Ten bizarre inventions from the past that never caught on

People once caged babies several stories above the street

Ever wonder what happened to all those "revolutionary" gadgets that promised to change our lives? Some ideas were just too weird, too early, or too wonderfully impractical to survive. Let's take a nostalgic trip through the patent office's hall of shame.

Back when fresh air was considered a cure-all, London parents who lived in apartments faced a dilemma: how to give their babies outdoor time without a yard? The solution was a wire cage that hung outside the window, suspending Junior several stories above the street. Parents would just pop the baby in the cage and go about their day.

Shockingly, this didn't catch on. Perhaps it was the image of infants dangling precariously over busy sidewalks.

Imagine a giant goldfish bowl on your head, lined with cork, with only a thin slit to see through. That was the Isolator, designed to help people concentrate by blocking out all distractions. The inventor, Hugo Gernsback, thought sensory deprivation was the key to productivity. An attached oxygen tank let you breathe while you worked.

The problem? Looking like a deep-sea diver at your desk isn't exactly conducive to office camaraderie. Plus, trying to type while essentially wearing a fish tank proved impractical.

This battery-powered cone featured a small motor that rotated the ice cream for you, so you could just stick out your tongue and let technology do the rest. It was supposed to prevent drips and ensure even licking coverage.

The invention raised an important question: had we become so lazy that rotating our wrist was now an insurmountable challenge? Apparently, the answer was no. The motorized cone disappeared faster than ice cream on a summer day.

This amphibious bicycle promised to let you pedal across lakes and rivers just as easily as riding down Main Street. It featured a boat-like hull and paddle wheels instead of regular tires. The inventor envisioned commuters cycling across waterways, avoiding bridge traffic entirely.

Unfortunately, the Cyclomer was heavy, slow on both land and water, and required the leg strength of an Olympic athlete to move at anything faster than a crawl.

Dr. John Brinkley convinced thousands of men that transplanting goat testicles into humans would restore youth and vigor. For the bargain price of $750 (about $12,000 today), you could have surgery in his Kansas clinic and supposedly regain the vitality of your younger days.

Unsurprisingly, the procedure didn't work—goat glands don't function in human bodies. Brinkley eventually lost his medical license, but not before making millions.

When cars first became common, someone invented a net-like contraption that attached to the front bumper to scoop up pedestrians before running them over. The idea was that the person would land safely in the net instead of under the wheels. It looked like an industrial-sized butterfly net.

The fatal flaw? Getting hit by a car and caught in a net is still getting hit by a car. Plus, the contraption made vehicles longer and harder to maneuver, probably causing more accidents than it prevented.

Picture this: you're stuck in bed recovering from illness, and what you really need is a full-size piano suspended over your body. That's what one inventor thought, anyway. The piano hung horizontally above the patient, who could supposedly play while lying flat on their back.

Beyond the obvious safety concerns of dangling a heavy musical instrument over sick people, there was the question of who actually wants to play piano while confined to bed.

In an era when dimples were considered irresistibly charming, someone invented a face-shaping device that promised to create them artificially. The contraption used springs and knobs to press into your cheeks for 15 minutes daily until dimples supposedly formed permanently.

It didn't work, of course—dimples are genetic, caused by variations in facial muscle structure. But that didn't stop people from trying.

L. Ron Hubbard claimed this modified lie detector could measure the electrical characteristics of your thoughts and help achieve spiritual enlightenment. Users held two tin cans connected to a meter while being asked questions. A needle supposedly revealed deep psychological truths.

Scientifically, it was just a simple ohmmeter measuring skin resistance—the same principle behind mood rings. But it cost considerably more and came with significantly more baggage.

Why carry a portable radio when you could wear one on your head? This invention looked like a regular pint-sized baseball cap but contained a tiny AM radio with an antenna poking out the top. Earphones ran down to your ears, letting you listen to broadcasts while keeping your hands free.

The problem was that you looked absolutely ridiculous, like an alien trying to blend in at a baseball game. The reception was terrible, the batteries died quickly, and the whole contraption was uncomfortable.

WORD HISTORY

Did You Know These 10 Everyday Words Have Captivating Origins?

Image: Waldemar

Etymology is often overlooked, which is definitively a shame: After all, the history of the words we use every day is at least as old as humankind’s earliest interactions with language. As humans evolved and grew, so did our words, so you might not be surprised to learn that a big part of our vocabulary has roots in ancient and downright fascinating ancient cultures.

We have selected ten common words that have surprising, beautiful, or downright strange origins. We hope that, by the end of this article, you’ll think fondly about these interesting facts whenever you use these terms in everyday conversation. Enjoy!

Image: NASA

We’ll start with one of the most common childhood dream jobs, and while only a select few might travel to outer space, we still hold the uttermost respect and fascination for these daring men and women. In that sense, the word "astronaut" has a rather beautiful meaning hiding in its etymology.

Astronaut comes from the Ancient Greek words astron, which means "stars," and nautes, which means "sailor." So, in a sense, this dream profession beautifully represents one of mankind’s oldest dreams: the ability to sail freely and discover the skies above.

Image: Jim Strasma

Have you ever applauded after watching a particularly colorful and energetic fireworks display? You might be surprised to learn that both the sound of your applause and the colorful explosions above your head share the same etymological root.

The verb "explode" comes from the Latin word plaudere, which describes the noise produced by loud clapping. Ancient Romans would show their approval of something pretty much as we do: with a resounding round of applause, which was described by the term explaudere.

Image: Maayan Nemanov

You are probably familiar with the word "boycott," which describes the act of willingly denying support to a company or organization due to differing principles. However, were you aware that, before it became a commonly used word, boycott was first the last name of a British army officer?

What’s interesting is that Captain Charles Boycott, the man after whom this action was named, was not the one to first enact a boycott: he was actually the target of one. Captain Boycott managed a property in Northern Ireland during the 19th century and became involved in a dispute with local farmers that ended in the very first boycott in history. Enraged farmers decided to stop working the captain’s lands, forcing him to leave the town.

Image: Dan Parlante

Remember how we promised in the introduction of this article that we would delve into some weird etymology? Well, we’ll go a step beyond that and focus on the strange origins of the word "weird" itself. You might be surprised to learn that a term usually associated with informal or casual use is based on classical figures of mythology.

Weird comes from the Old English word wyrd, which was used as a synonym for "fate." In fact, the plural word wyrde was used to represent the Fates, the three Greek goddesses that spun the lives of mortals and gods alike. You might recall the three Weird Sisters, who told King Macbeth his fate in Shakespeare’s classic play. Surprisingly, the "weird" in their name didn’t describe their strangeness, but rather their ability to tell the future.

Image: Bryan Goff

You would think that such an iconic term as "astronaut" would be the only space-related term in this list, but the truth is that many words related to "the Final Frontier" have fascinating origins. For example, the word "planet" comes from an Ancient Greek word that means "wanderer," while "comet" can be roughly translated to "long-haired star." In that sense, the etymological origins of the word "galaxy" also tell a beautiful tale of human ingenuity.

Galaxy comes from the Late Latin word galaxias, which in turn comes from the Ancient Greek galaxías. This last word is derived from gála (Greek for "milk"), which was mostly used in conjunction with the Greek word for wheel, kýklos. So, the word devised by Ancient Greece to describe the Milky Way ended up describing every galaxy that inspires our sense of discovery.

Image: Nopparuj Lamaikul

Nowadays, we use the word "juggernaut" to describe something massive in size, as well as powerful and almost unstoppable. While this term was made popular by a Marvel comics villain of the same name (who shares all of these qualities), its etymological origins are actually rooted in the story of an ancient Hindi god.

The word "juggernaut" is an English rendering of Jagannath, one of the central deities in Hinduism. The name of this god is in itself a Sanskrit word that roughly translates to "Lord of the Universe," which further illustrates the importance of this deity.

Image: Karl Callwood

Porpoises are sometimes regarded as less popular than dolphins, which is truly a disservice to this intelligent cetacean, which is actually a closer relative to belugas than to dolphins. So, let’s try our best, at least for this entry, to keep dolphins out of the picture, and let’s focus solely on the fascinating etymology of porpoises.

The word "porpoise" comes from the Anglo-French word porpeis, which in turn comes from two Latin roots: porcus, which means "pig," and piscis, which means "fish." While "pig fish" might not be the most glamorous etymology for our seafaring friends, we hope the world will now see this lovable animal in a more favorable light.

Image: Anastasia Vityukova

Just like with "boycott," a real person holds the dubious honor of being the origin of the name behind one of the most addictive substances on Earth. Nicotine, a chemical compound commonly found in cigarettes, was named after Jean Nicot de Villemain, a 16th-century French diplomat credited with bringing the first tobacco plants to France.

To be fair, Jean Nicot believed that smoking tobacco had medicinal properties and that it would help his country deal with ravaging illnesses like the plague. Since the plant was known as Nicotiana in France, it stands to reason that Nicot’s last name inspired the etymology of this chemical compound.

Image: Ben Sweet

The term "Silhouette" describes an image that depicts a single element (such as a person, an animal, or an object) as a single, solid color that doesn’t show any internal features. While this is definitively a loan word from the French language, you might be surprised to learn that this word pays homage to yet another French statesman.

Étienne de Silhouette, an 18th-century finance minister, was the direct inspiration for this technique. According to historians, his harsh economic wartime measures forced many wealthy French people to turn to more austere artistic representations. As a result, these cheaper outline portraits became increasingly popular in this country’s artistic communities.

Image: Stephan Widua

We’ll end this article with the beautifully tragic story behind the word "echo." This word describes a reflection of sound, which the listener usually experiences after a slight delay. Echo is present in nature in many forms, from the way natural accidents like canyons return sound to a process that animals like bats or dolphins use to navigate their environments.

Like many entries on this list, this word comes to us from Ancient Greece: in Greek mythology, the mountain nymph Echo was cursed by the goddess Hera to only be able to repeat the last words spoken to her. While this nymph’s fate was definitively calamitous, we can at least take solace in the fact that her namesake inspired radar technology, one of the most useful human inventions in history.