Futility Closet » Language

In a Word

Greg Ross — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 22:30:11 +0000

cunctator
n. a procrastinator

In a Word

Greg Ross — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:45:16 +0000

charrette
n. a final, intensive effort to finish a project before a deadline

In a Word

Greg Ross — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:16:28 +0000

nepotal
adj. relating to a nephew

“That is my nephew,” said a man to his sister.

“He is not my nephew,” she said.

How is this possible?

Click for solution …

Unanimous

Greg Ross — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:09:34 +0000

In 1904, the Court of Claims rendered a judgment in the case of Harvey Steel Company v. United States. Writing for four of the five judges, Chief Justice Nott composed the majority opinion, and Justice Wright wrote a dissent. Writing in The Green Bag, poet Lincoln B. Smith dedicated these lines to Wright:

That Wright is Wright and Nott is Nott
Logicians must concede.
That Nott is right and Wright is not
Four judges have decreed.

That Nott is right, and Wright is not,
We all must now agree;
Then Nott is right and Wright is Nott–
The same thing, to a t.

If Nott is Nott and Wright is Nott,
It comes without a wrench
That we have not, if not two Notts,
Five judges on the bench.

If only four, as shown before,
And three agree with Nott,
The judgment is unanimous,
And Wright’s dissent is naught.

The knot is not, is Nott not Nott?
But is Wright right, or Nott?
Is Nott not right? What right has Wright
To write that Nott is not?

He concluded, “Do I do right to write to Wright / This most unrighteous rot?”

Couplet

Greg Ross — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:25:47 +0000

There lived in our abode a nice lieut.
He moved, and now we’re seeking a nieut.

– Albert Wilansky, in Word Ways, November 1973

In a Word

Greg Ross — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 22:40:35 +0000

akrasia
n. weakness of will

“I see and praise what is better, but follow what is worse.” — Ovid

Misc

Greg Ross — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 06:02:24 +0000

No point in Great Britain is more than 75 miles from the sea.
MOONLIGHT = THIN GLOOM
2427 = 2¹ + 4² + 2³ + 7⁴
Sweden had a Charles VII, but no Charleses I-VI.
“If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he entitled to happiness?” — Stanislaw Lec

In a Word

Greg Ross — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 22:02:15 +0000

scroop
n. the rustle of silk

Small World

Greg Ross — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:59:12 +0000

There is just one spot on earth from which, in an hour’s driving time or less, a motoring tourist can reach either Athens, Belfast, Belgrade, Bremen, China, Denmark, Dresden, Frankfort, Limerick, Lisbon, Madrid, Mexico, Naples, Norway, Oxford, Palermo, Paris, Peru, Poland or Vienna. The spot is situated at about 44° 9′ north latitude, 69° 51′ west longitude, in the county of Sagadahoc, state of Maine, U.S.A., and it is surrounded by towns bearing these names, no one of them more than fifty-five miles away.

– Gary Jennings, Personalities of Language, 1965

On a board in front of a stage-office in Buffalo, I once read, ‘Stages start from this house for China, Sardinia, Holland, Hamburg, Java, Sweden, Cuba, Havre, Italy, and Penn Yan.’

– James Freeman Clarke, On Giving Names to Towns and Streets, 1880

Lettershift

Greg Ross — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:57:08 +0000

Advance each letter in PECAN four places through the alphabet and you get TIGER: