In Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II, one of the king’s gaolers receives a message reading Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est. This can be read either as Edwardum occidere nolite; timere bonum est (“Do not kill Edward; it is good to be afraid [to do so]”) or as Edwardum occidere nolite timere; bonum est (“Do not be afraid to kill Edward; [to do so] is good”). The king is killed.

In 1213, John, Archbishop of Esztergom, was pressed to make a statement to Hungarian nobles planning the assassination of Gertrude of Merania. An assassination would have aided the church, but taking a role in it might have imperiled John’s position and his life. He wrote Reginam occidere nolite timere bonum est si omnes consentiunt ego non contradico, which also has two contradictory meanings depending on its punctuation. Reginam occidere nolite timere; bonum est; si omnes consentiunt, ego non contradico means “Do not fear to kill the queen, it is right; if everyone agrees, I do not oppose it,” but Reginam occidere nolite; timere bonum est; si omnes consentiunt, ego non; contradico means “Do not kill the queen; it is good to fear [doing so]; [even] if everyone agrees, I do not; I oppose it.” The queen, too, was murdered.

According to the Guardian (March 1872), Lord Palmerston once dictated this sentence to 11 British cabinet ministers, “not one of whom, it is said, spelled it correctly”:

It is disagreeable to witness the embarrassment of a harassed peddler gauging the symmetry of a peeled potato.

“And Lord R. Cecil, in the House of Commons, some time ago, quoted the following lines which he said were given as a dictation exercise by an assistant commissioner to the children of a school in Ipswich”:

While hewing yew, Hugh lost his ewe,
And put it in the Hue and Cry,
To name its face’s dusky hues
Was all the effort he could use.
You brought the ewe back, by-and-by,
And only begged the hewer’s ewer,
Your hands to wash in water pure,
Lest nice-nosed ladies, not a few,
Should cry, on coming near you, “Ugh!”

The French phrase ouate de phoque (“seal’s cotton wool”) sounds like what the fuck in English.

For whatever that’s worth.

Listen to the pronunciation file here.

Demetri Martin composed this palindromic poem as part of a project for a fractal geometry class at Yale in spring 1993. The first two and last two lines are palindromes, the middle line (“Be still if I fill its ebb”) minus its last letter is a palindrome, and the entire poem is a palindrome:

Dammit I’m mad
Evil is a deed as I live.
God, am I reviled?
I rise, my bed on a sun, I melt.
To be not one man emanating is sad. I piss.
Alas it is so late. Who stops to help? Man, it is hot.

I’m in it.
I tell.
I am not a devil.
I level “Mad Dog”.

Ah, say burning is as a deified gulp
in my halo of a mired rum tin.
I erase many men. Oh, to be man, a sin.
Is evil in a clam? In a trap?
No. It is open.
On it I was stuck.

Rats peed on hope.
Elsewhere dips a web.
Be still if I fill its ebb.
Ew, a spider … eh?
We sleep.

Oh no!
Deep, stark cuts saw it in one position.
Part animal, can I live? Sin is a name.
Both, one … my names are in it. Murder?
I’m a fool. A hymn I plug,
Deified as a sign in ruby ash – a Goddam level I lived at.

On mail let it in. I’m it.
Oh, sit in ample hot spots.
Oh, wet!
A loss it is alas (sip). I’d assign it a name.
Name not one bottle minus an ode by me:
“Sir, I deliver. I’m a dog.”
Evil is a deed as I live.
Dammit I’m mad.

“Improprieties in pronunciation” among the people of New England in 1808, collected by Caleb Bingham and published in The Child’s Companion:

afraid:          afeard
apron:           apun
audacious:       outdacious
bonfire:         burnfire
brittle:         brickle
cards:           cairds
caught:          cotch
coin:            quine
cucumber:        cowcumber
dictionary:      dixonary
drain:           dreen
earth:           airth
fanciful:        fancical
five pence:      fippence
gown:            gound
grasshopper:     hoppergrass
jaundice:        janders
musician:        musicianer
poplar:          popple
quart:           quairt
quotient:        coshun
sassafras:       saxafax
turtle:          turcle
tutor:           tutorer
umbrella:        amberrillar
Vermont:         Vermount
walnut:          warnut
watermelon:      watermillion

“It is not to be supposed that they are all in common use in every part of New England. Some of them are local. In general, however, they are used more or less in all the New England States.”

In his 1954 book Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Kenneth Pike presents a toy language in which meaning is determined by the relative order of the elements. If these expressions have the indicated meanings:

1. los            "It is smoke"
2. mif            "It is a ball"
3. kap            "They are eyes"
4. losmif         "The ball is smoking"
5. miflos         "The smoke is rolling"
6. mifmif         "The ball is rolling"
7. mifmiflos      "The smoke is rolling in round puffs"
8. mifmifkap      "He is rolling his eyes around" or
                  "The eyes are rolling around"
9. losmifkap      "His eyes roam darkly"
10. mifkaplos     "The smoke is trying to escape" or
                  "The smoke looks around"
11. kapmifmif     "I can see the ball rolling"
12. mifkapkap     "He is looking around"
13. losloskap     "His eyes are smoldering menacingly"

… what would be meant by kapmiflos and kapkapkap?

“Conjugated nouns,” offered by Ohio State University linguist Arnold M. Zwicky in Verbatim in 1975:

I steal the keel. I stole the coal. I have stolen the colon.
They choose the hues. They chose the hose. They have chosen the hosen.
They mow the banks of the row. They mowed the banks of the road. They have mown the banks of the Rhone.
I do it with the buoys. I did it with the biddies. I have done it with the bunnies.

Mike Anglin took this up in Word Ways in 1988:

I tear the hair; I tore the whore; I have torn the horn.
I see the sea; I saw the saw; I have seen the scene.
I draw the law; I drew the loo; I have drawn the lawn.
I throw the bow; I threw the boo; I have thrown the bone.
I sink the mink; I sank the manque; I have sunk the monk.
I choose the booze; I chose the bows; I have chosen the bosun.
I weave the leaves; I wove the loaves; I have woven the love-ins.
I forsake the cake; I forsook the cook; I have forsaken the whole mess.

Philip M. Cohen added, “I scare for the mare; I score for the more; I have scorn for the morn.”