The closest synonym for the word "prosper" is "flourish."
The Woman Who Saved Pizza
a pineapple and ham pizza with a small white plastic three-legged table in the middle
Photo credit: Sheila Fitzgerald/Shutterstock
Carmela Vitale's invention saved pizza forever
Pizza lovers had it rough before the mid-1980s. The steam rising from a piping-hot pizza often weakened the delivery box top, so it sagged by the time the pie arrived at the door. Scraping all that gooey cheese and sauce off soggy cardboard to reassemble dinner was annoyingly common—and if it was really smooshed and smeared everywhere, the pizza could end up looking pretty gross.
But then, something happened. An idea undeniably transformed the pizza industry—and pizza lovers' lives—forever.
A woman in New York named Carmela Vitale decided that a solution to these undesirable, droopy pizza box messes was long overdue. And with a simple invention that she quietly patented in 1983, Vitale made getting pizza delivered less messy and more awesome.
Vitale called the invention a "package saver" in her patent application, but now it's called a pizza saver or pizza table. The small, plastic tripod, which resembles a dollhouse table sitting in the middle of a pizza, made it possible to deliver pizzas without the box top collapsing into the cheese. Some people call it "one of the greatest inventions of all time."
Vitale didn't prosper off her patent, though—she never manufactured the tables herself, and she let the patent expire in 1993. She didn't get famous either. Most people have never heard of her. And the pizza saver has become such a familiar sight that most people don't think much about it before taking it out and tossing it aside. But people who know that tiny table's history often praise Vitale as an unsung hero.
Well, unsung until John Finnemore, a British writer and actor, wrote and performed a song about her.
"Carmela changed the world a very tiny little bit," Finnemore sang. "She's the reason that the pizza lid's not in your mozzarella."
QUESTION 3
3 / 4
Which is the closest synonym for the word prosper?
collapse
quit
flourish
boast
1 answer