– Henry Cholmondeley-Pennell, Puck on Pegasus, 1868

What is gopher wood? Noah used it to build his ark, but there’s no other reference to it in the Bible.

Similarly, no one’s quite sure what a kankedort is. It appears in one passage in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde:

Was Troilus nought in a kankedort,
That lay, and myghte whisprynge of hem here,
And thoughte, “O Lord, right now renneth my sort
Fully to deye, or han anon comfort!”

The Oxford English Dictionary defines it helplessly as an awkward situation or affair and says it’s “of unascertained etymology.”

See Hapax Legomenon.

PARDON IMPOSSIBLE, TO BE SENT TO SIBERIA.

The man appealed to the czar’s wife, who transposed the comma:

PARDON, IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SENT TO SIBERIA.

The prisoner was released.

The actress Minnie Maddern Fiske once found this message attached to the mirror in her dressing room:

MARGARET ANGLIN SAYS MRS. FISKE IS THE BEST ACTRESS IN AMERICA.

She returned it to Anglin, who found she had added two commas:

MARGARET ANGLIN, SAYS MRS. FISKE, IS THE BEST ACTRESS IN AMERICA.

A xylographer started to cross the sea
By means of a Xanthic Xebec;
But, alas! he sighed for the Zuyder Zee,
And feared he was in for a wreck.
He tried to smile, but all in vain,
Because of a Zygomatic pain;
And as for singing, his cheeriest tone
Reminded him of a Xylophone–
Or else, when the pain would sharper grow,
His notes were as keen as a Zuffolo.
And so it is likely he did not find
On board Xenodochy to his mind.
The fare was poor, and he was sure
Xerofphagy he could not endure;
Zoophagous surely he was, I aver,
This dainty and starving Xylographer.
Xylophagous truly he could not be–
No sickly vegetarian he!
He’d have blubbered like any old Zeuglodon
Had Xerophthalmia not come on.
And the end of it was he never again
In a Xanthic Xebec went sailing the main.

– Mary Mapes Dodge, Poems and Verses, 1904

It’s said that when Christopher Wren completed St. Paul’s cathedral in 1708, Queen Anne told him his work was “awful, artificial, and amusing.”

He took this as a compliment — in those days these words meant awe-inspiring, artistic, and amazing.

(Image: Flickr)

In S X once there lived M N,
Who was Xceeding Y Y;
But with so much O B C T
It almost closed his I I.

When from his chair E would R I I,
U would have laughed to C
The awkwardness his fat did cause
To this old O D T.

But barring that E was so fat,
E was a right good fell O,
And had such horror of X S
U never saw him mell O.

N O O so red E did not like,
As that which wine will give,
So did S A to keep from drink
As long as E did live.

Two daughters fair this old man had,
Called Miss M A and L N,
Who, when the old chap took his E E,
Would try to T T the men.

Over the C C, these maids to please,
There came two gallants gay;
M A and L N ceased to T T,
And with them ran away.

These gallants did them so M U U,
And used such an M N C T
Of flattery, U must X Q Q
Their fugitive propensity.

The poor old man heaved many S I I
For frail M A and L N;
E called each gallant gay a rogue,
A rascal, and a villain.

And all with half an I might C
His gradual D K,
Till M T was his old arm-chair,
And E had passed away.

– William T. Dobson, Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics, 1880

One day he asked a nurse, “What seven-letter word has three u’s in it?”

She said, “I don’t know, but it must be unusual.”

The thrifty that teacheth the thriving to thrive,
Teach timely to traverse, the thing that thou ‘trive,
Transferring thy toiling, to timeliness taught,
This teacheth thee temp’rance to temper thy thought.
Take Trusty (to trust to) that thinkest to thee,
That trustily thriftiness trowleth to thee.
Then temper thy travell, to tarry the tide,
This teacheth thee thriftiness, twenty times try’d.
Take thankfull thy talent, thank thankfully those,
That thriftily teacheth thy time to transpose.
Troth twice to be teached, teach twenty times ten,
This trade thou that takest, take thrift to thee then.

“Perhaps this was the most difficult chapter, according to its length, that our author had to compose,” writes editor William Mavor, “yet he has strained alliteration to the most extravagant pitch; for when he writes trive for contrive, and for the sake of the rhyme uses thee for thrive, we cannot help pitying the miserable expedients to which he was reduced, in order to accomplish his design.”

“In other respects the advice is good.”