If we take a cube and label one side top, another bottom, a third front, and a fourth back, there remains no form of words by which we can describe to another person which of the remaining sides is right and which left. We can only point and say here is right and there is left, just as we should say this is red and that blue.
— William James, The Principles of Psychology, 1890
A calisson is a flat French candy traditionally manufactured in the shape of two equilateral triangles joined along an edge. Suppose a quantity of these are packed randomly into a hexagonal container:
Each candy must take one of three orientations: east-west, northeast-southwest, or northwest-southeast.
As it happens, no matter how the candies are packed into the hexagon, an equal number will take each of these three orientations.
In the May 1989 issue of the American Mathematical Monthly, Guy David and Carlos Tomei demonstrated this with a beautifully intuitive “proof without words.” What had they seen?
About 50 years after Shakespeare’s death, John Dryden’s brother-in-law James Howard rewrote Romeo and Juliet as a tragicomedy in which the lovers are happily married. His production was so unpopular that the play was performed as a tragedy on alternate evenings, but it was enough to inspire a series of dramatists to try their hands at revising the Bard.
British poet laureate William Davenant added dancing and singing to Macbeth, all reportedly “excellently performed, being in the nature of an opera.” In Irish poet Nahum Tate’s 1681 revision of King Lear, the fool is absent, the king survives, Cordelia marries Edgar, and the three sisters are reconciled. In the 1740s, David Garrick raised Juliet’s age to 18, dropped the bedroom scene, removed Rosaline, and added a brief reunion between the lovers in the tomb. (He considered these changes “few and trifling.”)
The one really interesting such idea lay with Lewis Carroll, who dreamed of “Bowldlerising Bowldler,” “i.e. of editing a Shakespeare which shall be absolutely fit for girls.” He planned to “erase ruthlessly every word in the play that is in any degree profane, or coarse, or in any sense unsuited for a girl of from 10 to 15; and then to make the best I can of what is left.” Alas, he never completed the project.
While Bret Harte was serving as proofreader for a provincial newspaper in Yreka, Calif., he was asked to consider a flowery obituary that contained the sentence “Even in Yreka her chastity was conspicuous.”
Harte realized with a smile that the writer had probably meant “charity,” so he underscored “chastity” and put a question mark in parentheses in the margin, to indicate that the word should be checked.
The following morning he picked up the paper and read: “Even in Yreka her chastity was conspicuous (?)”
A contronym is a word with two contrary meanings, such as cleave or sanction (more here).
The word contronym itself has no double meaning. Is it a contronym?
“Not until I came along!” writes Charles Melton in Word Ways. “I declare that it is a contronym for the simple reason that it isn’t! It is both a self-opposite and not a self-opposite. QED.”
In early April 1922, a little girl, Pauline Picard, disappeared from her parents’ farm in Brittany. Searches turned up no clues, and eventually it was thought that she had been carried off by gypsies.
Then word came from Cherbourg that a girl had been found who matched Pauline’s description. The parents hurried to claim her, but they found that the girl did not seem to know them, and she remained silent when addressed in Breton. They returned with her to their village, where the neighbors recognized her, and the attending policeman was satisfied she was Pauline Picard.
Then, in May, a farmer crossing a local field discovered the mutilated body of a young girl. She could not be identified, but her parents recognized Pauline’s clothes.
The New York Times reported: “Although it would seem almost incredible that the parents should make a mistake, the Picards are now uncertain whether the child they have been nursing for more than a month is really their own, and the police are faced by a three-fold task — to discover the murderer, identify the murdered child, and, if she is proved to be Pauline Picard, discover the identity of the little girl from Cherbourg.”
I can’t find any record that they succeeded.
A schoolmaster gave a Latin grammar to the 10-year-old Winston Churchill and directed him to learn a series of words.
Churchill found it an “absolute rigmarole” but memorized the list and reeled it off when asked.
‘But,’ I repeated, ‘what does it mean?’
‘Mensa means a table,’ he answered.
‘Then why does mensa also mean O table,’ I enquired, ‘and what does O table mean?’
‘Mensa, O table, is the vocative case,’ he replied.
‘But why O table?’ I persisted in genuine curiosity.
‘O table,–you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table.’ And then seeing he was not carrying me with him, ‘You would use it in speaking to a table.’
‘But I never do!’ I blurted out in honest amazement.
“Such was my introduction,” he later wrote, “to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.”
Founded by Daniel Dennett, the Philosophical Lexicon converts philosophers’ surnames into useful words (with often pointed definitions):
And, inevitably, dennett: “To while away the hours defining surnames.”
In November 2003, Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics challenged its readers to discover why Ed Wolpow had sent in the following poem:
ADIRONDACK SHINGLES
Among old and crafty mountain men,
Far gone in their heart-held dreaming,
Nearest neighbor one mile down a rock road,
Busy poking old and peeling car bonnets,
An owl hoots past a tin ear.
The sunny period in every week
Is time for one–one hoarse chuckle.
It’s not the place for foxy generals
Nor a spiffy consul, furtive, medalled.
No young and flaxen onlookers
With peach fuzz included.
Extant alumni of a meaner university
Plead for simple knots and bolts.
Home to fossil icons of steep hills,
And not fossil verses which gleam
With glib phrases that parse nicely,
A rogue element in every line.
The answer is that each line contains the name of an element.
Phrases most in demand by American visitors to Paris, compiled by Robert Benchley:
Pronunciation:
a = ong
e = ong
i = ong
o = ong
u = ong
Haven’t you got any griddle-cakes?
N’avez-vous pas des griddle-cakes?
What kind of a dump is this, anyhow?
Quelle espèce de dump is this, anyhow?
Do you call that coffee?
Appelez-vous cela coffee?
Where can I get a copy of the N.Y. Times?
Où est le N.Y. Times?
What’s the matter? Don’t you understand English?
What’s the matter? Don’t you understand English?
Of all the godam countries I ever saw.
De tous les pays godams que j’ai vu.
I haven’t seen a good-looking woman yet.
Je n’ai pas vu une belle femme jusqu’à présent.
Here is where we used to come when I was here during the War.
Ici est où nous used to come quand j’étais ici pendant la guerre.
Say, this is real beer all right!
Say, ceci est de la bière vrai!
Oh boy!
O boy!
Two weeks from tomorrow we sail for home.
Deux semaines from tomorrow nous sail for home.
Then when we land I’ll go straight to Childs and get a cup of coffee and a glass of ice-water.
Sogleich wir zu hause sind, geh ich zum Childs und eine tasse kaffee und ein glass eiswasser kaufen.
“Word you will have little use for”:
Vernisser — to varnish, glaze.
Nuque — nape (of the neck).
Egriser — to grind diamonds.
Dromer — to make one’s neck stiff from working at a sewing machine.
Rossignol — nightingale, picklock.
Ganache — lower jaw of a horse.
Serin — canary bird.
Pardon — I beg your pardon.
