Sommelier!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:13_rackham_poe_caskofamontillado.jpg

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado” may be a classic horror story, but it’s full of “weird wine howlers,” according to Clifton Fadiman.

Fortunato, who is immured in the story, “prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine,” and Montresor, who does the immuring, adds, “I was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.”

But Fortunato tells him, “Luchesi is quite incapable of telling Amontillado from Sherry,” and, later, “Amontillado! You have been imposed upon; and as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

But Amontillado is a sherry! H. Warner Allen points out that André Simon’s wine encyclopedia defines Amontillado as “one of the most popular types of Sherry, neither too dry nor too sweet.”

Compounding this error, Montresor tells Fortunato that he wants Luchesi’s opinion of a pipe of Amontillado that he has received. But a pipe is a cask of port; a cask of sherry is a butt.

Also, Poe seems to have thought that Amontillado is an Italian wine, perhaps judging by the look of the word. Fadiman writes, “What he thought ‘a flagon of De Grâve’ could be is almost beyond conjecture.”

(Clifton Fadiman, Dionysus: A Case of Vintage Tales About Wine, 1962.)

Mens et Manus

http://cs.nyu.edu/~gottlieb/tr/back-issues/2000s/2008/2-mar-apr-tr.pdf

David Hagen offered this puzzle in MIT Technology Review in 2007. The MIT logo can be thought of as a slider puzzle. In the figure above, can you slide the tiles about so that the gray I can escape through the opening at top left?

Click for Answer

Podcast Episode 129: The Voynich Manuscript

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Voynich_Manuscript_(159).jpg

In 1912, bookseller Wilfrid Voynich discovered an illustrated manuscript that was written in a mysterious alphabet that had never been seen before. The text bears the hallmarks of natural language, but no one has ever been able to determine its meaning. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll learn about the Voynich manuscript, which has been bewildering scholars for more than a century.

We’ll also ponder some parliamentary hostages and puzzle over a tormenting acquisition.

See full show notes …

“A Postal Problem”

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lewis_Carroll_1863.jpg

Browsing the Post Office Guide in June 1891, Lewis Carroll discovered an ambiguity that produces “a very curious verbal puzzle” — he sent this pamphlet to friends and interested parties:

The Rule, for Commissions chargeable on overdue Postal Orders, is given in the ‘Post Office Guide’ in these words, (it is here divided, for convenience of reference, into 3 clauses)—

(a) After the expiration of 3 months from the last day of the month of issue, a Postal Order will be payable only on payment of a Commission, equal to the amount of the original poundage;

(b) with the addition (if more than 3 months have elapsed since the said expiration) of the amount of the original poundage for every further period of 3 months which has so elapsed;

(c) and for every portion of any such period of 3 months over and above every complete period.

You are requested to answer the following questions, in reference to a Postal Order for 10/- (on which the ‘original poundage’ would be 1d.) issued during the month of January, so that the 1st ‘period’ would consist of the months February, March, April; the 2nd would consist of the months May, June, July; and the 3rd would consist of the months August, September, October.

(1) Supposing the Rule to consist of clause (a) only, on what day would a ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(2) What would be its amount?

(3) Supposing the Rule to consist of clauses (a) and (b), on what day would the lowest ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(4) What would be its amount?

(5) On what day would a larger ‘Commission’ (being the sum of 2 ‘Commissions’) begin to be chargeable?

(6) What would be its amount?

(7) On what day would a yet larger ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(8) What would be its amount?

(9) Taking the Rule as consisting of all 3 clauses, in which of the above-named 3 ‘periods’ does clause (c) first begin to take effect?

(10) Which day, of any ‘period,’ is the earliest on which it can be said that a ‘portion’ of the ‘period’ has elapsed?

(11) On what day would the lowest ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(12) What would be its amount?

(13) On what day would a larger ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(14) What would be its amount?

(15) On what day would a yet larger ‘Commission’ begin to be chargeable?

(16) What would be its amount?

Signature:

Date:

He followed up with this supplement later that month:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Complete_Works_of_Lewis_Carroll.djvu/1302

The trouble, as I read it, is that clause (c) is ambiguous. Presumably the postal authorities intended the general rule to be that a patron had three months to redeem a postal order, and beyond this would be charged a commission (here, 1 penny) for every three months that had elapsed since the deadline — including the last such period, which would not be prorated. Unfortunately, the phrase “every complete period” means exactly that — it refers to every completed period on the calendar. This sets the clock going twice as fast as intended. Our patron should owe 1d on May 1, 2d on August 1, and 3d on November 1. But with clause (c) worded as it is, she’ll owe 1d on May 1, 4d on August 1, and 6d on November 1. The final effect is that, beyond the first period, postal patrons who follow these rules will pay twice the intended commission.

I don’t know whether the post office ever learned about this. I imagine most patrons trusted them to do the math, and no one but Carroll recognized the ambiguity.

Ups and Downs

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anecdotes,_poetry,_and_incidents_of_the_war_-_North_and_South_-_1860-1865_(1866)_(14759540261).jpg

Here’s how the Union enciphered its messages during the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln sent this dispatch on June 1, 1863:

GUARD ADAM THEM THEY AT WAYLAND BROWN FOR KISSING VENUS CORRESPONDENTS AT NEPTUNE ARE OFF NELLY TURNING UP CAN GET WHY DETAINED TRIBUNE AND TIMES RICHARDSON THE ARE ASCERTAIN AND YOU FILLS BELLY THIS IF DETAINED PLEASE ODOR OF LUDLOW COMMISSIONER

The first word, GUARD, indicates the size of a containing rectangle and the paths on which the words must be laid out to decipher the message. In this case, they’ll go up the first column, down the second, up the fifth, down the fourth, and up the third. Also, just to confuse the Confederates, every eighth word after GUARD is a null and should be discarded. So we get:

FOR     VENUS          LUDLOW   RICHARDSON AND
BROWN   CORRESPONDENTS OF       THE        TRIBUNE
WAYLAND AT             ODOR     ARE        DETAINED
AT      NEPTUNE        PLEASE   ASCERTAIN  WHY
THEY    ARE            DETAINED AND        GET
THEM    OFF            IF       YOU        CAN
ADAM    NELLY          THIS     FILLS      UP

The last steps are to remove THIS FILLS UP, which is only there to fill out the block, and to replace a few code words:

VENUS = colonel
WAYLAND = captured
ODOR = Vicksburg
NEPTUNE = Richmond
ADAM = President of the United States
NELLY = 4:30 p.m.

That gives us the final message:

For Colonel Ludlow,

Richardson and Brown, correspondents of the Tribune, captured at Vicksburg, are detained at Richmond. Please ascertain why they are detained and get them off if you can.

The President, 4:30 p.m.

This system was such a valuable source of breaking news that Lincoln often visited the military telegraph office in the War Department, next to the White House, and would chat with the operators there. One of them, David Homer Bates, who was only 18 when the war started, remembered, “Outside the members of his cabinet and his private secretaries, none were brought into closer or more confidential relations with Lincoln than the cipher-operators, … for during the Civil War the President spent more of his waking hours in the War Department telegraph office than in any other place, except the White House. … His tall, homely form could be seen crossing the well-shaded lawn between the White House and the War Department day after day with unvaried regularity.”

(From David Kahn, The Codebreakers, 1996.)

Foreign Relations

https://pixabay.com/en/pyrenees-lleida-spain-1391833/

“Such a question as, Why does everything in Spain look Spanish? is one of those apparently idiotic questions that opens up quite unexpected areas of vision.” — Northrop Frye, “Spirit and Symbol,” Words With Power, 2008

Seeing and Saying

https://pixabay.com/en/microphone-i-am-a-student-radio-1562354/

New York radio station WQXR used to inflict this pronunciation test on prospective announcers — try reading it aloud:

The old man with the flaccid face and dour expression grimaced when asked if he were conversant with zoology, mineralogy, or the culinary arts. ‘Not to be secretive,’ he said, ‘I may tell you that I’d given precedence to the study of genealogy. But since my father’s demise, it has been my vagary to remain incognito because of an inexplicable, lamentable, and irreparable family schism. It resulted from a heinous crime, committed at our domicile by an impious scoundrel. To err is human … but this affair was so grievous that only my inherent acumen and consummate tact saved me.’

It’s a minefield. In Another Almanac of Words at Play, Willard R. Espy lists the pronunciations that were considered correct:

flaccid     FLACK-sid         inexplicable      in-EX-plic-able
dour        DOO-er            lamentable        LAM-entable
grimaced    gri-MACED         irreparable       ear-REP-arable
conversant  KON-ver-sant      schism            SIZ-m
zoology     zoh-OL-o-ji       heinous           HAY-nus
mineralogy  miner-AL-o-ji     domicile          DOMM-i-sil
culinary    KEW-li-ner-y      impious           IM-pee-yus
secretive   see-KEE-tiv       err               ur
precedence  pre-SEED-ens      grievous          GREEV-us
genealogy   jan-e-AL-o-ji     inherent          in-HERE-ent
demise      de-MIZE           acumen            a-KEW-men
vagary      va-GAIR-y         consummate (adj.) kon-SUMM-it
incognito   in-KOG-ni-toe

Getting 20 of the 25 “stumpers” right was considered excellent. But that was 40 years ago, and even at the time Espy found 21 dictionary listings that accepted different pronunciations. “So not to worry when you don’t sound like WQXR,” he wrote. “One man’s AB-do-men is another man’s ab-DOUGH-men.”

Hope and Change

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canada_$0.05_1945.jpg

Canada’s “victory nickel,” struck from 1943 to 1945, included a special message to stimulate the war effort: Engraved around the rim were the words WE WIN WHEN WE WORK WILLINGLY in Morse Code.

The coin was reissued in 2005 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

Climbing Chains

Princeton mathematician John Horton Conway investigated this curious permutation:

3n ↔ 2n

3n ± 1 ↔ 4n ± 1

It’s a simple set of rules for creating a sequence of numbers. In the words of University of Calgary mathematician Richard Guy, “Forwards: if it divides by 3, take off a third; if it doesn’t, add a third (to the nearest whole number). Backwards: if it’s even, add 50%; if it’s odd, take off a quarter.”

If we start with 1, we get a string of 1s: 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, …

If we start with 2 or 3 we get an alternating sequence: 2, 3, 2, 3, 2, 3, …

If we start with 4 we get a longer cycle that repeats: 4, 5, 7, 9, 6, 4, 5, 7, 9, 6, …

And if we start with 44 we get an even longer repeating cycle: 44, 59, 79, 105, 70, 93, 62, 83, 111, 74, 99, 66, 44, …

But, curiously, these four are the only loops that anyone has found — start with any other number and it appears you can build the sequence indefinitely in either direction without re-encountering the original number. Try starting with 8:

…, 72, 48, 32, 43, 57, 38, 51, 34, 45, 30, 20, 27, 18, 12, 8, 11, 15, 10, 13, 17, 23, 31, 41, 55, 73, 97, …

Paradoxically, the sequence climbs in both directions: Going forward we multiply by 2/3 a third of the time and by roughly 4/3 two-thirds of the time, so on average in three steps we’re multiplying by 32/27. Going backward we multiply by 3/2 half the time and by roughly 3/4 half the time, so on average in two steps we’re multiplying by 9/8. And every even number is preceded by a multiple of three — half the numbers are multiples of three!

What happens to these chains? Will the sequence above ever encounter another 8 and close up to form a loop? What about the sequences based on 14, 40, 64, 80, 82 … ? “Again,” writes Guy, “there are many more questions than answers.”

(Richard K. Guy, “What’s Left?”, Math Horizons 5:4 [April 1998], 5-7; and Richard K. Guy, Unsolved Problems in Number Theory, 2004.)

For Short

Telegraph companies generally charged by the length of a message, so enterprising customers started using codes in place of common phrases. Here are some sample codes, from the ABC Universal Commercial Electric Telegraphic Code of 1901:

Nalezing – Do only what is absolutely necessary
Nalime – Will only do what is absolutely necessary
Nallary – It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be an advantage
Naloopen – It is not absolutely necessary, but well worth the outlay

If you and I both have a copy of the code book, then I can send you the word Nallary in place of the phrase “It is not absolutely necessary, but it would be an advantage” — a savings of 10 words or 51 characters without any loss of information.

Most of these code books are pretty hard-headed (here’s another), but there’s a wonderful exception — Sullivan & Considine’s Theatrical Cipher Code of 1905, “Adapted Especially to the Use of Everyone Connected in Any Way With the Theatrical Business”:

Filacer – An opera company
Filament – Are they willing to appear in tights
Filander – Are you willing to appear in tights
Filar – Ballet girls
Filaria – Burlesque opera
Filature – Burlesque opera company
File – Burlesque people
Filefish – Chorus girl
Filial – Chorus girls
Filially – Chorus girls who are
Filiation – Chorus girls who are shapely and good looking
Filibuster – Chorus girls who are shapely, good looking, and can sing
Filicoid – Chorus girls who can sing
Filiform – Chorus man
Filigree – Chorus men
Filing – Chorus men who can sing
Fillet – Chorus people
Fillip – Chorus people who can sing
Filly – Comic opera
Film – Comic opera company
Filler – Comic opera people
Filtering – Desirable chorus girl

It’s in the public domain, but I haven’t been able to find the full text online — I’m getting this from Craig Bauer’s (excellent) Secret History: The Story of Cryptology. I’ll update this post if I manage to find more.

09/28/2017 UPDATE: A reader sent me the whole book.