In a Word

passeggiata
n. a leisurely walk

In the ancient world, distances were sometimes measured by pacing. Specialists known as bematists were employed for this purpose in both Egypt and Greece, and their accuracy could be startling: In his Naturalis Historia, Pliny the Elder notes that two bematists employed by Alexander the Great had measured the distance from Hecatompylos to Alexandria Areion on the Silk Road at 851 kilometers. The actual distance is 855 kilometers, a deviation of just 0.4 percent. In general, according to Pliny’s records, Alexander’s bematists showed a median deviation of just 2.8 percent from the true distances; a separate account by Strabo shows a median deviation of only 1.9 percent.

This accuracy suggests that the bematists may have been using an early odometer, such as one described by Heron of Alexandria, though the records don’t mention this.

12/30/2023 UPDATE: Reader Charlotte Fare has made a data visualization. (Thanks, Charlotte.)

| History · Language · Science & Math

“Sonnet With a Different Letter at the End of Every Line”

O for a muse of fire, a sack of dough,
Or both! O promissory notes of woe!
One time in Santa Fe N.M.
Ol’ Winfield Townley Scott and I … But whoa.

One can exert oneself, ff,
Or architect a heaven like Rimbaud,
Or if that seems, how shall I say, de trop,
One can at least write sonnets, a propos
Of nothing save the do-re-mi-fa-sol
Of poetry itself. Is not the row
Of perfect rhymes, the terminal bon mot,
Obeisance enough to the Great O?

“Observe,” said Chairman Mao to Premier Chou,
“On voyage à Parnasse pour prendre les eaux.
On voyage comme poisson, incog.”

— George Starbuck

| Language · Poems

Hand Talk

In the 19th century, Native Americans from central Canada to northern Mexico could communicate using Plains Indian Sign Language, a lingua franca that facilitated trading, hunting, storytelling, and warfare between speakers of different languages. It’s estimated that in 1885 more than 110,000 indigenous people were familiar with the signs. Today only a few dozen fluent signers remain, though efforts are afoot to preserve the language.

Above: In September 1930, U.S. Army general Hugh L. Scott attended the Indian Sign Language Grand Council, an intertribal gathering of indigenous leaders convened to document and preserve PISL.

| Language

Second Thoughts

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dunster_House,_Harvard_University,_Cambridge,_Mass_(73781).jpg

Pleasantly red-brick Georgian in aspect like most of the others, [Harvard dormitory] Dunster House celebrates the memory of Henry Dunster, the first fully designated president of Harvard. … According to legend, the intention had been to name the original seven houses for Harvard presidents in their order of succession, a design that faltered when it came to the notable Dr. Leonard Hoar, who came to this distinguished post in 1672. … Hoar House had an indelicacy of address that, even in the service of history, Harvard could not abide.

— John Kenneth Galbraith, A Tenured Professor, 1990

| Language

In a Word

chevelure
n. a head of hair

abditive
adj. hidden

protreptic
n. a writing intended to exhort or instruct

revolute
v. to imbue with revolutionary spirit

For Histiaeus, when he was anxious to give Aristagoras orders to revolt, could find but one safe way, as the roads were guarded, of making his wishes known; which was by taking the trustiest of his slaves, shaving all the hair from off his head, and then pricking letters upon the skin, and waiting till the hair grew again. Thus accordingly he did; and as soon as ever the hair was grown, he despatched the man to Miletus, giving him no other message than this — ‘When thou art come to Miletus, bid Aristagoras shave thy head, and look thereon.’ Now the marks on the head, as I have already mentioned, were a command to revolt.

— Herodotus, Terpsichore

| History · Language

In a Word

advigilate
v. to watch carefully; to keep vigil

cunctation
n. lateness; delay

vagarious
adj. roving; wandering; characterized by vagaries

mundivagant
adj. that roams around the world

Letter to the Times, Aug. 24, 2001:

Sir, Some years ago when I lived in Livingstone, Zambia, I received a letter from Lusaka, the capital, correctly addressed but weeks late.

Among the numerous back stamps the envelope had collected in its travels the last was Livingstone, Canada, with an inscription ‘Try Livingstone, Zambia’.

The letter had also visited Scotland and New Zealand.

Yours truly,

David H. Walton
Crowland, Peterborough

| Language · Oddities

Man of the World

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_par_John_Tenniel_26.png

Names of the Mad Hatter in various translations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:

  • the Hatmaker
  • the Maker of Hats
  • the Hatman
  • the Man Who Made Head Protection
  • Mr. Tophat
  • Owl
  • Master Hats
  • Marble Mason
  • Stockman
  • Blockhead
  • Baboon
  • Fellow With Hats
  • Cap-Wearing Person
  • Kynedyr Wyllt mab Hettwn Tal Aryant

That last one’s in Middle Welsh. Though Lewis Carroll’s novel abounds in wordplay, rhymes, quotations, nonsense, homophones, logical twists, and Victorian allusions, it’s found its way into 174 languages and more than 9,000 editions around the world. Zongxin Feng of Tsinghua University in Beijing wrote, “Of all Western literary masterpieces introduced into China in the twentieth century, no other work has enjoyed such popularity.”

In an 1866 letter, Carroll had written, “Friends here [in Oxford] seem to think that the book is untranslatable.”

(Jon A. Lindseth, ed., Alice in a World of Wonderlands, 2015.)

| Language · Literature

Misc

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:KnightsTemplarPlayingChess1283.jpg

  • The Dutch word for cease-fire negotiations is wapenstilstandsonderhandelingen.
  • Rearrange the letters in ONE THOUSAND KILOS and you get OH, SOUNDS LIKE A TON! (Hans-Peter Reich)
  • 1167882 + 3211682 = 116788321168
  • The Irish for chess, ficheall, derives from the Old Irish fidchell, “wood intelligence.”
  • “Life is a school of probability.” — Walter Bagehot

A tiny detail that I hope is true: In Time in World History (2019), historian Peter Stearns writes that before watches became affordable, some European soldiers “took their own roosters with them so they would wake up on time.”

| History · Language · Quotations · Science & Math