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Kleenex

How bad is it to reuse a tissue? Doctors had that very same thought when they decided to use gas mask filters as disposable handkerchiefs after the war. “Items created for the war often had to be repurposed following the war, and one of those items is Kleenex, which was actually the crepe paper used in the filters of gas masks,” says Jonathan Casey, Director, Archives and Edward Jones Research Center, of The National World War I Museum and Memorial. “During the influenza epidemic following the war, [paper goods company] Kimberly-Clark repurposed the paper as a disposable product for people to sneeze into and limit the spread of bodily fluids.” Later given the brand name “Kleenex,” we now use the word to refer to any facial tissue. Here are more everyday items that have hidden meanings and unusual origins.