don't mean to give any current or future billionaires any ideas that are kind of half-baked, and I haven't really recognized what effects that they'll have on the future of the world and everything in natural resources.

you know the future of the world and and everything and natural resources but it seems like a good idea for a store would be a store that just they put you in some sort of scanner 3d scanner and they get all your sizes and instead of you having to go to the mall and be like can i get a large and an extra large i'm kind of an in-betweener and this one kind of makes my tummy look fat like they just know what size the store just knows and they're like oh this shirt you're a medium or whatever yeah it seems like something bezos would would be good at yeah i love that my idea bezos i'm coming for you bro i love that i it did you do you guys know the movie clueless with uh alicia silverstone because she has she has that closet with like the computer and she's just like this is the outfit and it like shoots it out at her that was always sick i always wanted that no one's really made that happen so two ways make it

happen bezos looking at you king yeah i don't i hadn't seen clueless until i think last year and i saw that computer and i was like that is still better than what we have for online shopping. Now, we're still catching up. It is crazy. Like you would think I mean, it was like a brilliant thing to invent for the movie. Someone should have taken it by the reins. I'm not going to say her name because she'll turn it on. But I asked what time it was in Japan because I was interested in the Olympics. And then she said, I have some news from Fox News about Japan. Would you like to hear it? And I was like, absolutely not. I don't think so.

I cannot imagine that that's going to be a great news story. Whatever you got. You're like, it's too early to know. I can't know yet. I can't know yet what they're talking about that's not for me no yeah i got stuff to do yeah i have to look my day i'm thinking back to this brannock device thing because in the past none of these options right no computers no internet no nothing and so in 1925 there was a guy named Charles F. Brannock, who was 22 years old, working at his family's shoe store in Syracuse, New York, and he designed and patented this device. was invented, shoe salesmen used size sticks to measure feet, which is kind of like a ruler,

I'm sure. But they only measured the length of the foot. And the big innovation of the Brannock device was also doing the width at the same time, because it's got that like side thing for doing that. Yeah. Well, and I'm sure like just having the back of the heel, maybe that maybe they had that on the stick, but like having the heel thing to like start it off yeah that's got to be part of the invention that really hit the ground running that's awesome i can't imagine the stick was very uniform or accurate like city by city or region by region because it's just like oh it's just a stick and a guy like makes some notches on it yeah whereas this is a real it's a real hefty contraption with real official numbers. You know, there's like one cute shoe store owner, like a cobbler who really took it seriously and like taped something on the back to like fit on the heel. And he was like, I love this. And then this 22 year old kid was like, I got something better. That was my, well, that was my question. Before you got to this information about the stick. Was every shoe just custom before 1919?

Oh, yeah. From what I could research, it seems like it's like all clothing with the Industrial Revolution, where just they were all handmade until they weren't kind of thing. But shoe sizing was still a lot looser in the past and then has gotten more codified. a lot looser in the past and then has gotten more codified. But even now it's like that thing you said, Brad, about sneaker buying, where you'll still get, like, you'll try to order something in the same size and it's different. The shoe sizing system is still a mess. I don't know if this is like, especially in men's shoes, like a way to make you feel like more of a man. It's like, oh, we make these small.

So you have to get like 11 and a half, even if you're a regular 11. Because now I'm like now like oh i'm a big boy i got big feet you know what that means uh but like i don't know it's like i just kind of i'm beginning to learn like now in my mid to early late 30s like oh yeah okay adidas they're always a little bit smaller nike they're always a bit right right? And so now I kind of know, all right, I probably should get one like a half size smaller or a half size bigger with that. And, you know, as you mentioned with the industrial revolution, the sort of need to standardize everything so you can mass produce thousands of shoes a day or whatever, it's still not really standard at all because we're we're we're deep into the 21st century and still nike and adidas have different opinions on what a size 10 is yeah yeah everybody's just kind of making it up still but it's on it's not they like wrote down a system and they put labels on everything and it's still made up it's great it. It's Shelby's mom's system. It's like, all right, you fit in this.

You can get in there if you need to get in there. It's like if you got O negative blood. It's like, yeah, well, just stick any blood in you. It'll work. Yeah. I don't know. Do people know their blood types? I don't know mine.

That's probably from my mom, too. I have no idea. I guess, are we doxing ourselves if we say? Maybe we don't say. I don't know. Can you be doxed if you say? I have no idea. I guess are we doxing ourselves if we say? Maybe we don't say. I don't know. Can you be doxed if you say? I don't know. All I can say is you can try but I don't know the answer so you won't get to dox me. No one can

dox me. I'm undoxable. I don't know the answers. Off the blood grid. Nice try. The scariest thing would be if someone actually messaged me and was like I know it. I was like no problem. I got you. It would be if someone actually messaged me it was like i know it it was like no problem i got you it would be helpful but scary for sure yeah well the the next number here this is speaking of the wideness of the world next number here is 24 billion. 24 billion with a B. That's just the approximate number of pairs of shoes that get made each year by industry.

And National Geographic says that's the number for 2018, so maybe it's a little more or less now. But they say 24 billion shoes per year, pairs of shoes. That's 48 billion shoes. Right. If you do a little bit of rough math and they also say two billion pairs are sold just in the u.s alone which is more than seven pairs per american i feel like i don't think i'm buying that many i think other people are spiking it well it's the the sneaker culture like oh yeah and listen i'll say it women i'll say it why not we love shoes being brave yeah yeah wow i'll take my purple heart anytime

but i um yeah sneaker culture and and people like me just you know you have to have different shoes for different occasions it's it's but especially those sneaker heads where it's like they buy another hundred for their special closet that has like track lighting or whatever yeah like it's it's really out of control i'm gonna i'm gonna take us to the next number so we're not in the modern day anymore because boy these sneaker people take us back to when children were making shoes alex yes please i think that's all here is unfortunately uh but but the next number next number here is 14 and that is a u.s men's shoe size 14 is supposedly the shoe size of president warren g harding and smithsonian claims that is the largest recorded shoe size of an american president and he's not famous for

being tall or giant or anything but he's the guy i know i had i'm googling this right now he was six foot six foot but with a 14 yeah man could hoop. Yeah. I'm surprised Trump hasn't tried to prove that his foot is bigger or something. Many people are saying he has the biggest feet. Yeah. Many people. Many people would say, I have the biggest feet. No, with the tiny hands thing, you would think that he would have been like, measure my foot. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of Warren G. Harding or a painting.

Well, I guess some of these are photographs. He could have been like a Hollywood actor. Oh, yeah. For like a Robert De Niro type. He's got a strong brows from strong eyebrows. Yeah. Like a really intense looking guy i don't know if he'd be like timothy chalamet no but i like i think he'd be like a strong like actor in like a

a movie about investment banking like throw him in there with in margin call or the wolf of wall street it's just like the big short like he's like someone who got really hurt by the big short, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Some kind of judge at a movie, but like a pretty handsome one where you're like, oh, all right. Hey. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So size 14, 14 is like, what is the equivalency from inches to size? Is there one? Or centimeters? I guess, look at me being really nationalist. Centimeters is sort of the way of the world. So I can Google it rapidly, because it's also the kind of thing we're wearing. You don't have this ready? Well, also, sizes are kind of nationalist.

They're different country by country. Yeah, I don't know. Have either of you guys lived or spent much time in someplace other than America? Because when you go to Europe, you're like, 49? What the hell? Have you ever won a commonplace, I guess? I'm a giant! Yeah.

Yeah, and also, Birkenstocks are European sizes only and things like that. Yeah, and we'll get into those like scales a little bit. And, but also the, all of this sizing is a little bit fuzzy. Like it varies from brand to brand. My, my fast Googling says that a U S men's size 14 shoe is 11.875 inches long or 30.2 centimeters so it's like a big foot but but it's not uh freaky or anything it's it's less than an inch bigger than mine a size 12 so i can imagine i know the kid's 12 or 22 i mean when he made this but couldn't we have made it more standardized in some way when we were when we were getting a device couldn't we have been like all right 10 inches is a size 10 11 inches is like or like knock it out or it's like centimeters probably makes more sense i think there's an inch difference in foot is a pretty big difference but like

come on 11.78 you said that's such a random where did we come up with that? That's so weird. 11.875. Yeah. It's very ridiculous. And it's also the kind of thing where Harding was president in the 20s. So we don't know how exact the measuring was. We'll also link a Mental Floss article that claims that Lincoln had a size 14. But the source link there is dead because it's an old article and so can't confirm it. But Lincoln was also tall.

He's the tallest president. And so it's surprising Harding was right there with maybe huge feet of maybe a size. Yeah. When the last number here, this gets even bigger. The last number is 37AA. This is another U.S. men's shoe size. But 37AA is the shoe size of the tallest human on record and i i sent you guys a picture of him his name was robert pershing wadlow

he is the tallest person that there is like solid evidence of their height for was born in 1918 and eventually grew to be 8 feet and 11.1 inches tall, which is 272 centimeters, but nearly 9 feet tall. 8 foot 11. Oh, my gosh. He was just like, oh, one more inch. Yeah. One more, and I could be 9.

I mean, I think people might have seen them if they've been to any city, and they have that Ripley's believe it or not. Like, I think I don't know. I feel like I've seen many statues or wax renditions of this guy in my life. He looks familiar. Yeah. He weren't people. I could be so wrong on this.

My understanding is that we also like as a people have gotten taller over time like we used to be shorter. Yeah. I've read that. I we used to be shorter. Yeah. I've read that. I've read that too. Yeah. So like, that's why a lot of like older houses will have shorter door frames is because like we didn't use to be very tall, but that's even crazier because like then the people in comparison, I mean, now we have like Yana, Yana is what?

Seven foot. Like seven foot. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, no, that's like a whole two feet taller than Giannis. Yeah. Ah! That's so scary!

Comparison. Like a tall person was like 5'5", I feel like. So that's crazy. Like the same shoe size scale as we're on today, he wore a 37 AA. That shoe is about 18.5 inches long, or 47 centimeters. And then the AA part is a width measurement. He was narrower than average width.

But that is just strange. It kind of makes sense to me, looking at his lanky little body, that he would, little body, lanky big body, that he would have on a narrowanky big body that he would have on their foot like you you don't understand that the picture is smaller than he was like oh he's tiny yeah like three inches tall yeah and that girl with him is really really small mere inches

yeah how tall do we know do you know from that picture how tall she is Yeah, how tall, do we know, do you know from that picture how tall she is? No, they don't say, yeah. She is an adult, but she looks like a toddler next to him. Yeah. And she's in heels. Right, she's even trying to catch up, and he's just like, hello down there. It's ridiculous.

But yeah, and that's kind of, as far as I know, that's sort of the maximum size of a shoe, too, because it's the tallest person. And so that's the upper limit people have done, is this 37AA. But from here, I think we can get into the first of three takeaways for the show, because it's about how the sizes work. Takeaway number one. Shoe size numbering is kind of based on barley. Shoe size numbering is kind of based on barley. And one caveat with that, if you're in continental Europe or if you're in Asia, you're on a different system from us taping this and from other countries. But for most of the countries where this show is popular, your shoe size number comes from a unit called barley corns, which is an antique unit of measurement based on the size of barley. Fantastic. Tell me more. Are we measuring the length of barley corns?

Basically, yes. Yeah. It turns out, so barley, it's a big grain. And centuries ago, they did not have easy access to rulers and tape measures and so on. And so they developed a measurement called the barleycorn. And they decided that three barleycorns is about the length of one inch way, way back in the day. And that became one of the units in the imperial system of measurements that we mostly just still use in the US. But it has like lasted as a way of doing shoe sizes each each one shoe size in the u.s uk canada australia ireland new zealand a few other countries uh each like one of shoe size is one barley corn it's one third of an inch what yeah that's so it's really ridiculous so truly um stupid yeah stupid. Yeah. We really just said, that'll work. No need.

I mean, and it feels like, you know, going back to something we've touched on a few times, like, I don't know, every shoe manufacturer is like, oh, let's just grab a different scoop of barley and just see. Yeah. And then we'll just make that, we'll make that a seven, we'll make that an eight

yeah that's about right and it like while they were measuring the barley corn it like tilted a little bit it's a little shorter the shoe size a little smaller it's like oh yeah it's like no wonder we can't get it right like i can't just go into any store and know because we're we're going off of grains of sand and hoping that they're all the same. Yeah. Yeah, there are different kinds of barley and they're different sizes. And like today, the inch is based on metric in like a specific way. And so we're kind of getting barley corns backwards from that.

We're just saying it's a third of an inch. But for hundreds of years, people were like measuring barley to find out what an inch is to then measure stuff in Britain. And then they did a British Empire and spread that around. It always comes back to them, doesn't it? It seems to. It really does seem to. Yeah, and it's weird to me, too, because so many countries have moved on to the metric system. They're not on this british empire system anymore but specifically in shoe sizes u.s and canada are kind of on the same system and it's slightly different from the british one but they're all based on

a measurement that's one third of an inch that used to be based on the size of grains of barley we're we're all just kind of flabbergasted but uh but that's what's going on and uh yeah and it's also like really really old because i've heard people joke about like hogsheads and fathoms and like other weird old measurements but uh according to professor robert taverner of the london school of economics there are records of barley corns as measurements from the year 1101 when king henry the first of england said that an inch is three barley corns like this is centuries and centuries of using barley to measure stuff if king henry says it it's true yeah first henry come on i always say yeah yeah And I'm sure he was a good guy with no faults.

Many people said he had the most barley corn feed. Yeah. Many people. Exactly. Exactly. That is so, it just, I get, part of me is like, well, yeah, if it's working, why change it? Like, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And then the other part of me is like, well, yeah, if it's working, why change it? Like if it's not broke, don't fix it. And then the other part of me is like, what are we doing?

We're not farmers, all of us. Like we have so many things now. Can we make it better? Yeah, it's like I had to Google a picture of barley because I didn't totally know what it looked like, let alone find some to do measurements, you know? Let's move on. Forget it. I mean, I feel like I only know it from you sent us this picture and I feel like this shot is in every beer commercial where it's like someone's dipping their hands into this vat of barley. It's like, oh, we only got the finest hops in our water, in our beer water.

Come on down to Colorado and drink. This is Sam Elliott talking, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just dip your hand in some barley. Dip your hand in some barley. Just get your foot out, too. We'll just see how big you are. We do everything out here in golden colorado but and uh and the the so the uk developed

this imperial measurement system they did the barley corn and then spread it to basically the former british empire including the u.s and also if you try to like google this to be sure you'll find it varies slightly among different companies exactly what the different sizes are. But in general, one unit of US shoe size, or UK or Canada, Australia, New Zealand, that's equal to a third of an inch, which comes from the barley corn. So you can kind of measure your own foot if you want to see your approximate size at home. And then there's also like a starting point because because it doesn't start from nothing, you know? So you have to measure it from there. And then the starting point is based on a thing called a last, which was like a dummy of a foot that they used for hand-making shoes in the past.

So it's also based on that past stuff. It's all antique. I don't want to get into the shoe game, because I feel like I've got other stuff going on. But I want the people who are involved in the shoe game to get together, put their heads together, and really figure something else out. Yeah. And the shoe games in other countries, I guess, there are these other systems. And in my sneaker tag, I'll see the other measurements next to it. One system is called Paris Points,

because French shoemakers in the 1800s developed it. And that's just where one shoe size is two-thirds of a centimeter. And that's a little bit more than a quarter inch. So it's actually kind of similar. And that's based on rice, or what's that based on? It's based on, of course, it's based on rice or what's that based on it's based on of course it's based on burnt cigarette yeah yeah that's the butt of a cigarette it's a half of a butt of a cigarette yeah just baguettes and stuff ah the french jerks yeah but uh but that that system from paris is what they use in continental Europe, like outside the UK

and Ireland. And it's usually listed as like the European Union size on a shoe, if you see that. There's also the Japanese size, which is just the length of your foot in centimeters. It's very straightforward. So if you see that, that's very easy to understand. Not surprised that that one probably just makes the most sense. We should all do that one. And then the last one here is an attempt to get everybody on the same page.

It's called Mondo Points. And this was developed in the 1970s. Mondo means world. But there was a group called the International Organization for Standardization. But the system is like the length of your foot in centimeters and then another number for the width of your foot as a percentage of the length of your foot. And I know you're falling asleep as I say this. That's why no one uses Mondo points. It's only used for basically ski boots now because those need to be like perfect.

But that was an attempt to get everybody on the same page feels like the esperanto of of uh yeah foot sizes mondo points mondo mondo burger from good burger that's what that made me think of oh which was the like competitive that was the competitor burger to the good burger that's right across the street yeah and they like all wore like metallic clothes so yeah i remember the feeling of that movie i remember like those things happening you remember the vibes yeah remember the vibes i remember there are friends who made the good burger and then there was like i feel like this was the plot of many 90s and early 2000s era things where it's like an evil techno thing like company that does the same thing as us across the street you know i think they did this i think this was the exact plot of the dodgeball

movie yeah where it's like oh they just got some silver suited and it was the same color scheme like a purple silver kind of green like that is the color scheme of like evil on the other side of the street. It's like purple, silver and black. Yeah. Wow. Off of that, we are going to a short break, followed by a whole new takeaway. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess. This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife.

I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast The JV Club with Janet Varney Is part of the curriculum for the school year Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Allison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman And so many more is a valuable and enriching experience

One you have no choice but to embrace Because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. When there's a, there's two more takeaways for the main show, let's get into the next one. Takeaway number two. We are only starting to study the impact of pregnancy on shoe size. Because it turns out, and I don't know if either of you know this idea or if the entire audience does, but I did not know that there's a belief out there that when women have

a pregnancy and have a baby, their feet get bigger. And like in a lasting way, not in just it swells up during or something. Now, I'm not surprised that we're only beginning to study that because I'd imagine for the length of human history, women were like, man, I think I need bigger shoes. And science was like, no, shut up. You're fine. Right? Yeah, exactly. They were like man i think i need bigger shoes and science was like no shut up you're fine right yeah exactly they were like that doesn't make any sense so when you get pregnant my feet don't change size my being a man so not not gonna look into that yeah i'm glad though i'm glad yeah we should study this stuff I have Like known that I have like

People in my life that have like had babies That are like yeah my feet are like a size Bigger than they used to be like Fully a size not like Marginally like significantly Bigger yeah real change And then I once I read about this I asked my mom and she said yeah

A little bigger you know and it's a thing it goes on yeah you gotta get all new shoes and like i said women be shopping you know who got pregnant a lot warren g harding yeah really good yeah so i do you guys know that warren g harding had tons of affairs it's one of the main things about him he oh no like before and maybe during the presidency yeah just all the time really yeah he was he was kind of a a scammy dude yeah yeah i don't i he wasn't one of the better he wasn't one of the good good ones i don't think no not great i don't know died in office and otherwise would have probably been tried as one of the good guys yeah yeah but uh but yeah so so women uh i have probably known forever that at least as long as there have been shoe sizes

basically that you might need bigger shoe sizes after a pregnancy and there was apparently the first study of it in 2013 so starting to actually look at it 2013 yes my god you know that must be hard though you know you have you live your entire life and you have shoes and then all of a sudden it's like all right none of these fit i have i gotta start from scratch with all my shoes yeah luckily my mom has me buying shoes 18 sizes big, so I'm good. When I have kids, I'm going to be solid. You have that cushion. You have that three size up and down cushion. Ready to go. Yeah, room to grow into.

Yeah, my mom has a real room to grow mentality. So do they know? I guess it's new. Who knows? I know definitely after your first baby, for sure. Are we saying every time you have a kid, it's a little bit bigger? Or is it just like once your body goes through the change, that's now your new size? That's a great question.

They're saying it's mainly the first baby does it. Yeah, and much less so the further pregnancies. Prior to 2013, we wouldn't have had an answer to this. Yeah, we wouldn't have had any idea. No. Yeah, we wouldn't have had any idea. No formal peer-reviewed studies on this issue. Well, I'm just curious, like, evolutionarily, like, because most things that our bodies do, like, there's some, like, grand, like, is it because you need more balance because you're carrying a baby? Like, what is, I want to know, like, why our bodies would do that. I'm just thinking. I have not an answer.

It's like, that's like the next thing we should study. Cause they have a couple of theories from this, but they don't totally know for sure. And like, like one theory is just that it's the stress of carrying the additional weight of a baby and dealing with that. But there's also a theory.

They, they know that a pregnant woman's body releases a hormone called relaxin, which I know sounds made up, but it's called relaxin. And it like loosens ligaments in the body to help it change shape a bit to accommodate a baby. And the thing is, the hormone just goes all over your body, like it's not very targeted. And so they think that it might be like a knock-on effect of a useful hormone for containing a baby that just your foot is like ah exactly yeah yeah yeah folks she'll be she'll be just did like a flattening out motion with her hand and that's what the foot does that's it yeah i dramatically take off my glasses in the corner of the room.

Might I propose a third theory? Whoa. Go ahead. This is a global conspiracy by the sneaker companies to get women to buy new shoes. Yeah, we need to start looking into the relationship between Big Pharma and Big Sneaker. Nike, Adidas, Asics, New Balance. They've all come together.

And they're working with Pampers. Oh, yeah. It's an uroboros of globalism that needs to be stopped. I hope, not to dunk on him, but I hope Asics was like, can I please be in the conspiracy? And the cooler ones were like, yeah, sure okay yeah asic is fine nothing wrong with it uh i love asics but

they are sort of a nerdier younger brother to the rest of them new balance was sort of the nerdy older brother and then kawaii got in on it and now it's you know they get to be a little bit cooler now and baseball baseball has a lot of new balance well new balance's thing too is like hey we got the stars now but we're still not cool and isn't that cool yeah that your dad's they still look like your dad wears them when he's about to like hit up the lows early on a saturday morning yeah new balance is a dive bar in brooklyn that's drinks are still like 18 bucks, you know? They're like, no, we're like chill.

We're so chill. But it's like, well, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And the specific thing that happens with the feet, this is a study, it was at the University of Iowa. It was Dr. Neil Siegel, who's a professor of orthopedics and rehabilitation. He studied it because he'd just heard about this thing everyone knows,

and then surveyed a group of women. They mostly said it happens. And then he said, okay, we're going to do an actual study. They got a sample of 49 pregnant women. They followed them from the first trimester until five months after delivery, measuring their foot size the whole way. And they found that what happens is the foot does not actually like increase in bones or mass or anything, but it gets flatter. The arch gets a little lower and then it gets a little longer. So it is the like... Relaxing. It's relaxing. Yeah, yeah.

And they found that this was for about 60 to 70% of the women they studied this happens. The low end of the change was two millimeters longer. The high end was 10 millimeters longer. And 10 millimeters is 0.39 inches. That's more than a third of an inch. It's more than one barley corn. That's a barley corn for sure. It's an actual entire size. We're talking a barley corn.

Yeah. And as you know, that really is saying something nowadays. It's true. Yeah, yeah. It's so funny to me that, and listen, I give him credit. He heard about it and he was like, all right, I got to look into this. But that women were still kind of like, I don't know. It it does happen but i don't really care to look into like we were like no one cares and then some guy was like you guys don't care what do you mean women were still just

kind of like yeah we just kind of take our lumps on that one buy new shoes figure it out hope for the best yeah you know caring for a new human life vomiting in the morning yeah tired rush of hormones i think like i think like the barley corn on the you know that's it it's not like in the top 10 most important things during my pregnancy i want to make sure i got the right vitamin they were like i'll get new shoes when i get new shoes i'm wearing slippers anyway like Like, I don't, it doesn't matter right now. Are those two Kleenex boxes on your feet? Yes. Don't worry about it.

They feel better than my shoes. I don't know what happened, but at some point, all my shoes stopped fitting. I don't, I don't, I don't have time to get to the store. I would love to. I don't have time. And when I order them online, they don't fit. It's real yeah man but yeah but science is starting to catch up very exciting and uh and ladies uh look into new shoes if you have a baby it's probably worth doing the last takeaway the main show here takeaway shoe sizes helped reunite two pairs of dorothy's ruby slippers that is like dorothy from the

wizard of oz there's a there are a few of the actual slippers from the movie and shoe sizes are how we reunited some messed up pairs of them okay continue as a whole it's kind of a crime caper and the main sources here are pbs news hour and the smithsonian bbc news and then the toronto star but they talk about how the the wizard of oz it was filmed between 1938 and 1939 pbs says the production made at least seven prop pairs of the ruby slippers that dorothy wears um And four of them survive to the modern day. There's a privately owned pair we don't know where. There's one at the Academy of Motion Pictures Museum in LA.

And then there's a pair at the Smithsonian and a pair at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, which is her hometown. So those are the four pairs all over the US, basically. And they're all different sizes? Yeah, and some of them are different sizes. It turns out in particular that the pair that the Smithsonian had, the article describes it as kind of a secret, but if you press them, they would admit that one shoe was size 5C and the other shoe was size 5BC. And those

letters are different widths. Before Christ and during Christ. Like one of them's a Flintstone one. It's really old. Yeah, the other one's... Jetsons, I guess, yeah. But she was like... Judy garland was like 16 or 17 when they made that movie maybe she was still growing or she just needed the wide one for like all the dancing you know when she's dancing with that scarecrow she needs just more more length

more width rather i don't know it's totally possible yeah i'd believe it and so somebody was very excited about them because they stole one of the pairs. Thieves broke into the Judy Garland Museum in August of 2005. The BBC describes it as a smash and grab. They just broke the display and took it very, very bluntly. They also say, quote, almost no clues were left behind, neither footprints nor fingerprints, and the surveillance camera was not working that night, end quote. So they had no idea who did it.

They worked for them. It's an inside job. It's an inside job. They didn't look at the right people. If the cameras aren't working, they work there. The one night they're not working, yeah, they work security at the museum, and they sold them off for a lot of money because they weren't getting paid a lot doing security at the Judy Garland Museum.

Go to Liza Minnelli's house and get a warrant. Open her closet. Exactly. There was a past episode of this about the scream, the painting, the scream, and they just also did not have the security cameras set up when that was stolen one time. I think this happens in a lot of museums. Like they just don't, they put up a security camera and hope people are deterred and then don't run it.

Which is so funny because it's like the only thing you have going on as museum is the stuff inside. Just like all you need to be doing. There's nothing else interesting but the stuff that you have inside. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Alex, you read off all the locations of the four iconic pairs of Judy Garland shoes. As you're saying it in my head and you mentioned something about them being stolen, I was like, Judy Garland Museum probably sounds like the least secure of all those like smithsonian yeah like oh we got stuff here we got the declaration of independence that i don't know if they do but i would imagine maybe you know like they got stuff there they got apollo 11 just sitting around sitting right there yeah they probably have

some good security judy garland museum in grand rapids, Michigan. Minnesota, actually. It's not even the main Grand Rapids. Of all the Grand Rapids, it's the worst of them. But here's the thing. I agree with you in that they have more to protect. But I disagree in that this is all Grand Rapids, Minnesota has. You would think they're like, this is our crown jewel. We protect this with our lives to be honest they don't even really have the name grand rapids so they you're right they have to they have to

protect yeah they're like we have judy garland a stage name by the way not even her real name um they're like so what even is real they're like they're protecting like a make-believe person it's truly just a stage name but um they they don't have much else going on you would think that they would be like all right the city together we all agree to up our taxes to protect judy and her museum yeah it's exactly right Like, that's the main exhibit. What else is going to be there? Like her makeup from a thing? She's very exciting, but the physical props are like this. And that's it.

She's exciting, but you don't think of Judy Garland and think of her other projects. You're like, she was Dorothy. Or she's Liza Minnelli's mom. Mom? Mom. Yeah, I think mom, yeah yeah I was about to say daughter tough I was like she's Liza Minnelli's daughter she's so old like it doesn't make sense at all when and yeah so they stole this main thing in the museum that was not secure

and then it took 13 years of investigating to recover it. But they found it. The FBI in 2018 did a sting. The art crimes team of the FBI did a sting. They found them in Minneapolis, Minnesota. So they didn't even leave the state. The FBI got involved. Art crimes division. This is not a Tick Wolf show.

Yeah, this is hilarious. art crimes division this is not a dick wolf show yeah this is hilarious i want i want if anyone of you is a producer give me a call listeners um or you two because i'm gonna i'm gonna talk to dick wolf and we're gonna have an art crimes show it's all just like art students that are in in the police force they're all just kind of like i don't know the line work on here is a little bit boring right let's not solve it it's hacky you know for a bunch of that's uh van gogh derivative um your your entryway character your point of view character is like an FBI trainee who all they want to do is bust terrorists, jump on that speedboat full of cocaine. But they're like, all right, gumshoe, we're reassigning you. You're on the art crimes division.

Yeah, and he's like, what? Someone stole a teenager's shoes from 1933. Get to it start looking go when the uh and the funny like next and last step of this story is they were like we need to check if the slippers are real right like that's their job in this unit and so they said who would know but the smithson the FBI went to the Smithsonian and said, we recovered the Minnesota pair. Please check if they're real. Smithsonian spent hundreds of hours examining them.

They used an electron microscope to check the composition of them. And then in the end, did they just reach down and grab a bag of barley and be like, this is the only way to know. King Henry said it was so. Yeah. The first. The first. The first? Yeah. Not the eighth.

Not the eighth. He was up to some other business. Yeah, he was busy. It's the first that we're worried about. And then not only did they find out they're real, but then they had this magic moment of the Smithsonian kind of privately knows our shoes don't totally match and then they found out that the the recovered pair was the matching two so the 5bc and the 5c they like switched it and fixed it after doing this investigation wow oh so the smithsonian had

like one slightly wider they did one slightly narrower oh interesting so it wasn't quite a pair that whole time and then the stolen ones were the the right match for both of those and they fixed it i think the federal bureau of investigation would have figured that that one out like these don't look quite right yeah because everybody we didn't really talk about it but a lot of people their feet are slightly different sizes you know like so maybe they just thought that was why they were different. But no, it was like the pairs were somehow mixed up in the process of MGM or whoever giving them away. Some props person was like, I don't know, send the shoes. I don't care.

Yeah. These are two red ones. Send, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So at some point there was just a box with like eight of these shoes that we consider priceless now. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, in 1941, they're like, what do we do with these old shoes from that stupid

movie with the lion in it? Yeah. I don't know. Just give them away. This is, there was a, there was a, I went to summer camp for a number of years and there was a prank one night where all of boy's went to girls side and stole all of the shoes and tied them up. Uh, so they mixed all the pairs.

So like you had to, and then they tied them across and like made them kind of into like a telephone wire, but none of the shoes were with their pair. And then everyone had to untie them and put them in a pile and try and find your shoes and we had to match them like a lot of people had the same like a lot of people had the same pair of like nike sneakers so you had to like go ahead and like find your size and go and it was then like at some point it also became like okay well these are all the same size but there's eight of them so like which one like are these two are like worn about the same amount like that must be a pair like you would have to and it some people

just like never found their pair it was such a nightmare and it was an incredible prank but like people's parents were like i sent you with more shoes than you brought home like what's going on it was like yeah well the boys blame the boys i feel trust me i feel like that's like actually how detectives investigate murders like how much wear is on these shoes we were like all right well the tread on this one's a little bit light so that probably goes with this one and but then you have people lying you're like well i barely wore them and you're like i I saw you wear them like last week you know like kids at summer camp trying to get the newer pair

being like I've never worn them before those ones are mine and the local police are just like uh uh we don't want the feds to come in we don't want the art crimes division figure it out this is our jurisdiction now, you local PBs.

Go grab a donut. Pigs, this is art crimes now. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Brett Rader and to Shelby Wallstein for exploring a world of foot sizes with me via shoes. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is spooky, is creepy, it's the mystery of sneaker-wearing human feet washing up on the beaches of the Pacific Northwest. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than

four dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring shoe sizes with us. Here is one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, shoe size numbering is kind of based on barley. Takeaway number two, we are only starting to study the impact of pregnancy on shoe size. And takeaway number three, shoe sizes helped reunite two pairs of Dorothy's Ruby slippers. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Brett Rader is at Brett Rader on Twitter. That's R-A-D-E-R. Listen to him producing great stuff at Yahoo Sports week in, week out. He's also the

host of the Hey Julie podcast, which is covering Big Brother, the TV show, and also so much more really, really fun, really, really enjoyable just to hang out about pop culture with, again, Brett Rader, RADER. Shelby Wolstein is on Twitter as well well at Shelby Wolstein. She co-hosts an amazing podcast. It's called Keeping Records. She and her co-host Caleb Heron bring on amazing comedian guests to figure out in a very funny way how to do a new golden record for the space aliens to send them in space. And of course, Brett and Shelby's shows and tweets and everything else can be found in the episode links. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great video from BBC Earth Lab. It's made by Matt Parker and it's called A Guide to Imperial Measurements. A great radio interview from WAMC, which is Northeast Iowa Public Radio. They talked to Professor Neil Siegel from the

University of Iowa. Also a great report we're linking, it's from PBS NewsHour. It's by Julia Griffin, and it covers the twists and turns of Dorothy's ruby slippers. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners.

I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.