When I was in college there was a prevalent belief that it was illegal to drive barefoot. I did my own weird law research for an alternative newspaper I wrote for and found that, despite this widespread belief, in no state was it illegal to drive barefoot. (Painstaking, and without benefit of the internet.)
But it was illegal to do some other rather surprising things barefoot. Go into a restaurant, for instance–not too surprising. But at least one state (I’m thinking Texas) extended this to any kind of eating, including in your car at a Sonic-style restaurant, or maybe that was just one way the law could be interpreted based on how it was written. This, of course, would apply to the driver and passengers alike.
Ohio law requires public officials to be “qualified electors,” which IIRC has always been interpreted to mean registered voters. Doesn’t seem so weird to me - wouldn’t you want officeholders to be interested enough in the political system to actually be able to vote (for themselves, if for no one else)?
Ohio law referred to “idiots” and “imbeciles” rather than the “mentally disabled” until just a few years ago, when it was changed to be P.C. (and more in keeping with contemporary theories of mental health).
Chicks, ducklings, or other fowl or rabbits, actually. The same law prohibits dying or coloring them. It’s a “protect the Easter pets” law…people have been known to give chicks, ducklings, and young rabbits as gifts for Easter. The recipients are usually unable to care for an adult chicken, duck, or rabbit, and so the animal usually ends up killed or abandoned when it’s not “cute” anymore.
Buffalo, New York has an outdated municipal code with a lot of cruft that built up through the years. Some strange laws I found, with cites:
98-8 - It’s illegal to give a shoeshine on Sunday after 1:00 PM.
352-1 - Steam locomotives cannot cross street level crossings faster than 6 MPH.
378-5 - All businesses, factories, theaters, railroad depots and other public gathering places must provide public spitoons. Spitoons must be cleaned and disinfected every day.
378-6 - It’s illegal for restaurants to give their patrons a straw without a wrapper.
501-3 - A ton of coal weighs 2,000 pounds (no duh!)
/QUOTE]New Mexico: Idiots are not allowed to vote. (State Constitution Article VII Section 1, written in 1911 when “Idiot” denoted someone with an IQ of less than 20./QUOTE]
Minnesota law used to say something like this, but now it just says that you cannot vote if you are under court-ordered guardianship or have been ruled legally incompetent by a court.
Right. In the last century, the law included several politically incorrect terms, some of which still remain on the books in some places. Idiots, Infants (used to describe those under the age of majority), and Bastards are all discussed in statutes and cases.
Britain, too, had its blue laws -there are still counties where the bars don’t open and you can’t buy petrol (gas) on a Sunday. For years the Sunday closing laws were heavily protect by the “Lord’s Day Observance Society” and the shopworkers unions. A few years back (60’s?) the law was relaxed to allow the sale of perishables. Perishables was quite broadly defined, and the famous anomoly that it created was that on a Sunday you could buy a Playboy magazine but not a Bible. Magazines were considered perishable, but books were not.
On the subject of defining a ton of coal as 2000 lbs - that is not as strange as it may seem. Many parts of the world use the English ton, which is 2400 lbs, others use the metric ton which is 1000kilos or 2,205 lbs.
Also different but with the same name is the liquid measure: in the US a pint is 16ozs, but in the UK it is 20 ozs, so a quart in the US is 32 ozs but in the UK it is 40 ozs, and a US gallon is 128ozs and a UK gallon is 160ozs. So before you compare the cost of gas to the cost of petrol you have to do a measures adjustment too!
Incidentally, a UK ounce is 0.960759936343 of a US ounce… And heat is mostly measured in BTUs - British Thermal Units!
Ah yes! The same folks who protested against the life of Christ being broadcast on the BBC back in the 40s, 'cos, y’know, if people started thinking of Jesus as a “really real” person, who knows what might happen next!..
'Tisn’t. The Imperial (or “long”) ton is 20 Imperial (or “long”) hundredweights (112 pounds), or 160 stone (14 pounds), which is 2240 pounds.
In all of that, substitute “fluid ounces” (a unit of volume) for “ounces” (a unit of weight). And on the US “pints” and “quarts”, make that “liquid pints” and “liquid quarts”; the US also has “dry pints” and “dry quarts”, which are different.
