Talk:Drinking straw

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Does anybody know of a short hard plastic straw w/ 1 end serrated for driving into an orange. I had them as a kid in Florida and can't find them anywhere now. You use it by: "mushing" up the orange with its skin on, thereby making it very juicy, then rotate in the serrated edge of straw. After straw breaks thru skin, remove the roughly 3/4 inch diameter piece of skin, then drive straw in to center & have fresh-squeezed OJ...

75.85.171.107 00:59, 3 November 2007 (UTC) Gordon

---

Can anybody answer this perplexing question? Why do straws have stripes? Thanks (StrawLoverrr69)

i think there is clear plagerism involved. sections of this page were copyed from http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blstraws.htm i am not sure what the protocall is i will look it up. 70.109.191.242 22:29, 17 April 2006 (UTC)Ben

I don't see this so I am removing the banner Ckswift 23:41, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SQUIDs

Drinking straws are also frequently used as sample holders for SQUID magnetometers. ...I sometimes put pencils in my ears and let them wiggle. Still I guess it is not that much of importance to say this on the pencil article. Or did I miss the significance of straws in SQUID applications? --Abdull 15:50, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Materials

The article mentions modern straws are made of plastic. Today, I unexpectedly became intensely interested in the origin of the straw and more importantly what materials were used for ancient straws. While I admit the bit about Sumerians is interesting, I came here expecting more about the history of the straw. And what were they made of before plastic? Wood? Metal?

This article seems a lot shorter than it should be. Besides the part about the sumerians, most of the research can be done by looking through the paper goods section of a grocery store. I think it needs more about straw manufacturing, history, companies, etc.

Most probably the precursor of the modern plastic straw was made of reed. The following is a passage from Chapter XVII of the novel Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens:

But Mr Tapley made no answer; merely plunging a reed into the mixture – which caused a pleasant commotion among the pieces of ice – and signifying by an expressive gesture that it was to be pumped up through that agency by the enraptured drinker.

This proves that the reed drawing straw had already been invented at the time Dickens wrote the novel – which was some decades before 1888. Jane Fairfax 11:44, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

In the 1950's I saw (and used) natural straws for cold drinks in cafés in Mediterranean countries. Perhaps it's chronicled somewhere, if anyone cares to go looking. __Just plain Bill 16:03, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

I'm sorry I can see the confusion myself but although that man has stripes as in common with many drinking straws, he himself is not in fact a drinking straw.Dylanjbyrne 18:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)