Two problems that will make you want to throw a chair at someone, from John Jackson, Rational Amusements for Winter Evenings, 1821:
I.
If from six ye take nine, and from nine ye take ten
(Ye youths, now the mystery explain;)
And if fifty from forty be taken, there then,
Shall just half a dozen remain.
II.
One third of twelve, if you divide,
By just one fifth of seven,
The true result (it has been tried,)
Exactly is eleven.
How? Why?
leighster
n. a female liar
In 1920, Gaitley Guise patented a rubber “tongue shield” to prevent “the unpleasantness accompanying the taking of medicine.”
“Medicine will flow over the shield and pass into the throat without affecting the sense of taste so that all unpleasantness of taking the medicine is obviated.”
Presumably it also works with broccoli.
No one knows who compiled the index for George Mivart’s 1889 book The Origin of Human Reason, but apparently he had strong opinions. On page 136 Mivart describes a certain cockatoo that seemed to reply articulately to questions. The indexer made these entries:
Absurd tale about a Cockatoo, 136
Anecdote, absurd one, about a Cockatoo, 136
Bathos and a Cockatoo, 136
Cockatoo, absurd tale concerning one, 136
Discourse held with a Cockatoo, 136
Incredibly absurd tale of a Cockatoo, 136
Invalid Cockatoo, absurd tale about, 136
Mr. —– and tale about a Cockatoo, 136
Preposterous tale about a Cockatoo, 136
Questions answered by a Cockatoo, 136
R—–, Mr. and tale about a Cockatoo, 136
Rational Cockatoo as asserted, 136
Tale about a rational Cockatoo, as asserted, 136
Very absurd tale about a Cockatoo, 136
Wonderfully foolish tale about a Cockatoo, 136
The same index contains entries for “Opening of oysters by monkeys” and “Dough, parrot up to its knees in.” Perhaps the man was just very thorough.
Somebody asked the Baron Rothschild to take venison.—’No,’ said the Baron, ‘I never eatsh wenshon, I don’t think it ish so coot ash mutton.’—’Oh,’ said the Baron’s friend, ‘I wonder at your saying so. If mutton were better than venison, why does venison cost so much more?’ ‘Vy,’ replied the Baron, ‘I vill tell you vy—in dish world de peoples alvaysh prefers vat ish deer to vat is sheep.’
— “Anecdote of Sir Richard Jebb,” recounted in A Collection of Newspaper Extracts, 1842
