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Before I had to go gluten free, I ate a lot of Triscuits. Mainly the plain ones. What can I say? I like bland things. (I used to eat plain shredded wheat too.)

At some point, my husband and I had the same conversation that surely everyone has had: What does “Triscuit” even mean? I’m pretty sure I told him “It means there’s three kinds of wheat in there,” with the authority of someone pulling a very confident answer right out of thin air.

It makes sense, right? Context clues. Who wouldn’t assume that was what it meant?

Except we were all wrong.

Recently, an amateur Twitter Sleuth wondered the same thing in this amazing thread that soon went viral.

Just like a friend’s Facebook photo of her child’s last day of Kindergarten set me off on a meandering conversation about the first day of school that ended with wondering whether the letter Y is always, never, or only sometimes considered a vowel in Wheel of Fortune, Sage Boggs was at a party and started to wonder about Triscuits.

Everyone at the party pretty much thought the same thing I did about the name–that the Tri referred to some sort of trio.

But no one knew for sure.

Undaunted, Sage did what any good researcher would do. He asked the Nabisco folks themselves.

Funny story: they didn’t know either.

Sage was beside himself with that cryptic answer.

I mean, honestly, what?!

His bio merely describes him as a writer, but clearly he does research for a living.

Also, he would make a great librarian.

While many people might have stopped here, taken this funny admission from the company off into the sunset as the end of a humorous anecdote to be told over Triscuits at future parties, Sage is not “many people.”

He goes on to elaborate on what he discovered in the century-old advertisement.

In case you didn’t catch that:

Not only that, but the good people at Triscuit actually confirmed his findings!

And his reward for all the brand exposure? Boxes and boxes of Triscuits in more flavors than I knew existed.

How’s that for a crazy little history lesson with a happy ending? Tell us what you think in the comments.