the.com/toothpick
The world's smallest tool, wielded with the confidence of a surgeon by everyone who's never held one before.
means A small, slender sliver of wood or plastic used to remove food caught between the teeth.
from Simply 'tooth' plus 'pick,' from the verb to pick meaning to remove something with a pointed instrument — a straightforwardly honest compound. The tool itself is ancient; archaeologists have found toothpicks and tooth-scratches among prehistoric remains, and quills or slivers of wood or metal served the purpose long before the English word settled into place sometime in the medieval period.
- ancient use
- neanderthals used them, grooves found on fossil teeth
- material shift
- wood replaced porcupine quills and bird bones
- etiquette rule
- covering your mouth while using one is actually optional myth
- mass production
- a single machine can make 1,000+ per minute