When I went out to throw the discus
I went and sprained some little viscus.
Since that disruption of my viscera
I don’t go out and throw the discera.
— Don Laycock
In a Word
subagitate
v. to have sex with
verecund
adj. bashful; modest
reme
v. to cry or call out
cacoëpistic
adj. badly pronounced
[Sir Walter Raleigh] loved a wench well; and one time getting up one of the Mayds of Honour up against a tree in a Wood (’twas his first Lady) who seemed at first boarding to be something fearfull of her Honour, and modest, she cryed, sweet Sir Walter, what doe you me ask? Will you undoe me? Nay, sweet Sir Walter! Sweet Sir Walter! Sir Walter! At last, as the danger and the pleasure at the same time grew higher, she cryed in the extasey, Swisser Swatter Swisser Swatter. She proved with child, and I doubt not but this Hero tooke care of them both, as also that the Product was more than an ordinary mortal.
— John Aubrey, Brief Lives, 1697
Unquote
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“Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you.” — Elias Canetti
Place Settings
In his 1954 book Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Kenneth Pike presents a toy language in which meaning is determined by the relative order of the elements. If these expressions have the indicated meanings:
1. los "It is smoke"
2. mif "It is a ball"
3. kap "They are eyes"
4. losmif "The ball is smoking"
5. miflos "The smoke is rolling"
6. mifmif "The ball is rolling"
7. mifmiflos "The smoke is rolling in round puffs"
8. mifmifkap "He is rolling his eyes around" or
"The eyes are rolling around"
9. losmifkap "His eyes roam darkly"
10. mifkaplos "The smoke is trying to escape" or
"The smoke looks around"
11. kapmifmif "I can see the ball rolling"
12. mifkapkap "He is looking around"
13. losloskap "His eyes are smoldering menacingly"
… what would be meant by kapmiflos and kapkapkap?
One or the Other
When the news of [Richelieu’s] passing was brought to Urban VIII, the old Pope sat for a moment in pensive silence. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘if there is a God, Cardinal Richelieu will have much to answer for. If not, he has done very well.’
— Aldous Huxley, Grey Eminence, 1941
Another World
You see, when you learn to read you will be born again into another world and it is a pity to be born again so young. I should put off reading, if I were you. As soon as you learn to read you will not see anything again quite as it is. It will all the time be altered by what you have read and you will never be quite alone again. I should stay by yourself a bit longer if I were you.
— Rumer Godden, to her 4-year-old daughter Jane, 1939
The Moralist
In his Table Talk, W.H. Auden says that La Rochefoucauld “simply says what one has always known.”
Robert Craft added, “Yes, but without him some of us would not have known that we knew.”
All Sides
“Conjugated nouns,” offered by Ohio State University linguist Arnold M. Zwicky in Verbatim in 1975:
I steal the keel. I stole the coal. I have stolen the colon.
They choose the hues. They chose the hose. They have chosen the hosen.
They mow the banks of the row. They mowed the banks of the road. They have mown the banks of the Rhone.
I do it with the buoys. I did it with the biddies. I have done it with the bunnies.
Mike Anglin took this up in Word Ways in 1988:
I tear the hair; I tore the whore; I have torn the horn.
I see the sea; I saw the saw; I have seen the scene.
I draw the law; I drew the loo; I have drawn the lawn.
I throw the bow; I threw the boo; I have thrown the bone.
I sink the mink; I sank the manque; I have sunk the monk.
I choose the booze; I chose the bows; I have chosen the bosun.
I weave the leaves; I wove the loaves; I have woven the love-ins.
I forsake the cake; I forsook the cook; I have forsaken the whole mess.
Philip M. Cohen added, “I scare for the mare; I score for the more; I have scorn for the morn.”
Credit
Dedication of P.G. Wodehouse’s 1926 book The Heart of a Goof:
To
My Daughter
Leonora
Without Whose Never-Failing
Sympathy and Encouragement
This Book
Would Have Been Finished
in
Half the Time
Appeal
Oh Lord, Thou knowest that I have lately purchased an estate in fee simple in Essex. I beseech Thee to preserve the two counties of Middlesex and Essex from fire and earthquakes; and as I have also a mortgage at Hertfordshire, I beg of Thee also to have an eye of compassion on that county, and for the rest of the counties, Thou may deal with them as Thou art pleased. Oh Lord, enable the bank to answer all their bills and make all my debtors good men, give a prosperous voyage and safe return to the Mermaid sloop, because I have not insured it, and because Thou has said, ‘The days of the wicked are but short’, I trust in Thee that Thou wilt not forget Thy promise, as I have an estate in reversion, which will be mine on the death of the profligate young man, Sir J. L. …g.
Keep my friends from sinking, preserve me from thieves and housebreakers, and make all my servants so honest and faithful that they may always attend to my interest and never cheat me out of my property night or day.
— John Ward, onetime M.P. for Weymouth, quoted in M.C. D’Arcy, The Mind and the Heart of Love, 1947
(This must be satire, but I haven’t been able to learn anything more about it.)
04/01/2025 UPDATE: Apparently the “prayer” was discovered among Ward’s papers after his death in 1755 — possibly he was condemning self-dealing in Parliament at the time. (Thanks to readers Brieuc de Grangechamps and Jon Anderson.)