1. The database of the European Patent Office includes more than 10,000 inventions with “umbrella” in the title. None have poison tips…
2. …they do however include at least seven patents for umbrellas for dogs and one patent for a combination umbrella and dog repellent.
3. The word umbrella comes from umbra, Latin for shade. The first umbrellas were sunshades.
4. The Chinese had sunshade umbrellas at least 2,000 years ago.
5. Until the 18th century, umbrellas in Europe were used almost exclusively by women.
6. The Umbrella Cover Museum at Peaks Island, Maine, USA, is the world’s only such museum. It has over 2,000 umbrella covers from 66 countries…
7. …and there is an Umbrella and Parasol Museum with more than 1,000 exhibits in Gignese, Italy.
8. Oliver Twist and A Tale Of Two Cities are the only novels by Charles Dickens that do not mention the word umbrella.
9. The word umbrella was first seen in English in 1611. The abbreviation “brolly” arrived in 1873.
10. The slang term “gamp” for umbrella came from Mrs Sarah Gamp in Dickens’s Martin Chuzzlewit.