Should You Tip for Takeout? & The Weird Ways People Get into The Guinness Book of World Records

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0:43Things that are surprisingly easy to miss on your own. And I found that once you actually see the numbers, you look at your money differently. If you've ever wondered, where exactly is all my money going? I think you'll find Monarch pretty eye-opening. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code SYSK at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off your first year at Monarch.com with code SYSK. Today on Something You Should Know, it's quite possible people like you more than you think. Then, how to handle those everyday questions like, is it okay to drive over the speed limit?

1:34Or let someone cut in line? Or should you tip for takeout? We've all had the experience, I think, of going to a coffee shop. You tip before they've done anything, and then they might even do a bad job. So you end up waiting around for 15 minutes for your coffee and thinking, why did I tip this person before they did anything? I should have had my choice to make at the end. Also, why taking pictures can do funny things to your memory and how people get into the Guinness Book of World Records. And it's not easy. We reject between 90 and 95 % of what we get because most of what we get is just really weird and sometimes illegal and just impossible to quantify or qualify.

2:16All this today on Something You Should Know. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming on Disney+. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

3:05After you meet someone new, have you ever wondered, I wonder if they liked me. I wonder if I made a good first impression. Well, that's the question we're going to start with today as we begin this episode. I'm Micah Ruthers. So after meeting someone new, it's very easy to replay the conversation and wonder, did I talk too much? Was that a stupid joke? Did they actually like me? Well, here's some reassuring news. they probably liked you more than you think they did. Researchers call this the liking gap. In studies involving strangers meeting for the first time, people consistently underestimated how much the other person liked them and enjoyed talking with them.

3:51It happened after short conversations, longer conversations, and even among college students getting to know their dorm mates. And a newer analysis published in 2026 found the same basic pattern. Why? Well, we all have access to our own awkward thoughts and insecurities, but not the other person's. So afterwards, we tend to focus on what we think went wrong while overlooking signals that the other person enjoyed our company. So the next time you meet somebody and walk away thinking, I'm not so sure they liked me, Don't put too much faith in that assessment. Research suggests you're probably a tougher critic on yourself than they are.

4:36And that is something you should know.

4:42Here's a question. Should you tip when you pick up takeout? Seems simple enough until you actually try to decide what the right answer is. Some people tip, why not you? But what are you tipping for? Or what about letting someone cut in line? It seems generous of you, but is it unfair to everyone behind you? And if you're on an empty highway with no other cars around, is there really anything wrong with driving over the speed limit? Although it is against the law. Well, these little dilemmas come up all the time, and what makes them so interesting is that the obvious answer often isn't so obvious once you start thinking about it.

5:26In fact, how you reason your way through these everyday questions can reveal some surprising things about how you think, what you value, and how you decide what's fair. Here to take us through some of these fascinating everyday puzzles is Ward Farnsworth. He is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law and author of several books, including Should You Tip for Takeout? Solving the Puzzles of Everyday Life. Hey, Ward, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, Mike. Thank you so much for having me. So explain, if you had to call this something, if you had to categorize this as a topic of conversation, what are we about to talk about and how did you get into this?

6:11Because I find this stuff fascinating. Well, I think we're about to talk about how to approach everyday life in a more rational way and think a little longer and harder about everyday problems that usually just annoy us. We may also be about to talk about dinnertime conversations. So one problem I think we all have now is that dinner conversations so often veer into either politics or whether and when AI is going to kill us all. And I think it's fun to have other things to talk about. And I think everyday life is a very fruitful source of good things to discuss over the dinner table. You can learn a lot about how to think hard about big things by thinking harder about little things.

6:54Well, let's dive into the deep end here since it's the title of your book. What do you think about paying for takeout? I have my beliefs. What do you say? I think what I would say about that is probably it would be better if we didn't. But since that's the custom that we've come to, we should. And to me, it's more interesting to think about, to back up and think, why do we tip ever in general? And of course, in some cultures, they don't do much tipping. But in ours, we do a fair amount of tipping. And then again, sometimes we don't. Well, wait, but first of all, I mean, I've always thought tipping is for service.

7:29How can you tip for service if you really didn't get a lot of service in takeout? And then sometimes when you go pick up your takeout, before you even see the food or get close to it, they're asking for a tip. So you have nothing to base it on. And I recently interviewed someone about tipping who said it is not as customary as people think. Yes, you're always asked, but most people don't. They don't tip for takeout. That empirical question about how much people tip for takeout is open. And my impression from the data is that a majority now probably do. But let's back up and think about what you raised, because I think you're right.

8:13We've all had the experience, I think, of going to a coffee shop. You tip before they've done anything, and then they might even do a bad job. So you end up waiting around for 15 minutes for your coffee and thinking, why did I tip this person before they did anything? I should have had my choice to make at the end. And our view is that proprietors of takeout places have basically made a decision that they want to raise their prices. And they don't want to do that by putting a price hike on the menu. They want to do that by inviting you to tip because they got to pay their staff. So the way to think about it is if you weren't asked to tip for takeout, you'd probably be getting charged more for whatever you're taking out for the pizza or the coffee or whatever.

8:50And the question is, what would you prefer? Would you rather be charged a flat rate more or would you rather they gave you a little discretion and said, we need to charge you something more, but you can have something to say about how much more. You can even decide not to pay anything more, and we'll sum up what everybody's willing to pay, and we'll make that the form that our price hike takes. I think that's the situation we're now in. And our view is if that's the way they want to play, maybe we should welcome the discretion. Well, and then maybe they should call it something else. When you call it tipping, tipping to me is something you do for service.

9:24if this is going to be paid before there is any service or lack of service, then it's not tipping. There ought to be maybe another name for it. However, with that custom having been established, my view is they're simply choosing. You're not doing what, when you tip for takeout, you're not doing what you just described. You're not tipping, you're not giving an extra for service. You're just paying a component of the price of what you're buying, but you're paying it in a different form. That tipping has been changed. It used to be just what you just said. It has turned into something different.

9:57It's turned into a piece of the price of what you're buying that they are leaving to your discretion at the end of the transaction. And if you don't really think of it as a tip, you just think of it as we are raising prices, but we're going to give you something to say about how much you're willing to pay extra. Think of it that way. So you talk about, you discuss reclining your seat on an airplane. And this one's always fascinated me because I've never been put off by somebody putting their seat down in front of me because the seat doesn't typically go down that far. And you wonder, well, if they're going to make seats that recline, why should you be denied the luxury of using it?

10:35Then don't make them that recline. But if they're going to recline, well, I'll put my seat back. Well, I suppose. But I suppose there was somebody sitting behind you who had a cast on. and it was actually going to be uncomfortable for them for you to recline. Would you reconsider then? Well, sure. If the specific situation warranted it, most of the time I don't think there are people behind me with a cast on. But yeah, if somebody said, hey, I got this cast and it would really help if you didn't, of course, of course I would. Well, I get that. But I think that you put your finger on the right issue, which is what are the actual circumstances?

11:09How much bother is it going to be to the person behind you? because I'll bet that your listeners have a wide range of experiences and reactions on this. I've been in many situations where I'm in a pretty tight plane and I've got my tray down and I'm trying to type and then somebody leans back and now my tray is basically running up against me. And the benefit to them in leaning back is almost certainly lower than the detriment to me from their reclining. Another way to think about it is if it was you and your family, if it was me and a family member behind me, I probably wouldn't recline because usually the benefit to me from reclining is going to be less than the detriment to them.

11:45Now, if that's not true, then great. What we'd actually like to see is more discussion or people just looking around to see, because we think that maximizing the total good of the situation is a nice goal to have in places like this. We don't think you should never recline. What we'd like to see in a perfect world, we'd like to see more negotiation between the person in front and the person behind. But you know that's very awkward who wants to negotiate an airplane when you go buy a ticket you probably noticed nowadays more than 10 years ago that they proposed to charge you to pick a seat on the plane right you know what i'm saying like if you notice that more now than 10 years ago of course when you pick your seat on the plane oh it's 45 it's 35 and that's a little annoying but one way to think about that is if you care about being reclined on if you don't like it here's your chance to get around that.

12:34You can pay for a seat with some more legroom and then it won't bother you so much. And so we think it's actually a good thing. It's a substitute for negotiating with the person behind you, which is too awkward on an airplane. The airline's going to do it for you by proposing to charge you a little extra if you actually care about this. So here's one that I really want you to weigh in on because it's so not a big deal, but people, I think, have strong emotions about you go to some play, some high school play, and it's not that great. And everybody's standing up and a standing ovation at the end and you think really man it just wasn't that good do you or don't you i this is sort of like tipping for takeout to me and i think you and i agree i think that standing ovations it would be better if they were not given in those situations you just described i don't like them uh the same way i don't really like tipping for takeout as a custom but once that's become the custom i go with the custom so when everybody stands up i stand up in the same way I mentioned before, tipping for takeout, it isn't really tipping in the same way that tipping used to mean.

13:36And a standing ovation isn't really a standing ovation either. It used to mean something really special. It used to mean, wow, I'm not just clapping, I'm standing up, this was exceptional. Well, that isn't what it means anymore. It might be better if it did mean that, but we've turned it into something about as conventional as applause at the end of a play. So I just shrug and stand up and just accept that everybody knows this doesn't mean what it looks like it means. I'm not actually saying it's exceptional. The same way when I tip now, I'm not acting for takeout. I'm not really tipping in the way that the tipping used to mean.

14:08I'm standing up and I'm giving a little free or inexpensive benefit to the performers, who after all probably aren't paid that much. I mean, the people who put on these plays, even when they're mediocre, are probably doing it not so much for the money because there isn't that much money involved, but because they enjoy being praised. Right. And at the end of the day, if you don't stand up at the high school play, you just look like the curmudgeon. What are you trying to say? I mean, what different? No one's going to remember if you stood up or didn't stand up, but they might notice, well, what's up with that guy?

14:43So why not just go with the flow and it's over? And by not standing up, what does that do for you? Nothing. That's right. It just makes you look like a grouch. But it's interesting to think about how that happens because what you just identified is an important way that social pressure gets exerted on people, right? I mean, imagine the first time there was a standing ovation for a mediocre play. Somebody who's maybe a relative of the people on the stage, they stand up. And then a couple more people think, well, I don't want them to be alone. I'll stand up. But then when those three people are standing up, somebody else says, well, okay, I'll go along with that.

15:17I thought it was all right. And then pretty soon, Mike, you look like a grouch because you're not standing up. So you stand up to avoid looking like a grouch and now everybody's standing up even though hardly anybody wanted to. And sometimes that's just the way it works in, in social life, but I'm with you. I just go ahead and stand up because I don't want to send the wrong signal. And I just accept that everybody involved knows that the standing ovation doesn't mean what it used to. So I next want to talk about letting people cut in line. And we'll do that when we come back right after this. From the studio that brought you WandaVision, I was an Avenger.

15:53But I'm not a hero anymore. The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision. How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming only on Disney+. purchase new carpet from the home depot and get it installed for free right now shop the stylish choices and simple pricing of carpet from home decorators collection traffic master or life proof with pet proof technology and see for yourself why nobody beats our prices enjoy new carpet with free installation right now at the home depot offer valid october 15th through november 1st, 2026.

16:45Exclusions apply. For licenses, see HomeDepot.com slash license numbers. My guest is Ward Farnsworth. He's a professor at the University of Texas School of Law and author of the book, Should You Tip for Takeout? Solving the Puzzles of Everyday Life. So, Ward, letting people cut in line. People have very strong feelings about that. I have my position on it, and I'd like to hear what you have to say. Well, I think it's case by case, and I'm probably a soft touch, but the question is this, is there a line behind you? I mean, if you're the only person in line in the grocery store and somebody's in a hurry and has fewer groceries, I just let them go right ahead.

17:24The hard part is, what if there are five or six people behind you? Now, if you let somebody cut in front of you, you're not just giving away some of your own time, you're giving away the time of the people who are already in line behind you, too. And so we think instead of spending their time that way, if you really think that the person cutting in line has a great case to make, then go to the back of the line. Basically switch places with them. Let them go in where you are. You go to the back. And in that way, you're spending your own time to help them. And you're not forcing the same expenditure on everybody else who's already behind you.

17:55To me, it really matters what the reason is that they're in a hurry, that, you know, if they have a plane to catch or that, you know, there's some important reason that they need to get out of the store fast. And the better the reason, the more likely I am to let them go ahead of me. Well, I feel the same way. But, of course, you have to remember there might be people behind you in line who have reasons just as good. Yeah. And they thought it was more civil not to try to cut in line just to they just say to themselves, I got here late. I've got to take my lumps. So if you let this person cut in line, you might be prioritizing them over somebody behind you who's in the same boat.

18:34I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I just think that when you stop and think about it, maybe going to the back of the line is the polite thing to do. Now, I admit nobody wants to do that. You might think, well, it's one thing to let him in front of me. I'm not going to the back of the line. But if that's how you feel, maybe letting him cut isn't such a good idea because the costs and benefits might not cash out the way you're imagining. Have you ever done that? I've done it once. I generally don't do it, but I'm pretty stingy about letting people cut in line. If they've got a great reason, I might knuckle under.

19:02I might look around and ask people behind me. Something else to consider is just moving back a few places. It really depends on the length of the line. And of course, if somebody seems desperate, you make the judgment that you're describing, which is how convincing do they seem? Right. Well, I remember talking to somebody who quoted some research and they did this with people waiting in line at a copy machine years ago when people waited in line at the copy machine. And people were much more willing to let someone cut in line if they gave a reason. And it didn't have to be a great reason. They just had to have a reason why.

19:39Of course, that's right. I mean, what you'd like to know is also, how often does this person do this? Is this somebody who's chronically late and always saying, sorry, I'm in an emergency that I basically created myself by being late? or is this somebody where it's once in a lifetime? I mean, in a perfect world, we might all be given a few tokens at birth for cutting in line. Like you have three or you have 10 and you can use them in selected places, but you can't do it too often because you're going to run out of tokens. And then it's fun to think if you had those tokens, would you sell them to other people or would you keep them for yourself?

20:10But in any event, we just think it's interesting to pause and ask about the economics of that situation. If somebody asked to cut in line, what's the real rationale for letting them do it? is I think it's usually because what you imagine is that the cost to you is pretty small and the benefit to them is pretty large. It's a little like reclining in your airplane seat. The question is how much are you going to think about the consequences for other people of what you're doing, of the person behind you in the airplane or the people behind you in line when you let somebody cut in. We think that when you start taking that into account, the situation just gets more interesting.

20:42One of the things people are talking about right now, because there's been a lot of cities putting in these speed cameras to catch drivers who are going too fast. Should you be able to drive over the speed limit? Should you be able to use your judgment if, you know, if you're the only one on the road and it's three o 'clock in the morning, should you be able to go over the speed limit and use your judgment about that? Because, you know, the speed limit is the speed limit. That's the law and you should obey the law. But there's no one else around, so who cares? Well, it's, of course, an interesting problem how fast you should drive.

21:18I know very few people. I don't know about you, Mike, but I know very few people who scrupulously adhere to the speed limit. Most people go a little bit over. What they think is, well, I can go a few miles over. I'm not going to get ticketed for that. And I'm mostly just going to go with the speed of traffic. And if there's nobody around, I'm certainly going to go over the speed limit. And it is an interesting problem is what's the right speed to drive at? An interesting thing we found is that in a lot of places, the way they set the speed limit, it's interesting. They'll try to take a selection of traffic driving in the most unconstrained manner they can find, like in an area where the speed limit's not prominently posted.

21:55And they'll set the speed limit so that 80 % of the traffic adheres to it. But, you know, once you do that, people start exceeding the speed limit, and it's no longer 80 % that are going to be driving below it. Once you post the limit, most people start going a little bit over it. And so there's kind of this creep, this effect where if you so if you come back five years later, you got to raise the speed limit because now now the 80 percent line is going to be higher. But once you raise people drive faster again. So our view is speed limits probably ought to be taken more seriously than they are.

22:26the actual wisdom of the crowds. If you think there's some wisdom of the crowd, of all the drivers in expressing how fast it's safe to drive, the actual wisdom is going to be found at the median, with the median driver who's going to be below the 80 % mark, which means even below the speed limit. I know it doesn't sound like very much fun, but if your goal is to sort of find the right compromise between speed and safety, sticking to the speed limit or even a couple miles below is probably a better bet than winging it and going faster. But it is interesting, as you said, I think most people go a little bit above it, figuring no one's going to give me a ticket for going three miles an hour more than the speed limit.

23:07And maybe you think, well, so maybe they set the speed limit with that in mind. And so they lower the speed limit knowing you're going to go faster or, you know, who knows. But the question you have to ask is, what are you trying to maximize when you drive? drive like is your goal to go as fast as you can without getting a ticket if that's really the goal then the answer is pretty simple it's it's it's you know drive four miles over the speed limit or maybe nine miles however however far you think you can go without triggering the uh a stop by a by uh the police but there might be more to think about I mean you might you might in addition to not wanting to get a ticket you might want to drive safely you also want to get where you're going fast how do you balance those things and one way to think about how to balance them is well, maybe the speed limit is itself an expression of the right balance, or maybe you think the speed of traffic is.

23:56What are you actually trying to get done here? So here's a puzzle, a question I think everybody has heard before, and that is if you have a piece of cake and you're going to split it between two people, one person gets to cut the cake and the other person gets to choose which piece they have. and is it better to be the person to cut the cake or is it better to be the person to choose which half you get i've always thought it's better to be the person to choose which half you get okay well i think you're i think uh your instinct is i think a good one it's a rational one because uh if the others you'd rather choose because if the other side makes a mistake in cutting it always helps you because you get to pick uh so the the pressure is all on the cutter because if the cutter tries to cut in half and there's a little too much on one side, that'll always benefit the chooser.

24:52So in those situations, I think you generally want to choose if the cake is all the same, but if the cake's a little different, if it has different properties, maybe there's fancy frosting on the top and you have different opinions about it, might be better to do the cutting because then you can do some cutting that might not just cut it in half. You might cut so that a little more of the good stuff's on one side, but the other side's a little bigger, and you might have some strategic ideas about that. Well, what's fun about this is, you know, these are not earth-shattering, life-changing questions necessarily, but in the moment when they come up, they're kind of important, and it's interesting to talk about them and see, you know, there isn't always a simple answer.

25:29I've been talking with Ward Farnsworth. He is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law and author of the book, Should You Tip for Takeout? Solving the Puzzles of Everyday Life. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Ward, great. Thanks for illuminating these questions. Mike, thank you. I so appreciate the chance to talk about this stuff with you. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore. The Vision returns for the final chapter of the groundbreaking trilogy. That family wasn't real. You sure about that? I had a father called Vision.

26:05How is this possible? Don't miss the two-episode premiere of Marvel Television's Vision Quest. Nothing bonds a family together quite like Mortal Jeopardy. Now streaming only on Disney+. New and exclusive holiday decor just launched online at the Home Depot. Check out the viral Grand Duchess collection with smart holiday lights you can control from your phone. Easily customize the twinkle across trees, wreaths, and garlands to match your holiday vibe. Create stunning light effects, then switch it up with the top of your fingers. Even the man in red will be impressed. Shop the holiday decor you want online only at HomeDepot.com.

26:52For as long as most of us can remember, there have been people trying to be the fastest, the tallest, the strongest, the youngest, the oldest, or just the best in the world at something incredibly strange. And if they pull it off, there's one place they want their name to appear, the Guinness World Records. But who decides what actually qualifies as a world record? How do you prove you've broken one? Are there records Guinness simply will not accept? And what possesses someone to spend months or even years trying to become the world champion at something nobody else ever thought to compete in?

27:31There's a fascinating world behind all of this, and Craig Glenday knows it better than just about anybody. He has been editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records since 2005, overseeing the best-selling annual book series that has sold over 130 million copies. And there is a brand new one, the Guinness World Records 2027. Hi, Craig. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi. Thanks. Thank you for having me. Yes, it's an honor. Thank you. So I have heard my entire life about the Guinness Book of World Records and all the interesting and unusual records that are in it. Can you tell me the brief history of where this started, how it started and why it has lasted so long?

28:18So it is Guinness the stout, as in the beer. That's where the idea came from. So it was basically originally a marketing ploy to sell more beer. So Hugh Beaver, who was the MD, realised people were arguing in pubs and in bars across the world. They said, what we need is a book that you put behind the bar for free. And any customers who have a debate or an argument, you could just settle that argument with the book. And it proved to be a huge success. I mean, people would steal it from the pubs initially, and they decided, well, let's sell it in store. We'll stick this into retail. That's where, so the very first edition was the Guinness Book of Records, as we knew in the UK.

29:06That was in 1955. Then the following year, I went to the US as the Guinness Book of World Records, and it just caught people's imaginations and became a bestseller. and I'm pleased to say it still is a bestseller. You know, here in the UK last year, we had three Guinness World Record books in the top 10 in Amazon and kids are still getting it and we hear from families all the time saying thank you for existing because it gets our kids off the screen for a while. So it has something magical. It has a unique way of looking at the world. How do you determine a world record? I'm sure it's changed over the years.

29:48because now you judge things yourself. But in the beginning, you must have taken other people's word for it. So how did that all come to be? Yeah, the original format was the founding editors would just reach out to academics, mostly. The instruction was provide the ests from the ests. So what's the biggest, the tallest, the smallest, the longest? And you source that from the ests, who are the experts, biologists, conchologists, you know, zoologists. And over time, individuals began contacting us and saying, you know, I've done this thing and it's quite amazing. You should recognise it. And, you know, over the years, we were a bit suspicious of this, I think.

30:37This is before my time. But we realised that what the book is, is it's actually an inspiration for people who want to be better themselves, who want to better themselves to improve the lot of the world generally you know the rising tide lifts all the ships and so we said well yeah you know what let's let's welcome this let's say yes we will allow people to suggest ideas to us we will ourselves go and adjudicate and you know count these giant collections or count the heads in a huge crowd of people in a in a giant music ensemble and then over time what's happened is that that's become the majority of what we do now so we we we have you know 60 70 adjudicators around the world we get over a thousand applications a week sometimes for people who want to get in we still have all these classics of course we still have mount everest as the tallest or the highest in fact mountain but we also have like just you what a regular grandma might have done at home because she's grown the biggest tomato plant.

31:45There's a great Beth Johnson, an American mom who just decided one day to build a giant yo-yo just because. There's no yo-yo organisation that ratifies that thing. So what we realise is that we can fill a gap here. We can be that ratifier who will lend credence to things that you can't get ratified anywhere else. Let me ask you, though. So your example of, OK, so this lady grows the biggest tomato. So she now is in the Guinness World Record book of the biggest tomato. But that doesn't necessarily mean it is the biggest tomato. It's just the biggest tomato you found, right? I mean, how does it become a world record as opposed to just a record of the people that you've been able to find that grew tomatoes?

32:35I mean in that very specific case yeah we'll be in touch with lots of competitions there's competitions in Alaska there's in the UK in fact it was just this weekend was the Malvern Big Veg competition so there's a community you engage with that community and trust me they will tell you if you haven't got the biggest tomato sorry American they will let you know very vocally and especially now with social media. So it almost self-certifies because the community will get in touch. And we trust we have this huge team of experts. We still use experts across all these fields. I mean, an interesting example I'll give you is the world's shortest man ever measured, Chandra Bahudur Dangi from Nepal.

33:28we didn't find him until he was I think 72 years old which means that like for the last 50 years we effectively had the wrong shortest person or the shortest man because we hadn't found him and we have to say that we're not omnipotent we're not you know godly beings all we can do is say if we can find you and get the evidence in and you can prove it then we'll be able to say we think as far as we're concerned as the global authority on this we call ourselves that we think you are the shortest man or have the biggest tomato or the biggest yo-yo or whatever it is and if not let us know because you know we want records to be broken that's one of the key criteria is that record must be breakable so we want to encourage competition we want people to have a go and just be part of the whole thing and um you know keep keep on improving across every possible topic and so just how short is the shortest man uh off the top of my head dangi the promise he had this strange sort of stoop because his legs had fused into a sort of squatting position and what we assess is their stature which meant that we couldn't stretch him out because that would involve basically breaking his legs which obviously we don't want to do but he reached 50 what 54.6 centimeters so that's one foot nine one foot nine and a half um and that's the that's the shortest that we'd ever measured.

35:14I was lucky enough to be the one to do that measurement as well. You know, this is a good example. I think a woodcutter was passing through his village and saw this guy and thought, wow, he is really short. I bet the people from Guinness World Records would love to hear about him. He did a little film of him, sent us the video and said, look, why don't you go and investigate this guy? So we did. I got on a plane with my tape measure and went to Nepal and found this fella. Do you ever get people who are trying to fool you or try to sneak some world record by you by, you know, throwing up a smoke screen?

35:49There was the tallest man in Ukraine who was claiming to be 8 foot 5. Now, that's exceptional. That's, like, second tallest ever in the world in history. I thought, well, something's weird here. And we got sent photographs, him at home, him with his mum, him outside in the garden. I said, yeah, but I don't know how tall his mum is. I don't know how big or small the house he lives in. It was a very humble house in the middle of the country. Eventually, I contacted a doctor who claimed to have measured him. And he said, yeah, no, he's eight foot five. And when I pushed him, I said, well, I didn't actually measure him.

36:28I just, it was in the newspaper. So I just accepted it to be true. and then yeah a couple of months on as I was trying to reach out to him and he was refusing to let me come and visit him I saw a photograph of him with Viktor Yuchenko the premier of Ukraine at the time who I knew was six foot and just doing a very quick job in photoshop you can do it very quickly you can see no you're probably seven foot two now it's still impressive but why lie? Why say you're 8 foot 3 or 8 foot 5 when you're clearly not? And it will come out eventually. And if you don't let us come and measure you, we can't accept it anyway because we need evidence and we need good, solid evidence.

37:08It's interesting that, because I'm sure, you know, many men will lie about how tall they are and they'll add an inch or two, but to add a foot and try to get away with that, I mean, that's pretty bold. That's pretty bold. So you have a lot of very strange world records that there's one in the new book here about the largest afro on a woman which i mean where did i mean does it was that her idea to to establish a record for that i mean that's not something i would go you know i really need to know who's got the biggest afro where does that come from? There's a huge community with interest in natural hair you know so this this is this is Jessica Martinez but she's not establishing this record I mean her her afro's what's six foot almost six foot three inches in circumference but that's only that only beat the previous record which beat the previous record which beat the previous record you know you can look back and what we want to do with this book is say look at this look at all these amazing things around the world that you may not have heard about or even know about.

38:23To me, that's always the most interesting record when you discover there's a thing that you didn't even know that there's a record for a thing that you didn't even know there was a thing for, you know, existed. Did you guys sit around a table and say, why don't we find the world's biggest afro? Or did someone come to you and say, hey, have you ever thought about putting a record about the world's biggest afro in your book? It can work both ways. I mean, yes, we do have brainstorms in the office, but we tend to not need to because the world comes to us and says, are you interested in this? Now, we reject between 90-95 % of what we get.

39:06That's for context. Because most of what we get is just really weird and sometimes illegal and sometimes just impossible to quantify or qualify. That's why we have this criteria. We did fling the floodgates open maybe 15 years ago, so during my time, because before then we were very much the Olympics in the sense that we decided what was important in the world. But of course that's an arrogant position to take because what we should be saying is, what we ask the public what should we be recording you know we've got records that have come and gone for things like fidget spinners if you remember them and and twerking and loom bands you know and we've got records for fax machines and cd-roms and all that stuff comes and goes so we're like a snapshot of time can you give me an example of something that somebody somebody said i've got a world's record and you didn't include it because as you said sometimes they're illegal or you're unverifiable but like some really weird one that that would be fun to hear about the one that always made me chuckle was that some somebody got in touch with to say that they wanted a record for the dog with the fewest legs so a dog with the fewest legs he had a dog himself that had three legs the dog lost a leg in an accident and he was wondering if that was a record because he'd never seen another three-legged dog now i don't know about you but here in the uk it was very well known that the queen the queen of ing and queen elizabeth ii she had a corgi that had two legs they then got to thinking like well i've ever seen a dog with only one leg because that would be very strange and unfair and weird and certainly i have never seen a dog with no legs because the question is if we accepted that as a record once you have no legs you can't have any fewer legs so the record can't be beaten you can't have minus two legs you have to think these things all the way through to the end before you accept them as records and that was a clear no but we get things like longest time staring at the sun or you know best suntan or prettiest dog none of which makes sense because you can't there's no pretty-o-meter there's no way we want people looking at the sun because it's dangerous for you so we do sort of draw the line So give me an example of something in the book that you like your favourite or the coolest one or just one that you happen to it strikes a chord with you I mean there's a great little story of Miranda Warby who's the largest collection of My Little Ponies or My Little Pony memorabilia, you know My Little Pony because Miranda as a child was never allowed a pony our family could never afford one and so the nearest thing she could have was a My Little Pony so for her that simple little toy meant a big thing for her so as she got older she was able to relive some of that the joys of childhood by collecting My Little Ponies which is lovely I think and there's so many records like that where you understand the context of that record why that person did it because you can just read something and just think that's funny or silly or pointless until you read the story behind it and then it becomes a very different experience, a good example would be also, you know, Diana Armstrong who's the longest fingernails it's my favourite category because people choose to not cut their fingernails and you think they're only doing that to get the record but if you look at, I think everyone I've spoken to who's had very long fingernails and by long I mean like Diana's are like four foot two each so just imagine like having over four foot long fingernails on every finger but her story is that she doesn't want to cut them because her daughter would paint them when she was a child and the daughter sadly passed away And so all she has now, she thinks of her daughter, are these long nails.

43:24And that's why she grows them. She doesn't want the record. She doesn't want to be in the book particularly. And she only just agreed. She's another example where, had I found her earlier, she would have had the record for many, many years. But she just didn't want the publicity. She didn't want to be logged in the book until her family, her grandchildren, convinced her that she should. so there's always a story behind When someone is bestowed the Guinness World Record for whatever what do they get? Do they get a plaque? Do they get a million dollars? What is it you get when you get the world record?

44:05Well they certainly don't get a million dollars, at least not from us No, I mean one they get the satisfaction of knowing that they have been considered, ratified, as the best in the world at that thing that they have done. So that's almost priceless, really. They will get an official Guinness World Records recognition, the certificate that says you've got the most rhinestones stuck to a body, or you've got the largest collection of frogs. It'll say that on the paperwork. You'll get shortlisted for the book. Not everyone makes it into the book, I have to stress that as well, because we have too many records to get in, so we have to curate.

44:45And then it depends on the record, but you might get picked up by TV shows. I mean, the world's tallest man, Siltankosun, I mentioned, he's been now to 160 different countries. All around the world, people buy him gifts. He's got old new shoes and clothes. He's had his teeth done twice by a Hollywood dentist. I mean, he's had an amazing change of life because of his record. He's gone from a, he thought, shunned farmer in rural Turkey to now being an international globetrotter on TV shows and has a very nice set. He has better teeth than me. So there are awards beyond just the satisfaction of knowing you are the best in the world.

45:27Well, having heard about and read about Guinness World Records all my life, it's fun to hear the backstory of how it came to be and how it works and all that. And the one question I think a lot of people have, if they don't know the answer, is if the Guinness of Guinness World Records is the same Guinness as the beer Guinness, and you answered that right at the beginning. I've been talking with Craig Klenday. He is editor-in-chief of Guinness World Records and has been since 2005. And their latest book is Guinness World Records 2027. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Craig, great.

46:04Good job. Thank you. Cheers, man. Bye-bye.

46:10We take pictures because we want to remember something. But oddly enough, taking the picture can sometimes make us remember it less well. In a study, people toured an art museum, and they were told to photograph some objects, but simply just look at some other ones. Later, they remembered fewer of the objects they had photographed and fewer details about them. Researchers call this the photo-taking impairment effect. One explanation is that once we capture something with a camera, our brain may partly hand over the job of remembering it to the camera. But there was an interesting exception. When people zoomed in deliberately photographing a particular detail, this whole memory problem disappeared.

46:59So maybe the lesson isn't don't take pictures, it's don't experience an important moment entirely through your phone. Look first, pay attention, and then take the picture. And that is something you should know. Well, this was a fun episode, and I bet you know somebody who would enjoy it as much as you did. So please do share this episode or any episode with someone you know and help us grow our audience, for which we will be very appreciative. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know. From the studio that brought you WandaVision. I was an Avenger, but I'm not a hero anymore.

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