In a Word

chartaceous
adj. made of paper

admarginate
v. to add or note in the margin

subdititious
adj. fraudulently substituted for a person or thing

prepense
n. malice aforethought

Alexander Pope made use of every scrap of paper that offered a clean surface — nearly the entire first draft of his translation of the Iliad was written on the backs of envelopes, bills, miscellaneous letters, and stray bits of paper. Jonathan Swift suggested that other writers might turn this to their advantage: They could print their own works in editions with wide margins, lend these to “paper-sparing Pope,” wait for him to fill in the spaces with poetry — and then sell this as their own.

| Language · Literature

A Late Edit

The screenplay for the 1962 war film The Longest Day was composed by an international team of writers to reflect the various nationalities that appear in the film. James Jones, who handled the Americans, had finished his work and was vacationing in Yugoslavia when producer Darryl Zanuck sent an urgent wire asking him to correct a small piece of late dialogue. “How much for it?” Jones asked. Zanuck answered “Fifteen thousand dollars.” Jones wrote, “Okay, shoot.”

The line, which had been written by an Englishman, was “I can’t eat that bloody old box of tunny fish.”

Jones changed this to “I can’t stand this damned old tuna fish.”

In The Literary Life and Other Curiosities, Robert Hendrickson calls this the highest word rate ever paid to a professional author. “The chore of deleting two words and changing four words came to $2,500 a word.”

| Entertainment · Language

Efficiency

Just a bit of trivia: In the New South Wales railway system, the telegraph code RYZY meant:

Vehicle No ….. may be worked forward to ….. behind the brakevan of a suitable goods train during daylight provided locomotive branch certifies fit to travel. If the damaged vehicle is fitted with automatic coupling it must only be worked forward behind a brakevan also fitted with automatic coupling by connecting the automatic couplers on each vehicle but, if fitted with ordinary drawgear, it must be screw coupled. Westinghouse brake to be in use throughout train and on damaged vehicle. Guard to be given written instructions to carefully watch vehicle en route.

This reduced a 90-word message to four letters.

| Language · Technology

“WIPEOUT!”

Cynthia Knight composed this in 1983 — a poem typed entirely on the upper row of a typewriter:

O WOE
(we quote you, poor poet)
We tiptoe up, quiet. You peer out. You opt to write
quite proper poetry
to pour out your pretty repertoire.
We try to woo you to write. You pop out; retire to pout.
Torpor? Terror? Ire? Or worry? We pity you, poor poet.
Put out, you rip your poetry up. Too trite?
We try to pique you.
Were your pep to tire, or your power to rot
We prop you up to retype it.
Or were our top priority to trip you
or were etiquette, piety, or propriety to require you to wire up your typewriter to rewrite it …
O! You write witty quip, pert retort. You titter. You write pure, utter tripe too, I purr.
You err
retype your error
weep
wipe your wet typewriter (your property)
We TOWER o’er you, wee tot — were you TWO?
YOU WORE YOUR TOY TYPEWRITER OUT!
We quit.

(“The Poet’s Corner,” Word Ways 16:2 [May 1983], 87-88.)

| Language

In a Word

tesserarian
adj. pertaining to play

aspernate
v. to scorn

absit
n. a student’s temporary leave of absence

denegate
v. to deny or refuse

In 1873, when the University of Michigan challenged Cornell to the new game of football, Cornell president Andrew D. White declined. He said, “I will not permit thirty men to travel four hundred miles to agitate a bag of wind.”

| Entertainment · Language

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carl_D%C3%B8rnberger_-_By_the_Easel_-_Ved_staffeliet_-_Nasjonalmuseet_-_NG.M.04348.jpg

  • Émile Zola described a work of art as “a corner of nature seen through a temperament.”
  • Early printings of Webster’s New International Dictionary defined RAFTMAN as “a raftman.”
  • Horace’s motto was Nihil admirari, “Be surprised at nothing.”
  • In the 1960s the Bureau of Land Management renamed Whorehouse Meadow, Oregon, to Naughty Girl Meadow on its maps. In 1981, after a public outcry, it changed it back.
  • “Never read a pop-up book about giraffes.” — Sean Lock

Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury, cooperated as Humphrey Carpenter prepared his biography, believing that the book wouldn’t be published until after his passing. Eventually he was forced to write,

My dear Humphrey

I have done my best to die before this book is published. It now seems possible that I may not succeed. Since you know that I am not enthusiastic about it you are generous to give me space for a postscript.

| Art · Language · Literature · Quotations · Trivia

Variant

A “Home Counties version” of the Lord’s Prayer:

Our Farnham which art in Hendon, Harrow be thy Name. Thy Kingston come. Thy Wimbledon in Erith, as it is in Heston. Give us this day our Leatherhead. And forgive us our Westminsters, as we forgive them that Westminster against us. And lead us not into Thames Ditton, but deliver us from Ealing. For thine is the Kingston, the Purley, and the Crawley, for Iver and Iver. Crouch End.

I don’t think anyone knows who wrote it. See The Author’s Tale.

| Humor · Language

Breathless

Edmund Conti notes an unfortunate mannerism in Ngaio Marsh’s 1970 detective novel When in Rome:

Page 14: “Here,” he said in basic Italian. “Keep the change.” The waiter ejaculated with evident pleasure.

Page 49: “Nothing to what I was!” Sophy ejaculated.

Page 74: They could be heard ejaculating in some distant region.

Page 75: “Ah,” ejaculated Grant, “don’t remind me of that for God’s sake!”

Page 84: “Violetta, is it!” he ejaculated.

Page 87: “Good God!” the Major ejaculated.

Page 88: “Well!” the Major ejaculated.

Page 88: There were more ejaculations and much talk of coincidence …

Page 104: Marco gave an ejaculation and a very slight wince.

Page 109: “Phew!” said the Major, who seemed to be stuck with this ejaculation.

Page 140: “Eccellenza!” the Questore ejaculated.

Page 145: The Van der Veghels broke into scandalized ejaculations, first in their language and then in English.

Page 149: Sophy had given a little ejaculation.

Page 149: “I remember!” the Baron ejaculated.

Page 157: Finally Giovanni gave a sharp ejaculation.

Page 188: “We would exclaim, gaze at each at each other, gabble, ejaculate, tell each other how we felt …”

Page 194: Bergami ejaculated and answered so rapidly that Alleyn could only just make out what he said.

Conti adds, “Cigarette?”

| Language · Literature

Homage à Fromage

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DoubleGlou.png

For his 1992 palindrome dictionary From A to ZOtamorf, Stephen J. Chism set out to gather all the reversible expressions in English that had been published up to that point. He divides them sensibly into single words; phrases and sentences; poems; and personal and place names — but the last chapter is titled FOR SOME REASON CHEESE:

A duo Gouda
Ate Feta?
Cheese not dairy. Myriad tone? See H.C.
Cheese? See H.C. …
Disk Colby block, Sid.
Edam Hannah made
He ate feta, eh?
He made lives evil. Edam, eh?
Lay block Colby, Al.
No Brie, Irbon?
No Romano on a moron …
Not Lit, Stilton?
Note Swiss: “I.W. Seton”
Why block Colby, H.W.?

“I don’t propose to explain it,” he writes. “Cheese is as unlikely as it is likely; a seemingly ordinary food product. Why, then, do we find it treated more thoroughly in palindromes than any other substance?”

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