Penmanship

In 1942 Niels Bohr was asked to give an address on the 300th anniversary of Isaac Newton’s birth. In discussing with Abraham Pais the themes that he might address, he wrote the word harmony on a blackboard:

bohr handwriting - harmony

As they continued to talk he grew dissatisfied with this. At last he said, “Now I’ve got it. We must change harmony to uniformity.” And he did so with “one triumphant bang”:

bohr handwriting - uniformity

Pais called this “the most remarkable act of calligraphy I shall ever witness.”

See Letter From New York.

Kid Lit

In 1967 Luis d’Antin Van Rooten published Mots D’Heures: Gousses, Rames, a collection of French poems that make little sense until you read them aloud:

Oh, les mots d’heureux bardes
Où en toutes heures que partent.
Tous guetteurs pour dock à Beaune.
Besoin gigot d’air
De que paroisse paire.
Et ne pour dock, pet-de-nonne.

Et qui rit des curés d’Oc?
De Meuse raines, houp! de cloques.
De quelles loques ce turque coin.
Et ne d’ânes ni rennes,
Écuries des curés d’Oc.

In 1980 Ormonde de Kay met this with N’Heures Souris Rames:

Très bel aï n’ de maïs
Si à Oudh héronne.
Des Halles Roi Naphte de phare mer soif
Chicot taffetas tel suite de carvi naïf.
Didier voyou si sachée saille t’ignore l’aï
Fesse très bel aï n’ de maïs.

Rabais dab dab
Trille, ménine, taupe.
Hindou d’yeux tines, que débit?
Débouchoir du bécarre
De canne d’élastique maigre.
Trop d’émaux, nefs alterés.

And in 1981 John Hulme expanded into German with Mörder Guss Reims:

Schach an Schill! Wend’ ab die Hilde —
Fesch Appel, oh Worte!
Schachfell Daunen, Brockensgrauen,
Und Schill Keim Tuümpel in Naphtha.

Pater keck, Pater keck, Bechers Mann.
Bigamie er keck es Festeschuh kann.
Batet und Brikett und Marktwitwe Tie
Und Butter, Tinte offen fort Omi Anämie.

Um die Dumm’ die Saturn Aval;
Um die Dumm’ die Ader Grät’ fahl.
Alter ging’s Ohr säss und Alter ging’s mähen.
Kuh denn “putt” um Dieter Gitter er gähn.

“In this lively allegorical poem a foolish Greek maiden becomes embroiled with the supernatural and is rescued in the nick of time from a fate worse than immortality by being turned into a cow.”

See also “It Means Just What I Choose It to Mean” and Read It Aloud.

(I think de Kay is the same fellow who proposed the theory of continental drip — a very playful man!)

In a Word

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Antarctica_wind_Mawson_Hurley.jpg

anemocracy
n. a government by the wind

Frank Hurley took the photo above during Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911. “The figure is actually leaning on a constant 100 miles per hour wind while picking ice for culinary purposes.”

Thrills and Intrigue

In 2005, Chinese novelist Hu Wenliang offered 140,000 yuan ($16,900 U.S.) to the reader who could decipher his novel «?», which consists entirely of punctuation marks:

:?

:!

“‘……’”

(?)·«,»

;——

Hu claimed that the symbols represent a touching love story that took him a year to write, but he told the Beijing Daily Messenger that none of the 20 interpretations that readers had so far offered had satisfied him.

“I have my own answer, which is around 100 Chinese characters,” he said. “The interpretation should cover the description of characters and the plot of the story. I will reward someone who can guess 80 percent the hidden story correct.”

That was in July 2005. If anyone has offered a successful solution, I haven’t been able to discover it.

Sensible Nonsense

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jabberwocky.jpg

“Jabberwocky” works wonderfully in German — writer Thomas Chatterton offered this translation to Macmillan’s Magazine in 1872:

Es brillig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mümsige Burggoven
Die mohmen Räth’ ausgraben.

»Bewahre doch vor Jammerwoch!
Die Zähne knirschen, Krallen kratzen!
Bewahr’ vor Jubjub-Vogel, vor
Frumiösen Banderschnätzchen!«

Er griff sein vorpals Schwertchen zu,
Er suchte lang das manchsam’ Ding;
Dann, stehend unten Tumtum Baum,
Er an-zu-denken-fing.

Als stand er tief in Andacht auf,
Des Jammerwochen’s Augen-feuer
Durch tulgen Wald mit wiffek kam
Ein burbelnd Ungeheuer!

Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch
Sein vorpals Schwert zerschnifer-schnück,
Da blieb es todt! Er, Kopf in Hand,
Geläumfig zog zurück.

»Und schlugst Du ja den Jammerwoch?
Umarme mich, mien Böhm’sches Kind!
O Freuden-Tag! O Halloo-Schlag!«
Er chortelt froh-gesinnt.

Es brillig war. Die schlichte Toven
Wirrten und wimmelten in Waben;
Und aller-mümsige Burggoven
Die mohmen Räth’ ausgraben.

In The Philosopher’s Alice, Peter Heath calls this “easily the best” of the poem’s many translations. “In no other language is elaboration of structure so readily compatible with entire absence of meaning.”

In a Word

polysemant
n. a word having more than one meaning

In 1000 Most Obscure Words, lexicographer Norman Schur notes that the Oxford English Dictionary gives three strikingly different definitions for rosmarine:

rosemary
sea spray
the walrus

Similarly, merkin manages to mean both “an artificial covering of hair for the female pubic region” and “a mop to clean cannon.” Kudos.

In 1973, textile merchant Marcus Shloimovitz sued the Oxford Dictionary for defining Jew in part as “a grasping or extortionate money-lender or usurer.” “The Jewish race includes sages, scholars, judges, scientists and people from the arts and stage,” he argued. “They have done great service for their countries. They are not cheats or unscrupulous usurers.” He lost because he failed to show that the definition had caused him personal suffering.