When I was but a toothy youth, I brushed my teeth with Wisdom brushes. Their website proudly proclaims:
"Few companies can boast a richer history than Wisdom Toothbrushes. The company was established over 240 years ago by its founder William Addis and is globally recognised as the inventor of the modern-day toothbrush."
It's as well they are stressing modernity, because there is ample evidence in the annals that toothbrushes (with handles made of bamboo and brush heads of hog bristles) were in use in China during the Tang dynasty as early as 620 AD, while the rest of us were using rags dipped in salt, or chewing twigs from trees. In fact when European travellers introduced the marvellous Chinese toothbrush to Europe in the 17th century, our fastidious friends in south-east Asia had been using it for a thousand years.
Although tooth brushing is the most common preventive healthcare activity, levels of tooth and gum disease remain high, since people clean at most 40% of their tooth margins at the gum line. The main reason most dentists recommend patients to brush twice a day is in the hope that frequent brushing will clean more areas of the mouth. OK, lesson over... rinse and spit. It's poem time.
It's as well they are stressing modernity, because there is ample evidence in the annals that toothbrushes (with handles made of bamboo and brush heads of hog bristles) were in use in China during the Tang dynasty as early as 620 AD, while the rest of us were using rags dipped in salt, or chewing twigs from trees. In fact when European travellers introduced the marvellous Chinese toothbrush to Europe in the 17th century, our fastidious friends in south-east Asia had been using it for a thousand years.
So I looked up the Wiki page about Addis, the man who claimed to have invented it all over again, and what a fascinating story that is. William Addis (rioter and entrepreneur) was in jail in 1770 when he figured there might be a better way of cleaning one's teeth than with a rag dipped in ash (salt being in short supply in prison). He saved a small length of bone from a meal, drilled tiny holes in it and threaded tufts of bristle through. After his release in 1780, he started up in business mass-producing his toothbrushes, and over the next quarter of a century he became a very wealthy man.
His son, also William, inherited the firm on the founder's death in 1808 and it continued to be a family-run concern until the 1990s. Its biggest boost came during WWII when it supplied a million toothbrushes to Britain's armed forces, By then, plastics, injection moulding machines and synthetic bristles had innovated toothbrush manufacture and Wisdom was the brand name given to the new line of Addis brushes from 1940 onwards. Nowadays, the company manufactures some 70 million toothbrushes a year.
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| wise woman with toothbrush and wasp waist |
It is received wisdom that everyone should brush their teeth twice a day to maintain good oral hygiene, though the science suggests that at least once every 48 hours is good enough to prevent plaque build up.
How one brushes is more important than how often. It is beneficial when using a straight bristled brush not to scrub horizontally over the necks of teeth, not to press the brush too hard against the teeth, to choose a toothpaste that is not too abrasive, and to wait at least 30 minutes after meals before brushing. It is also vitally important to manage maximum coverage of teeth and gums.
Although tooth brushing is the most common preventive healthcare activity, levels of tooth and gum disease remain high, since people clean at most 40% of their tooth margins at the gum line. The main reason most dentists recommend patients to brush twice a day is in the hope that frequent brushing will clean more areas of the mouth. OK, lesson over... rinse and spit. It's poem time.
A poem doesn't have to be 'on theme' does it? I'm not sure about the wisdom of this latest - not even sure it's better than no poem at all - but its inspiration came earlier in the week when I got stuck behind a lorry with two yellow 'registration' plates on the back. One was a standard plate (e.g. SN67 SGV) and the other just read TEZ, which I took to be the nickname of its driver.
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| a Derry lorry as driven by Terry |
That got me idly wondering, as we queued, why names that end in 'rry' like Barry or Perry or Terry ever got changed to Bazzer or Baz, Pezzer or Pez and Tezzer or Tez. If you know, please do enlighten me. Also, while we're at it, why was Charles John Huffam Dickens ever called Boz?
Then I clocked that Terry (Tezzer or Tez) was driving a lorry for a company called Derry and the unfortunate idea for this comic poem was born. It's a shame that Derry doesn't distribute toothbrushes. That would have been the perfect coincidence, "delivering oral products to the furthest reaches of the British mouth." It's actually a refrigerated goods transporter. Never mind.
I was going to title it Tezzer Drives A Lozzer for Dezzer, but as we remark wisely in this poetry game, less is frequently more. Of course it's a bit of nonsense and of course it's a work in progress. If you need to decode it, just replace all but one z with rry.
Tez's Orrez
Never a young man to taz
first to sail out on the fez
taken on as an equez
living a life without woz
hardly ever has to say soz
out on the piss to get mez
after the pubs shut, a cuz.
Met a young lady called Kez
cut a thrust he couldn't paz
and now he's all set to maz
seems she's a girl in a fluz
to have kids, all that jazz
so he needs a new job in a huz
ends up driving a loz for Dez.
Thanks for reading, S ;-)