Misc

  • Fletcher Christian’s first son was named Thursday October Christian.
  • SLICES OF BREAD = DESCRIBES LOAF (Dean Mayer)
  • 16384 = 163 × (8 – 4)
  • Of the 46 U.S. presidents to date, 16 have had no middle name.
  • “It is ill arguing against the use of anything from its abuse.” — Elizabeth I, in Walter Scott’s Kenilworth

Star Trek costume designer William Ware Theiss offered the Theiss Theory of Titillation: “The degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be.”

(Thanks, Michael.)

| Entertainment · Language · Quotations · Science & Math · Trivia

In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hector_cloud_from_Gunn_Point.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

daymark
n. a mark to help navigators to find their way

nimbiferous
adj. bringing storms or showers

kenspeckle
adj. easily recognizable, conspicuous

onymous
adj. having a name

During World War II, pilots in northern Australia noted that an enormous thunderstorm formed daily between September and March on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory. Regularly reaching heights of 20 kilometers, “Hector the Convector” is one of the world’s largest thunderstorms, an object of concentrated study by meteorologists, and a relative oddity — a cloud with a name.

| Language · Oddities

Arcaicam Esperantom

In 1969, linguist Manuel Halvelik created an “archaic” version of Esperanto, so that Ivanhoe (for example) could seem suitably “old” in translation. Here’s the Lord’s Prayer in standard Esperanto:

Patro nia, kiu estas en Ĉielo,
Estu sanktigita Cia Nomo.
Venu Cia regno,
Plenumiĝu Cia volo
Kiel en Ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur Tero.
Al ni donu hodiaŭ panon nian ĉiutagan,
Kaj al ni pardonu niajn pekojn
Kiel ankaŭ ni tiujn, kiuj kontraŭ ni pekas, pardonas.
Kaj nin ne konduku en tenton
Sed nin liberigu el malbono.
Amen.

And here it is in “Old Esperanto”:

Patrom nosam, cuyu estas in Chielom,
Estu sanctiguitam Tuam Nomom.
Wenu Tuam Regnom,
Plenumizzu Tuam Wolom,
Cuyel in Chielom, ityel anquez sobrez Terom.
Nosid donu hodiez Panon nosan cheyutagan,
Ed nosid pardonu nosayn Pecoyn,
Cuyel anquez nos ityuyd cuyuy contrez nos pecait pardonaims.
Ed nosin ned conducu in Tentod,
Sed nosin liberigu ex Malbonom.
Amen.

Halvelik also devised slang and patois versions of the language — both are understandable by every reader, but they register as different styles. In translations of The Lord of the Rings, elves speak archaic language and hobbits speak patois.

| Language

Wallflower

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:20170618_3678_Masai_Mara_Touraco_masque.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Marked by its face and call, the turaco Crinifer personatus of East Africa is known as the bare-faced go-away bird.

This seems unfair. Hummingbirds get names such as royal sunangel, empress brilliant, blue-chinned sapphire, golden-crowned emerald, and shining sunbeam.

“One tends not to want to devote much energy to tracking down birds with names such as the unadorned flycatcher, drab water-tyrant, grayish mourner or one-colored becard,” writes birder William Young. “In Costa Rica, I saw a tiny (albeit friendly) drab bird with the oxymoronic name of paltry tyrannulet.”

(William Young, “Words of a Feather,” Word Ways 32:4 [November 1999], 297-299.)

| Language

Lexicon

Words that don’t exist but ought to, proposed by Gelett Burgess in Burgess Unabridged (1914):

cowcat: an unimportant guest, an insignificant personality
critch: to array oneself in uncomfortable splendor
edicle: one who is educated beyond his intellect, a pedant
fidgeltick: food that is a bore to eat
flooijab: an apparent compliment with a concealed sting
gloogo: foolishly faithful without reward
gorgule: a splendiferous, over-ornate object or gift
gowyop: a perplexity wherein familiar things seem strange
jip: a dangerous subject of conversation
lallify: to prolong a story tiresomely, or repeat a joke
leolump: an interrupter of conversations
oofle: a person whose name one cannot remember
paloodle: to give unnecessary advice
pooje: a regrettable discovery
spillix: accidental good luck
tashivation: the art of answering without listening to questions
uglet: an unpleasant duty too long postponed
vorge: voluntary suffering, unnecessary effort or exercise
xenogore: an interloper who keeps one from interesting things
yamnoy: a bulky, unmanageable object to be carried
yowf: one whose importance exceeds his merit

Interestingly, we owe the word blurb to Burgess — he invented it in 1906 for his book Are You a Bromide?, and it proved so useful that we’re still using it more than a century later.

| Language

In a Word

https://imgur.com/o5dlXzY

obeliscolychny
n. a lighthouse

morsure
n. the act of biting

salvediction
n. salutation on meeting

grandisonant
adj. stately-sounding

In 1900, a collie on Wood Island in Saco Bay, Maine, gained international fame for ringing the lighthouse’s fog bell to greet passing ships. “When ‘Sailor,’ for that is what he is called, sees a vessel passing the lighthouse he runs to the bell, and with a quick, sharp bark seizes the short rope between his teeth and rings several times,” wrote a correspondent to the Strand.

“As the years have passed ‘Sailor’ has kept on ringing salutes to passing vessels and steamers,” observed the Boston Herald. “Indeed, he feels hurt if not permitted to give the customary salute to passing craft, while skippers whose course takes them often past Wood Island are accustomed to see ‘Sailor’ tugging viciously at the bell rope. They reply with a will on their ship’s bell or horn, and in case of steamers a hearty triple blast is sent back to the watcher of Wood Island, who gives a new meaning to the good old sea term of ‘dog watch.'”

(Thanks, Frank.)

| Language · Oddities

Turnabout

In 2011 I published a list of unusual American girls’ names collected by H.L. Mencken in his magisterial study The American Language. I should have gone back for the boys’ names:

  • Allmouth
  • Anvil
  • Arson
  • Centurlius
  • Cho-Wella
  • Clarmond
  • Cluke
  • Comma
  • Crellon
  • Cyclone
  • Doke
  • Elesten
  • Elgne
  • Elvcyd
  • Felmet
  • Florns
  • Habert
  • Harce
  • Human
  • Jat
  • Kark
  • Kleo Murl
  • Koith
  • Lig
  • Loarn
  • Mord
  • Murt
  • Quannah
  • Rephord
  • Terbert
  • Thrantham
  • Torl
  • Valourd
  • Virgle
  • Yick
  • Zelmer
  • Zurr

“In Connecticut, a generation or two ago, there was a politico surnamed Bill whose given-names were Kansas Nebraska. He had brothers named Lecompton Constitution and Emancipation Proclamation, and sisters named Louisiana Purchase and Missouri Compromise.”

(H.L. Mencken, The American Language, Supplement 2, 1948.)

| Language · Society

Roll Call

Unusual names of real people, collected by author John Train:

  • A.A.A. D’Artagnan Umslopagaas Dynamite Macaulay
  • Arizona Zipper
  • Atomic Zagnut Adams
  • Badman Trouble
  • Bumpus McPhumpus Angeledes
  • Cardiac Arrest da Silva
  • Cashmere Tango Obedience
  • Charles Everybodytalksabout, Jr.
  • C. Sharp Minor
  • Demetrius Toodles
  • Dennis Elbow
  • E. Pluribus Eubanks
  • Fortunate Tarte
  • Henry Will Burst
  • Pepsi Cola Atom-Bomb Washington
  • Marmalade P. Vestibule
  • Rebecca Hammering Bang
  • Roosevelt Cabbagestalk
  • Sara Struggles Nicely
  • Serious Misconduct
  • Trailing Arbutus Vines
  • Warren Peace
  • Zip A-Dee-Doo Daub

Twins: Anarchy and Utopia; A.C. and D.C.; Bigamy and Larceny; Pete and Repeat

Further odd names, collected from various sources.

| Language

Twice True

Each of these sums is valid in two ways, once when the words at taken at their face value and again when each letter is interpreted as a particular digit:

   THREE    79322           ONE       483       ZERO   4206      TRECE  69858
    NINE     6562          FIVE      7293        SEI    827      CINCO  57354
     TEN      726           TEN       138      SETTE  82112       OCHO   4504
FOURTEEN 40837226        ELEVEN    363938       OTTO   6116       ----   ----
 FIFTEEN  4547226      NINETEEN  82831338       NOVE   9652     QUINCE 127358
 -------  -------     FORTYFIVE 745107293       ----   ----       ONCE   4358
FIFTYONE 45471062     --------- ---------     TRENTA 102913
                      NINETYONE 828310483

All are from the Journal of Recreational Mathematics, collected by Leonard Gordon in “Doubly-True Alphametics,” Word Ways 27:1 [February 1994], 10-12. More alphametics.

| Language · Science & Math

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