The cat is in the parlour,
The dog is in the lake;
The cow is in the hammock,–
What difference does it make?
Anthologist Carolyn Wells calls this “immortal”; I am inclined to agree. No one knows who wrote it.
Can You Do Without Soap?
Heinrich Ollendorff meant well. The grammarian intended his phrasebooks to teach German, French, Danish, and Russian to a new generation of language students. But who would ever need to speak these sentences?
- Stop, the postilion has been struck by lightning!
- A man is drowning. Is there a life buoy, a rope, a grapnel at hand?
- Unhand me, sir, for my husband, who is an Australian, awaits without.
- After having lost all my money, I was beaten by bad-looking men; and, to my still greater ill luck, I hear that my good uncle, whom I love so much, has been struck with apoplexy.
Ironically, he’s remembered today in the adjective ollendorffian, which means “in the stilted language of foreign phrasebooks.”
Sky Waves
No one knows what causes the “morning glory” clouds of northern Australia, but they’re striking — long rolling tubes that can stretch for hundreds of kilometers across the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Glider pilots converge on tiny Burketown in Far North Queensland each fall, hoping to “surf the glory,” riding the unique air currents that accompany the clouds.
In a Word
chichevache
n. an emaciated monster said to feed on patient wives
(The bicorn, which feeds on kind husbands, is always fat.)
No Man’s Land
On the border between Egypt and Sudan is a small trapezoid of landlocked desert, about 2,000 square kilometers.
Egypt says it belongs to Sudan. Sudan says it belongs to Egypt.
That makes Bir Tawil the only land area in the world (outside of Antarctica) that’s not claimed by any state.
“Justice to Scotland”
(“An Unpublished Poem by Burns”)
O mickle yeuks the keckle doup,
An’ a’ unsicker girns the graith,
For wae and wae! the crowdies loup
O’er jouk an’ hallan, braw an’ baith
Where ance the coggie hirpled fair,
And blithesome poortith toomed the loof,
There’s nae a burnie giglet rare
But blaws in ilka jinking coof.
The routhie bield that gars the gear
Is gone where glint the pawky een.
And aye the stound is birkin lear
Where sconnered yowies wheeped yestreen,
The creeshie rax wi’ skelpin’ kaes
Nae mair the howdie bicker whangs,
Nor weanies in their wee bit claes
Glour light as lammies wi’ their sangs.
Yet leeze me on my bonny byke!
My drappie aiblins blinks the noo,
An’ leesome luve has lapt the dyke
Forgatherin’ just a wee bit fou.
And Scotia! while thy rantin’ lunt
Is mirk and moop with gowans fine,
I’ll stowlins pit my unco brunt,
An’ cleek my duds for auld lang syne.
— Punch, collected in James Parton, The Humorous Poetry of the English Language, 1884
Good Girl
Here’s some pretty abstract expressionism — it was painted by a dog. Tillamook Cheddar is a Jack Russell terrier who works with her claws and teeth, spending hours on each canvas and biting anyone who interferes.
She knows what she’s doing — to date she’s had 16 exhibitions in the United States, Bermuda, the Netherlands, and Belgium, and earned $100,000.
How’s That Diet Going?
Dr. Boehmen, of Wittenberg, described a man who on one occasion ate a raw sheep, a sucking-pig, and by way of dessert sixty pounds of prunes without ejecting the stones; and on another devoured two bushels of cherries, several earthen vessels, and chips from a furnace. He also ate at the same time, some pieces of glass, pebbles, a shepherd’s bagpipe, rats, birds with their feathers, and an incredible number of caterpillars, finishing his astonishing meal by swallowing a pewter inkstand, with its pens, pen-knife, and sand-box. The doctor also informs us that during this miraculous deglutition he was generally under the influence of brandy, but appeared to relish his strange food, and was a man of extraordinary muscular strength, who died in his seventy-ninth year!
— The World of Wonders, 1883
The Paradox of the Knower
No one knows that this sentence is true.
That sentence can’t be false, because that would lead immediately to a contradiction.
But if it’s true, then omniscience is impossible.
Therefore there can be no all-knowing being.
See No Evil
Ken Rex McElroy was the town bully of Skidmore, Mo., and a thoroughly vile man. A thief, rapist, and arsonist, he had been charged with dozens of crimes but avoided jail by intimidating witnesses.
So perhaps it’s not surprising that two townsmen finally shot him to death on July 10, 1981, in broad daylight in the center of town.
But somehow, though McElroy’s wife identified the attackers, none of the 46 witnesses could quite recall what they had seen that day.
Without corroboration, the case could not move forward–and it remains unsolved to this day.