Ongoing History Daily: Why he’s Johnny Rotten

The singer of the Sex Pistols is Johnny Lydon, but thirty-plus years ago, he was known as “Johnny Rotten.” Why? Because he had very bad teeth.

Typical British teeth, right?

Actually, there’s more to the story than that. When John was young, he came down with a very, very bad case of meningitis. He was so sick that he was bedridden for about a year. The illness left him with that weird stare–and he ended up with bad teeth. They were stained by all the antibiotics–probably tetracycline–that he had to take to combat the various infections brought about by the meningitis. This staining gave the illusion of having a mouth full of rotted teeth.

By the way, Johnny has had that fixed and now has a mouth full of pearly whites.

Yesterday’s post featured the best and worst songs when it comes to distracted driving.