During World War II the poet Robert Lowell refused to register for the draft and spent a few days in the West Street Jail next to mobster Louis “Lepke” Buchalter.
Lepke told him, “I’m in for killing. What are you in for?”
Lowell said, “I’m in for refusing to kill.”
On Sept. 21, 1849, naturalist and explorer Philip Henry Gosse wrote in his diary:
E. delivered of a son. Received green swallow from Jamaica.
The son grew up to be poet, author, and critic Edmund Gosse, who wrote:
“This entry has caused amusement, as showing that he was as much interested in the bird as in the boy. But this does not follow; what the wording exemplifies is my Father’s extreme punctilio.
“The green swallow arrived later in the day than the son, and the earlier visitor was therefore recorded first; my Father was scrupulous in every species of arrangement.”
In 1973 Anthony Burgess lost a book manuscript to a scippatore, a thief on a Vespa.
He was living in Rome and working on Joysprick, his study of the language in Finnegans Wake. “I carried it in its Gucci case towards a Xeroxshop to be copied, but it was scippato on the way.”
He was remarkably philosophical about the loss. “The typescript was presumably fluttered into the Tiber or Tevere and the case sold for a few thousand lire. I had to write the book again, not with too much resentment: it was probably better the second time.”
“These scippatori were never caught by the police, who probably shared in their proceeds: their little motorcycles were not legally obliged to be fitted with a targa or numberplate. Petty crime is excused, or even exalted, by the greater crimes of the Quirinale.”
(From Burgess’ memoir You’ve Had Your Time, 1990.)
Then God said, Let there be light! And the light came. And God saw the light, and it pleased him, and he gave it the name of Day. And when the day was gone, and the dark came back to stay for a while, he gave the dark spell the name of Night. And God did these things on the first day.
— Josephine Pollard, History of the Old Testament in Words of One Syllable, 1888
04/20/2018 UPDATE: Much later, in 1994, MIT logician George Boolos summarized Gödel’s second incompleteness theorem in words of one syllable. (Thanks, Ethan.)
On Wednesday, July 6, he was engaged to sup with me at my lodgings in Downing-street, Westminster. But on the preceding night my landlord having behaved very rudely to me and some company who were with me, I had resolved not to remain another night in his house. I was exceedingly uneasy at the awkward appearance I supposed I should make to Johnson and the other gentlemen whom I had invited, not being able to receive them at home, and being obliged to order supper at the Mitre. I went to Johnson in the morning, and talked of it as a serious distress. He laughed, and said, ‘Consider, Sir, how insignificant this will appear a twelvemonth hence.’–Were this consideration to be applied to most of the little vexatious incidents of life, by which our quiet is too often disturbed, it would prevent many painful sensations. I have tried it frequently, with good effect. ‘There is nothing (continued he) in this mighty misfortune; nay, we shall be better at the Mitre.’
— James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson, 1791
Victorian England had a vogue in “confession albums,” in which friends asked each other to record their answers to such questions as “What do you consider the most beautiful thing in nature?” and “What peculiarity can you most tolerate?” According to Evan Kindley in Questionnaire, “They functioned as a kind of intimate currency among the literate classes,” sometimes serving as a prop in courtship rituals.
And occasionally some prominent intellectuals submitted to them. Here’s Karl Marx:
The quality you like best: Simplicity
In man: Strength
In woman: Weakness
Your chief characteristic: Singleness of purpose
Your favourite occupation: Glancing at Netchen [his cousin]
The vice you hate most: Servility
The vice you excuse most: Gullibility
Your idea of happiness: To fight
Your idea of misery: To submit
Your aversion: Martin Tupper [an English writer of moralistic verses]
Your hero: Spartacus, Keppler [Johannes Kepler, the astronomer]
Your heroine: Gretchen [of Goethe’s Faust]
The poet you like best: Aeschylus, Shakespeare
The prose writer you like best: Diderot
Your favourite flower: Daphne
Your favourite dish: Fish
Your maxim: Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]
Your motto: De omnibus dubitandum [Doubt everything]
Some other responses: Friedrich Engels’ idea of misery was “to go to a dentist,” Arthur Conan Doyle’s present state of mind was “jaded,” and Oscar Wilde’s distinguishing characteristic was “inordinate self-esteem.”
Salman Rushdie suggested that if Robert Ludlum had written Hamlet it would be called The Elsinore Vacillation.
Larry Rosenbaum observed that a gigolo is a million million billion piccolos.
The Greek god of theatrical criticism was named Pan.
Most pygmy hippos in American zoos are descended from William Johnson Hippopotamus, a pet given to Calvin Coolidge.
BISOPROLOL FUMARATE is an anagram of SUPER MARIO FOOTBALL.
Illinois considers Pluto a planet.
“It is as if children know instinctively that anything wholly solemn, without a smile behind it, is only half alive.” — Iona and Peter Opie, The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren, 1959
“The man who publishes a book without an index ought to be damned 10 miles beyond hell, where the Devil himself cannot get for stinging nettles.” — John Baynes (1758-1787)
Strangely, Professor Moriarty and his brother have the same name.
Sherlock Holmes mentions his nemesis seven times in “The Final Problem,” but always as “Professor Moriarty” — he gives no first name (“My dear Watson, Professor Moriarty is not a man who lets the grass grow under his feet”).
But at one point Watson refers to “the recent letters in which Colonel James Moriarty defends the memory of his brother,” who was killed after his dramatic struggle with Holmes atop the Reichenbach Falls.
But in “The Adventure of the Empty House,” Holmes remarks to Watson, “[I]f I remember right, you had not heard the name of Professor James Moriarty, who had one of the great brains of the century.”
So “the Napoleon of crime” and his brother are both named James, it appears. One explanation that’s been suggested is that “James Moriarty” is a compound surname — in which case the first name of each man remains a mystery.
In his 1869 French rendering of Alice in Wonderland, Henri Bué found a uniquely felicitous way to translate a pun. Here’s the original:
‘If everybody minded their own business,’ the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, ‘the world would go round a deal faster than it does.’
‘Which would not be an advantage,’ said Alice … ‘Just think what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis –‘
‘Talking of axes,’ said the Duchess, ‘chop off her head.’
Bué couldn’t reproduce the pun using the French word for ax (hache), but he came up with this:
‘Si chacun s’occupait de ses affaires,’ dit la Duchesse avec un grognement rauque, ‘le mond n’en irait que mieux.’
‘Ce qui ne serait guère avantageux,’ dit Alice … ‘Songez à ce que deviendraient le jour et la nuit; vous voyez bien, la terre met vingt-quatre heures à faire sa révolution.’
‘Ah! vous parlez de faire des révolutions!’ dit la Duchesse. ‘Qu’on lui coupe la tête!’
In The Astonishment of Words, Victor Proetz writes, “Here Bué — with a stroke of wizardry and judgment which, in this instance, is not translation by word, but translation by change of word — has instantaneously transformed a witty English idea in its entirety into a perfectly parallel, equally witty French idea. And when ‘the Duchess’ changes into ‘la Duchesse,’ the axe, by association, becomes a guillotine.”
