Nothing Doing

http://faculty.upj.pitt.edu/jalexander/Research%20archive/Dodgson_gallery_of_images.htm

In 1873, Lewis Carroll borrowed the travel diary of his child-friend Ella Monier-Williams, with the understanding that he would show it to no one. He returned it with this letter:

My dear Ella,

I return your book with many thanks; you will be wondering why I kept it so long. I understand, from what you said about it, that you have no idea of publishing any of it yourself, and hope you will not be annoyed at my sending three short chapters of extracts from it, to be published in The Monthly Packet. I have not given any names in full, nor put any more definite title to it than simply ‘Ella’s Diary, or The Experiences of an Oxford Professor’s Daughter, during a Month of Foreign Travel.’

I will faithfully hand over to you any money I may receive on account of it, from Miss Yonge, the editor of The Monthly Packet.

Your affect. friend,

C.L. Dodgson

Ella thought he was joking, and wrote to tell him so, but he replied:

I grieve to tell you that every word of my letter was strictly true. I will now tell you more — that Miss Yonge has not declined the MS., but she will not give more than a guinea a chapter. Will that be enough?

“This second letter succeeded in taking me in, and with childish pleasure I wrote and said I did not quite understand how it was my journal could be worth printing, but expressed my pleasure. I then received this letter:–”

My dear Ella,

I’m afraid I have hoaxed you too much. But it really was true. I ‘hoped you wouldn’t be annoyed at my etc.’ for the very good reason that I hadn’t done it. And I gave no other title than ‘Ella’s Diary,’ nor did I give that title. Miss Yonge hasn’t declined it — because she hasn’t seen it. And I need hardly explain that she hasn’t given more than three guineas!

Not for three hundred guineas would I have shown it to any one — after I had promised you I wouldn’t.

In haste,

Yours affectionately,

C.L.D.

| Hoaxes · Language · Literature

When in Rome …

An oyster oddity: In 1954, Northwestern University biologist Frank A. Brown collected 15 oysters from the Connecticut shore and shipped them by train to Evanston, Ill. There he put them in a temperature-controlled tank in a dark room and observed them for 46 days.

The oysters opened their shells twice a day, presumably for feeding, at the time of the high tide in their home beds in Long Island Sound. After two weeks, though, their timing shifted to follow the local tides in Evanston.

Apparently they had recalibrated using the moon.

| Oddities · Science & Math

“Inscription at Persepolis”

From Robert Conger Pell’s Milledulcia (1857) — “It is said that the following puzzling inscription was found by Captain Barth, graven on marble, among the ruins of Persepolis, and by him translated from the Arabic into Latin and English”:

http://books.google.com/books?id=yFACAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

Read the words of the top row alternately with those of any of the lower rows. Thus the first sentence is “Never tell all you may know, for he who tells everything he knows often tells more than he knows.” (In the last line, sees means sees into or comprehends.)

| Language

Boilerplate

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Liverpool_Irish_raid_Q_510.jpg

Fed up with overzealous censors during World War I, an anonymous soldier devised this preformatted “love letter” for use by British troops:

In the Field.

/ / 1917.

My (dear / dearest / darling),

I can’t write much to-day as I am very (overworked / busy / tired / lazy) and the (CORPS / G.O.C. / G.S.O.I. / A.A. & Q.M.G. / HUN) is exhibiting intense activity.

Things our way are going (quite well / much as usual / pas mal).

(We / The HUNS) put up a bit of a show (last night / yesterday) with (complete / tolerable / -out any) success.

(Our / The Russian / The Italian / The Montenegrin / The Monagasque / The United States / The Brazilian / The Panama / The Bolivian / The French / The Belgian / The Serbian / The Roumanian / The Portuguese / The Japanese / The Cuban / The Chinese) offensive appears to be doing well.

The German offensive is (obviously / apparently / we will hope) a complete failure.

I really begin to think the war will end (this year / next year / some time / never).

The (flies / rations / weather) (is / are) (vile / execrable / much the same).

The _______ is (cheery / weary / languid / sore distrest / at rest).

We are now living in a (chateau / ruined farm / hovel / dugout).

I am (hoping soon to come on / about due for / overdue for / not yet in the running for) leave, which is now (on / off).

I am suffering from a (slight / severe) (______ wound / fright / shell shock). [“Or state disease. If the whole of this sentence is struck out, the writer may be presumed to be well or deceased.”]

(_______ / ______’s wife) has just (sent him / presented him with) _________.

What I should really like is ______________.

Many thanks for your (letter / parcel / good intentions).

How are the (poultry (including cows) / potatoes / children) getting on?

I hope you are (well / better / bearing up / not spending too much money / getting on better with mother).

[Insert here protestations of affection — NOT TO EXCEED TEN WORDS:] __________

Ever [state what ever] ______________

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

| History

Fire Insurance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Garden_of_eden.jpg

Samuel Dinsmoor planned ahead. By the time the Kansas schoolteacher died in 1932, he had poured 22 years and 2,273 bags of cement into fashioning a concrete Garden of Eden, including a two-story concrete house, a concrete tree of life, a concrete angel and a concrete devil, concrete images of Adam and Eve, and a concrete serpent. Dinsmoor himself lies in the mausoleum in a concrete coffin with a plate-glass window.

Why? “It seems to me that people buried in iron and wooden boxes will be frying and burning up in the resurrection morn. How will they get out when this world is on fire? Cement will not stand fire, the glass will break. This cement lid will fly open and I will sail out like a locust.”

Ever resourceful, at the foot of his coffin he placed a 2-gallon concrete jug. “In the resurrection morn, if I have to go below, I’ll grab my jug and fill it with water on the road down. They say they need water down below.”

| Oddities

“An End-Game Curio”

http://books.google.com/books?id=CqJJAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

The American Chess Bulletin of October 1917 contains a puzzle story about a boastful player who entered a local club claiming to have beaten one of the best players in the county.

Our first question was: ‘What odds did he give you?’

‘Why, none, of course,’ was the reply. ‘Topnotch was White, and he set up a fierce King’s side attack on my castled K. I had almost given up all hope when I saw that if I could only get my Kt to QR5, and he went on with his attack, I had a mate. So on my 15th move I played Kt-QR5. As I hoped, he overlooked the mate which he could have stopped with a move, and played 16 Kt-KR5, and then, of course, I mated. That is the position.’

And he set it up with the air of a conqueror.

We looked at it, saw the mate (a very commonplace one, by the way), and were turning away, when the Problemist, who was the most ‘fed up’ of us all, said in his quietest voice:

‘S—, you are a beautiful–Ananias.’

We started in surprise; it was so unlike him.

S—, with a red face and heated manner, said: ‘What do you mean? I give you my word of honor that was the position after White’s 16th move.’

‘I don’t dispute it; but still you are not telling the truth.’ And he proceeded to demonstrate to our satisfaction he was right.

During this period S— disappeared and I think it unlikely that we shall receive another visit from him.

Now, what did the Problemist demonstrate?

“Can our solvers unravel this mystery?” wrote the editors. “It is plain that the Problemist synthetically deduced that by no possibility could S— have met this precise position in the course of orthodox chess play.”

Alas, I don’t have the solution! If S— is telling the truth, then in the diagram above the black knight must have moved from b6 and the white knight from f4. Black’s mate would have been something like 16. … Nc3+ 17. bxc3 Qb6+ 18. cxb6 Rxb6+ 19. Ka1 Bxc3#. But none of these observations seems to lead anywhere. Any ideas?

UPDATE: A number of readers have analyzed this, and the strong consensus is that the position above cannot have been reached in 16 moves, as S— says it did. I had dismissed this possibility when the Problemist said “I don’t dispute it,” thinking this meant he accepted S—‘s contended move totals, but now I think that remark meant merely that the Problemist thinks S— generally dishonest. Thanks to everyone who saw more deeply than I did.

SECOND UPDATE: Wait. Another reader points out that perhaps the idea is that White’s position can be reached in 16 moves — if he gave knight odds. This is much more satisfying — the Problemist isn’t disputing the number of moves; he’s pointing out that Topnotch had offered to play with a significant handicap. This would embarrass the boastful S—, giving the whole story a satisfying punchline. It also explains why S— is asked explicitly about odds at the start, and it illuminates the rather canny phrasing about “orthodox” chess play. I’ll bet this is it.

| Puzzles

QWERTYUIOP

PEPPERROOT, PEPPERWORT, PERPETUITY, PROPRIETOR, REPERTOIRE, and, pleasingly, TYPEWRITER are all typed on the top row of a standard keyboard.

ALFALFAS and FLAGFALLS are typed on the middle row.

| Language

Technicality

A table of signs used during hours of silence by the sisters in the Syon Monastery in Isleworth, Middlesex, in the 15th century:

Ale — Make the sign of drink and draw thy hand displayed before thine ear downward.
Bed — Make the sign of a house and put thy right hand under thy cheek, and close thine eyes.
Book — Wag and move thy right hand in manner as thou shouldest turn the leaves of a book.
Cheese — Hold thy right hand flatways in the palm of thy left.
Cold — Make the sign of water trembling with thy hand or blow on thy forefinger.
Drink — Bow thy right forefinger and put it on thy nether lip.
Eating — Put thy right thumb with two forefingers joined to thy mouth.
Girdle — Draw the forefingers of either hand round about thy middle.
Glass — Make the sign of a cup with the sign of red wine.
Incense — Put thy two fingers into thy two nostrils.
Mustard — Hold thy nose in the upper part of thy right fist and rub it.
Salt — Fillip with the right thumb and forefinger over the left thumb.
Sleeping — Put thy right hand under thy cheek and forthwith close thine eyes.
Water — Join the fingers of thy right hand and move them downward droppingly.

Giraldus Cambrensis, describing the monks of Canterbury in 1180, wrote that they were “so profuse in their gesticulations of fingers and hands and arms, and in the whisperings whereby they avoided open speech, wherein all showed a most unedifying levity and license,” that he felt as if he were sitting “at a stage play or among a company of actors or buffoons: for it would be more appropriate to their Order and to their honourable estate to speak modestly in plain human speech than to use such a dumb garrulity of frivolous signs and hissings.”

| Religion

Heel!

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=BYQJAAAAEBAJ

How do you make a collar for a creature that’s all neck?

Standard animal collars such as designed for dogs and cats as well as other legged animals are not designed for the body style of a snake because the snake has no external appendages. … The concertina motion of a snake coupled with an ability to alter the shape of its circumference enables it to move through and escape any known annular restraint such as a neck-style collar.

Donald Boys’ snake collar, patented in 2002, includes a “concertina movement neutralization device” that prevents these escapes so you can take your snake outdoors. “A reptile getting more sunlight will have a better skin condition than one kept in the dark.”

| Technology