In case the origin of the word "nylon" comes up when you're on Jeopardy

"How is it," one of my classmates has been asking this week, "that we're taking four classes, but we have five exams?"
That's what you get with an accelerated Master's program--New Math. But sweet, sweet freedom shall soon be ours. As of this writing, I have one take-home exam and one in-class exam to go, and then I'll be on Christmas break from my elementary education classes. I'll still be in the second grade classroom, however, watching the excitement level of seven-year-olds increase exponentially as the calendar marches toward the 25th. (Just the other day I heard one little girl--not in my class; this was in a different setting--ecstatically singing, "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way/Santa Claus is coming to a HAP-PY NEW YEAR...")
But--sugarplum visions be darned--the learning must go on. I've been put in charge of teaching spelling. Every week we work on new words in a list of 20 provided by our spelling textbook. Last week we had words with the long "i" sound--"try" and "cry" and "hide" and "bike" and "housefly"--like that. Now, my charges didn't do too well on the spelling test previous to this. If you know me at all you will have correctly guessed I took this personally. "SPELLING! Come ON! No kid is leaving Miss Pancella's class not knowing how to SPELL!" etc. etc. So I was quick to drum into those little brains the pattern: when they heard the long "i" sound at the end of a word, it was always spelled with a "y": "cry," "try," "pry." When they heard the long "i" sound in the middle of the word, it was spelled with an "i," then a consonant, and then a silent "e" at the end: "hide," "bike."
But--the last spelling word on the list? "Nylon."
On Tuesday of that week I cut squares of fabric out of a pair of pantyhose and brought them into class. I passed one out to each table and asked, "Does anyone have a guess about what this is?"
"A thong?" one little voice piped up.
Okay! I thought. No more guesses! "It's a fabric called 'nylon," I said. "This word is not going to follow our spelling pattern, but there's a good reason for that. See, 'nylon' is a made-up material. You can't find it in nature. It was created in a laboratory out of chemicals."
One little girl dropped her fabric square abruptly at this point.
"It was created to be very stretchy," I continued. "So stretchy that the inventors said it could stretch from...New York...to London." I wrote "NY" and "LON" on the board.
A chorus of voices: "Ohhhh!" And once again, as I am so often, I was grateful I'd become a fan of The Nylons--the only reason I'd learned that particular bit of trivia.
And by the way--the class all did very well on the spelling test at the end of the week, and almost everyone spelled "nylon" right.