In a Word

hippomaniacally
adv. in a manner reminiscent of a mad horse

frample
v. of a horse: to paw the ground

accoy
v. to quiet or soothe

tournure
n. graceful manner or bearing

In an 1884 letter, Augustus Hare noted that the Bishop of Lichfield drove horses named Pride and Prejudice. “He says people may consider it a terrible thing for a bishop to be drawn hither and thither by these passions, but then it is assuredly a fine thing to have them well under control.”

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sitta_villosa1.jpg

  • NUTHATCH and UNTHATCH are nearly the same word.
  • Vladivostok is farther south than Venice.
  • Thackeray called George IV’s prose style “lax, maudlin slipslop.”
  • dollop reads the same upside down.
  • “I shall stipulate that I will only go into Heaven on condition that I am never in a room with more than ten people.” — Edward Lear

Briefly

When an editor complained that Gerald Kersh used too many long words, Kersh bet him £50 that he could write a story entirely in monosyllables. Kersh won:

We met on the stairs of Time: I was on my way up; he was on his way down. I was young; he was old, and poor — so poor that he did not know when luck would send him a meal and a bed.

Frederic Birmingham published the whole three-page story in his 1958 book The Writer’s Craft.

And Inventive

TO WIDOWERS AND SINGLE GENTLEMEN. — WANTED by a lady, a SITUATION to superintend the household and preside at table. She is Agreeable, Becoming, Careful, Desirable, English, Facetious, Generous, Honest, Industrious, Judicious, Keen, Lively, Merry, Natty, Obedient, Philosophic, Quiet, Regular, Sociable, Tasteful, Useful, Vivacious, Womanish, Xantippish, Youthful, Zealous, &c. Address X. Y. Z., Simmond’s Library, Edgeware-road.

Times, 1842

In a Word

condisciple
n. a fellow student

precariat
n. people whose living standards are insecure

scripturiency
n. passion for writing

refocillation
n. imparting of new vigor

This brass plate is displayed at the corner of Drummond Street and South Bridge, near Rutherford’s Bar, in Edinburgh:

https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1517098
Image: kim traynor

(Thanks, Nick.)

Misc

  • Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu are roughly antipodal.
  • WONDER is UNDERWAY in Pig Latin.
  • By convention, current flows from positive to negative in a circuit; electrons, which are negatively charged, move in the opposite direction.
  • The immaculate conception describes the birth of Mary, not Jesus.
  • “A man’s style in any art should be like his dress — it should attract as little attention as possible.” — Samuel Butler

10/22/2024 UPDATE: Interesting addendum from reader Mark Thompson: The capital cities Asunción, Canberra, and Kuwait City are nearly equidistant on great-circle routes:

Kuwait City to Canberra: 12,768 km
Canberra to Asunción: 12,712 km
Asunción to Kuwait City: 12,766 km

“Their mutual distances apart (along the earth’s surface) happen to be very close to one Earth-diameter [12,742 km]: so, sadly, they don’t all lie on a single great circle (since pi is not 3).” (Thanks, Mark.)

To Be Clear

Modern punctuation doesn’t always do the job, so writers have suggested various improvements. In the 1580s, English printer Henry Denham proposed a “percontation point,” ⸮, to be used at the end of a rhetorical question. In 1668, Anglican clergyman John Wilkins suggested using an inverted exclamation point, ¡, for the same purpose.

In the 1840s, Belgian newspaper publisher Marcellin Jobard introduced a small arrow whose orientation might indicate irony, irritation, indignation, or hesitation.

In 1899, French poet Alcanter de Brahm suggested a point d’ironie to indicate that a sentence was ironic or sarcastic:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ironie-Larousse-1897-p329.png

And in a 1966 essay, French writer Hervé Bazin proposed (left to right) the irony point, the doubt point, the conviction point, the acclamation point, the authority point, and the love point:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Proposed_punctuation_marks

None of these has caught on, but the interrobang, ‽, introduced in 1962 by Martin Speckter to denote a question expressed in an exclamatory manner, is still included in many fonts.

More at Type Talk.

“The Farmer’s Life”

The farmer leads no E Z life,
The C D sows will rot,
And when at E V rests from strife
His bosom will A K lot.

In D D has to struggle hard
to E K living out,
If I C frosts do not retard
His crops, there’ll B A drought.

The hired L P has to pay
Are awful A Z too;
They C K rest when he’s away,
Nor N E work will do.

Both N Z cannot make to meet,
And then for A D takes
Some boarders, who so R T eat,
That E no money makes.

Of little U C finds this life,
Sick in old A G lies;
The debts he O Z leaves his wife,
And then in P C dies.

Stenography, January 1887