{"id":2951,"date":"2010-10-13T08:00:27","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T15:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=2951"},"modified":"2012-11-27T22:20:48","modified_gmt":"2012-11-28T06:20:48","slug":"where-the-word-lego-comes-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2010\/10\/where-the-word-lego-comes-from\/","title":{"rendered":"Where the Word \u201cLego\u201d Comes From"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"pf-content\"><div id=\"attachment_2954\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/65k-LEGO-space-shuttle.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2954\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2954\" title=\"65k LEGO Space Shuttle\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/65k-LEGO-space-shuttle.jpg\" alt=\"65k LEGO Space Shuttle\" width=\"300\" height=\"406\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2954\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">65,000 Piece LEGO Space Shuttle<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> where the word &#8220;lego&#8221; comes from.<\/p>\n<p>In 1934, Danish carpenter Ol Kirk Kristiansen, the founder of what we now know of as Lego\u00ae, asked his staff to come up with a good name for his growing toy company.\u00a0 The two names that ended up being finalists were &#8220;Legio&#8221; and &#8220;Lego&#8221;.\u00a0 The first was a reference to a &#8220;legion&#8221; as in a &#8220;Legion of toys&#8221;.\u00a0 The second, which won out, was made from a contraction of &#8220;leg godt&#8221;, which is a Danish phrase meaning &#8220;play well&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Interestingly, &#8220;lego&#8221; is also a Latin word meaning &#8220;to gather or collect&#8221;, which is somewhat fitting, given what their most popular product ended up being.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"bonusfacts\">Bonus<\/span> Facts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>In the late 1940s, a company called Kiddicraft began manufacturing &#8220;Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks&#8221;, which were patented by Hilary Harry Fisher Page.\u00a0 Kirk Kristiansen came across these bricks in a demo he was shown of an injection molding machine.\u00a0 He then copied these bricks and sold them under his own brand as &#8220;automatic binding bricks&#8221;.\u00a0 It isn&#8217;t clear whether Kristiansen knew these bricks were patented or not at the time or just saw the potential of such a small plastic brick as a toy product when observing the injection molding machine demo.\u00a0 Lucky for him, Page died without ever finding out Lego\u00ae had copied his product illegally.<\/li>\n<li>Some 31 years later, Lego\u00ae acquired Kiddicraft when they were preparing to, ironically enough, sue Tyco for illegally copying their bricks; hence, they needed to own Kiddicraft to avoid losing the case because they themselves had copied Kiddicraft&#8217;s bricks in the first place.\u00a0 In the end, they lost the case anyways and Tyco got to continue selling the bricks, which at the time were earning them about $20 million annually.\u00a0 So the $3 million Tyco spent in the legal battle with Lego ended up being well worth it.<\/li>\n<li>The Lego\u00ae\u00a0 company has been owned by the Kirk Kristiansen family for over 80 years and is currently run by founder Ol&#8217;s grandson, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen.\u00a0 Lego\u00ae is the world&#8217;s fifth largest toy maker with annual sales around $1.5 billion.<\/li>\n<li>Ol Kirk Kristiansen went into business for himself in 1916 in Billund, Denmark working as a carpenter.\u00a0 In the beginning, he made step-ladders, stools, ironing boards, constructed houses, and small wooden toys, among other things.\u00a0 In 1924, his workshop burned down thanks to his young sons, so he built a bigger one to be able to expand his business.\u00a0 Business slowed, however, and by 1932, he was going out of business as a general carpenter.\u00a0 From there, he decided to shift his focus to wooden toys, such as miniaturized wooden houses, cars, trucks, piggy banks, yo-yos and the like.\u00a0 To supplement his income, in the beginning, Kirk Kristiansen continued to do small carpentry work, such as making furniture.\u00a0 It wasn&#8217;t until the 1940s, when plastic began became popular, that Lego\u00ae began making plastic injected molded toys, such as a toy truck that could be assembled and disassembled, and then in 1949 when they copied Kiddicraft&#8217;s lockable bricks.<\/li>\n<li>In the 1960s, yet another fire caused the Kirk Kristiansen&#8217;s trouble, burning down an entire warehouse of wooden Lego\u00ae toys.\u00a0 Rather than rebuild, Lego\u00ae decided to abandon the manufacturing of wooden toys and chose to just pin their company on the plastic line of toys.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"attachment_2955\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/2004-Volvo-XC90-LEGO.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2955\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2955\" title=\"2004 Volvo XC90 Made of Legos\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/2004-Volvo-XC90-LEGO-e1286869757435.jpg\" alt=\"2004 Volvo XC90 Made of Legos\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/2004-Volvo-XC90-LEGO-e1286869757435.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/2004-Volvo-XC90-LEGO-e1286869757435-340x255.jpg 340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2955\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Replica of a 2004 Volvo XC90 Made of Legos<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_2957\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lego-obama-inauguration.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2957\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2957\" title=\"Obama Inauguration in Legos\" src=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lego-obama-inauguration-e1286869858475.jpg\" alt=\"Obama Inauguration in Legos\" width=\"600\" height=\"341\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lego-obama-inauguration-e1286869858475.jpg 600w, http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/10\/lego-obama-inauguration-e1286869858475-340x193.jpg 340w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-2957\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Obama Inauguration Replicated in Legos<\/p><\/div>\n<span class=\"collapseomatic \" id=\"id69efe54ec6aa5\"  tabindex=\"0\" title=\"Expand for References:\"    >Expand for References:<\/span><div id=\"target-id69efe54ec6aa5\" class=\"collapseomatic_content \">\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"The Lego Group\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lego.com\/eng\/info\/default.asp?page=group\" target=\"_blank\">The LEGO Group<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"History of Lego\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/History_of_Lego\" target=\"_blank\">History of LEGO<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Ole Kirk Christiansen\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ole_Kirk_Christiansen\" target=\"_blank\">Ole Kirk Christiansen<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Lego\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Lego\" target=\"_blank\">Lego<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Cliches and Expression Origins\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessballs.com\/clichesorigins.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Cliches and Expression Origins<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Latin: Lego\" href=\"http:\/\/www.allverbs.com\/cache\/verbtables\/9\/l\/lego.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Latin: Lego<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Latin lego\" href=\"http:\/\/www.eudict.com\/?lang=lateng&amp;word=sumo,%20desumo,%20lego,%20eligo\" target=\"_blank\">Lego<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a title=\"Kiddicraft\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kiddicraft\" target=\"_blank\">Kiddicraft<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com' title='Interesting Facts'>Today I found out<\/a> where the word &#8220;lego&#8221; comes from. In 1934, Danish carpenter Ol Kirk Kristiansen, the founder of what we now know of as Lego\u00ae, asked his staff to come up with a good name for his growing toy company.\u00a0 The two names that ended up being finalists were &#8220;Legio&#8221; and &#8220;Lego&#8221;.\u00a0 The first was a reference to [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,11],"tags":[48,137,131,612],"class_list":["post-2951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-i-found-out","category-language","category-miscellaneous","tag-business","tag-etymology","tag-language-2","tag-lego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2951"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16770,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions\/16770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}