An Internet Sleuth Uncovered the True Origin of the Name “Triscuit”
Triscuits were the subject of a riveting Twitter thread involving electricity. Twitter user Sage Boggs’ thread on the subject became so popular that he changed his bio to “Triscuit guy.”
Sage’s story begins several years ago, when he randomly saw a box of Triscuits at a party and wondered aloud about the origin of the name. “It’s clearly based on the word ‘BISCUIT,’ but what does the ‘TRI’ mean?”
Several years ago I was at a party (BRAG!), and I spotted a box of Triscuits. I asked everyone, "What does the word 'Triscuit' mean? It's clearly based on the word "BISCUIT," but what does the "TRI" mean?" (I'm great at parties.)
— Sage Boggs (@sageboggs) March 26, 2020
People guessed that the “tri” probably stands for three, as it usually does. But no one could figure out the truth, even after Googling, so they literally emailed Nabisco to ask. That’s when things got really strange.
Nabisco wrote back, and they said that the “tri” doesn’t mean three, but that nobody knows what it does mean. “No business records survived which specifically explain the origins or inspiration for the name Triscuit,” the email says.
"The "TRI" does not mean 3." How… how do they know what it DOESN'T mean, but NOT know what it DOES mean? HOW??
— Sage Boggs (@sageboggs) March 26, 2020
Naturally, Sage had to keep on digging, so he Googled even harder and found some early Triscuit advertisements. They showed that, in the early days of the company, the selling point of Triscuits is that they were “baked by electricity” — back when electricity was a new thing.
I was baffled. And I couldn't stand not knowing. So I did a little sleuthing online, and stumbled on some early Triscuit advertisements. Take a look at these bad boys: pic.twitter.com/jbeBUmjeCF
— Sage Boggs (@sageboggs) March 26, 2020
“That’s when it clicked,” he wrote. “TRISCUIT MEANS ‘ELECTRICITY BISCUIT.'”
Amazingly, the Triscuits social media team saw this thread and retweeted it to confirm this new fact. “We had to go all the way up the ladder but we CAN confirm,” they wrote.
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