No Shocker Here

Checked out the latest Weekly World News at A&P today. Best headline: "Survey Shocker: Nurses Smarter Than Docs!" accompanied by a staged photo of a (male) doctor wearing a goofy grin and a dunce cap, alongside a (female) nurse wearing black-rimmed glasses--which, in popular iconography, are definitive proof of a high I.Q. Of course, this is no shocker for anyone whose family includes a nurse or a doctor . . .

Speaking of popular iconography, here's something I've always wondered about: What's the origin of the notion, found in countless New Yorker cartoons over the decades, that penniless people wear barrels (held up, of course, by shoulder straps)? Aren't barrels fairly expensive? When and where would a barrel have been the cheapest possible form of alternative garb? (It surely wouldn't have been the most comfortable.) Anyone out there have a theory?