National Shame: Many Americans don't know lyrics to the 'Happy Birthday' song

  

I want to know who I know who is included in the 27% of American adults who don't know the words to the "Happy Birthday" song. Twenty-seven percent!

According to a survey by the folks at YouGov, if you're in a room with 99 other people, 27 of them don't know the words to the best-known song in America.

Do they think it's too complicated? ("Do I sing, 'Happy birthday to you' two or three times before saying 'Dear'?") Do they get confused by the words? ("Is it Earth Day or birthday?") Have they never been to a birthday party? Are they Jehovah's Witnesses?

Confounding. But if you're the songwriter of the "Birthday Song," take solace (which may be difficult, because the writer of the song – which is part of the public domain – surely died decades ago): It's the best-known song in America in terms of people being comfortable that they know most or all of the words, edging out "Jingle Bells" for that honor.

Third place? "The Star Spangled Banner," followed by "Amazing Grace" and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

If you're looking for a pop song, the tune at No. 6 is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," and if you're looking for a pop song that's less than 50 years old, No. 7 is "Hotel California." (Which is nearly 50 years old!)

You can argue with the findings (Mrs. Brad still insists that a lyric in "Hotel California," is, "She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys that she calls men," although I've pointed out multiple times that the word is "friends," which rhymes with Mercedes-Benz in a couplet), but the survey reveals what we already know: Each generation is different. Women and men are different. And the differences aren't surprising.

If you know most of the words to "Let It Be," (No. 10), you're likely older and might not know the words to "Baby Shark" (No. 17). If you know the words to "Piano Man," (tied at No. 17 with "Baby Shark,") you might not know the words to "Old Town Road" (tied for No. 31).

One perfect example, from which you can draw all kinds of (likely wrong) impressions: More than 80% of people 65 and older know most or all the words to "The Star Spangled Banner," while only 36% of people 18-29 do. That seems outrageous to a typical 70-year-old and obvious to a 25-year-old (who is probably humming "Old Town Road.")

There's also no surprise that men and women are different. Some of the biggest gaps are for "Baby Shark" (known by 28% of women, 16% of men) and "All Star" by Smashmouth (known by 21% of men, 15% of women).

Maybe the best way to interpret this is to see songs for which you know the lyrics, but are an outlier for your age or gender. If you're under 30 and know the words to "American Pie," you're rare. If you're 65 or older and know the words in,"We Don't Talk About Bruno," you're . . . well, you don't exist, according to the survey, which said 0% of people in that age group know that song. If you're a man and know "Love Story" by Taylor Swift, take a bow. If you're a woman and know the lyrics to "Pokémon Theme," you're unusual.

Of course, some songs follow a predictable decline or incline as the respondents get older. The younger you are, the more likely you know the words to the song from "SpongeBob SquarePants." The older you are, the more likely you are to know the words to "America the Beautiful."

And then there's the age of my sons–people 30 to 44. They are disproportionately knowledgeable about the lyrics to "I Want it That Way," by the Backstreet Boys, "All the Small Things" by Blink-182 and theme song to "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," by Will Smith.

It all goes to show that few songs are eternal and each generation has special songs. Some are by the Beatles or Billy Joel, others are by whoever is responsible for the "Baby Shark" song.

But ultimately, the data presents this disturbing question: Do any of the 27% of Americans who don't know the words to the "Happy Birthday" song know the lyrics to "Bohemian Rhapsody" (which ranks ninth)?

Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?

Mrs. Brad is smarter than me in most ways. She's an engineer, so she knows how things work. She's more sensitive, so she's attuned to how others are feeling. She can cook, so she knows that macaroni and cheese has more ingredients than macaroni and cheese.

In my defense, I know more about the 1970s and 1980s San Francisco Giants and I remember song lyrics better.

However, there's one area in which she is far behind me and has plenty of company with younger people: When Mrs. Brad sees an analog clock (the circular kind, with two hands on it), it takes her a few moments to know the time. She doesn't automatically realize that it's 4:15 p.m. or 6:35 a.m. She has to calculate it.

If you're like me and you can tell the time immediately when you see a clock, congratulations. You're in the majority. You're also likely eligible for AARP membership and you probably also know who Ed Sullivan was.

A survey by YouGov showed that 71% of Americans surveyed can tell the time on an analog clock instantly, while 23% say it takes a few seconds and 3% say it takes more than a few seconds. The other 3% are "not sure," which I presume means they don't know what the word "clock" means.

However (and there's almost always a "however"), the numbers change based on your age. Of those 65 and older (hey! Newspaper readers!), a full 95% can tell the time instantly on an analog clock. Of those aged 18 to 29, 43% say they can do it instantly and the rest say it takes some time (or again, "not sure," which in this case means they've never seen an analog clock).

This all makes sense, of course. If you're 25 years old, you were born in 2000 or later, meaning that you've always had access to digital devices with clocks that show numbers, not a pie chart. There's been no need to watch what we call a "real" clock. People under 30 have never sat in a classroom, watching the wall clock tick slowly, slowly, slowly to the end of a boring teacher's lecture. They've never had to learn what their uncle or grandma meant when they said the time was "half past three" or "quarter to six." What would those terms even mean if you were looking at a digital device that said 3:30 or 5:45?

So Mrs. Brad is like the youngsters – a scenario that makes her feel much better than she did as a little girl when they taught how to "tell time" in school and she couldn't really grasp it. She could and can tell the time, but it takes some figuring before she's sure of it.

This woman is an engineer. She can read blueprints. She looks at leaky plumbing and figures out what's wrong, all while I tell the time instantly and inform her that Mike Ivie hit a grand slam to beat the Dodgers on Memorial Day weekend 1978 and that Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" tells post-World War II history in chronological order. Speaking of chronology, look, it's quarter past seven! (That's 7:15 for you kids out there.)

But really, like the Chicago song, it comes down to, "does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care?"

The answer is yes. And younger people are more likely to need a digital device to instantly know what time it is. Especially, to use another Chicago song, if it's 25 or 6 to 4.

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.

Stone-skipping world rocked by latest sports scandal

You think the steroid era of baseball in the late 1990s and early 2000s was bad? This is like substituting a superball for a baseball. This is worse. 

You think the gambling scandals that rock college basketball every 30 or 40 years are bad? Consider if the NCAA champions were cheating by shooting at a bigger hoop. This is worse. 

You think it was terrible when Lance Armstrong used blood doping to win seven straight Tour de France titles? Just think if he also had a motor on his bike. This is worse.

You think it was terrible when the New England Patriots deflated footballs? No? Neither do I. I'm not sure how it helped them and it's confusing. But they seemed guilty. This is worse.

One of the world's great sporting events was rocked by scandal this summer (just wait until you hear what sport! Me using "rocked" is funny!). It's a sport you've undoubtedly tried, but I suspect you didn't know involved a world championship. I fact, you probably didn't know it was a sport.

You probably think you're pretty good at it.

Stone-skipping, the "sport" where you see how many times you can make a rock bounce when you throw it across water, faced the greatest scandal this year since the first caveman tried to see if he could bounce a rock across a river inhabited by dinosaurs and dragons (my history is shaky. Some of that may be wrong).

During the world stone-skipping championship on the island of Easdale off the west coast of Scotland, several competitors were found to have ground special rocks to make them skip better.

Oh. No. Is nothing sacred?

There were more than 2,000 competitors in this year's event and the rules were simple:  The winner would be the person whose three tosses (each having to skip at least twice) covered the greatest distance. The stones thrown were required to come from "naturally occurring island slate."

Simple, right? If you've skipped stones at a river or lake (or stream or bathtub or ocean), you've undoubtedly looked for the perfect skipping stone. The best ones are medium-sized, flat and circular. At least I think those are the best ones because they seem like they would skip best. 

The officials require the rocks to be no more than three inches across, so they have a wonderfully named "ring of truth," which they use to ensure the stones are no wider than that.

The officials said that the "ring of truth" was used to note the size, but no one noticed that many of the stones were almost perfectly round.

How many rocks are perfectly round? After some special grinding, enough, apparently.

Fortunately, the guilty admitted it. Or some of them did – we have to take the word of the event organizers, who have a built-in incentive to minimize reporting of cheating: Who knows how many stone-skippers were like Rafael Palmiero or Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens and didn't admit what was obvious?

We'll never know, but the winner of the event was an American named Jonathan Jennings, who won the event by skimming his three stones a cumulative 177 meters. That is roughly 580 feet, which is also the circumference of Barry Bonds' head after he "allegedly" used human growth hormone.

I jest. It was only about 400 feet around. No. Just kidding. Maybe 4 feet? It definitely was large.

Anyway, organizer Dr. Kyle Mathews told the BBC that lessons had been learned and they would "move on to an even greater event next year."

In other words, he was like the leader of every sport in which cheating is discovered: He vows that stone skipping will rise above the cheating.

I'm not sure I believe him. My faith in this sport is shaken, even though I didn't know it existed. Maybe next year, I'll skip it. Get it?

Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@outlook.com.