Sure Thing, Boss

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:David-Michelangelo-detail.png

I cannot omit a rather childish story which Vasari tells about the David. After it had been placed upon its pedestal before the palace, and while the scaffolding was still there, Piero Soderini, who loved and admired Michelangelo, told him that he thought the nose too large. The sculptor immediately ran up the ladder till he reached a point upon the level of the giant’s shoulder. He then took his hammer and chisel, and, having concealed some dust of marble in the hollow of his hand, pretended to work off a portion from the surface of the nose. In reality he left it as he found it; but Soderini, seeing the marble dust fall scattering through the air, thought that his hint had been taken. When, therefore, Michelangelo called down to him, ‘Look at it now!’ Soderini shouted up in reply, ‘I am far more pleased with it; you have given life to the statue.’

— John Addington Symonds, The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1893

| Art · Society

A Man of Few Words

In 1930 linguistic psychologist Charles K. Ogden offered the world Basic English, an international language that stripped conventional English down to 850 words:

Seven and eighty years have gone by from the day when our fathers gave to this land a new nation — a nation which came to birth in the thought that all men are free, a nation given up to the idea that all men are equal.

The movement reached its greatest popularity shortly after World War II, when Ogden promoted it in support of world peace; Winston Churchill thought it might promote an empire of the pen rather than the sword. But FDR pointed out that his friend’s “blood, toil, tears, and sweat” would be reduced to “blood, work, eye water, and face water” in the language’s ruthlessly simplified vocabulary, and in 1945 the BBC suggested that Basic English be left “on a high shelf in a dark corner.” Ogden passed away 12 years later.

| Language

Carry-Out

http://books.google.com/books?id=TbUvAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

The small spaniel shown in the photograph is the heroine of a remarkable aerial adventure. The dog belongs to Wm. Marshman, who has a ranch on Cow Creek, near Encampment, Wyoming. Marshman happened to be in the barn while the dog was running in the pasture close by. On coming out of the barn a little later he saw a large bald eagle swoop down upon the spaniel, seize her with beak and talons, and ascend slowly into the air. He went to the house and returned with his rifle, and by this time the eagle had ascended about one hundred feet, but the dog becoming quite heavy and struggling continually caused the eagle to gradually descend until he came within twenty feet from the ground. A hasty shot from the rifle caused the eagle to drop the dog and soar away before Marshman could get within range for a telling shot. The dog was considerably lacerated by the beak and talons of the eagle, and the bald spot on her head is one of the scars.

— Strand, July 1906

| Oddities

Fertile Country

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Image: Wikimedia Commons

Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, contains a group of towns whose names seem to tell a story:

Blue Ball, Bird-in-Hand, Bareville, Mount Joy, Intercourse, Paradise

In 1962, Eros magazine approached the postmasters of Blue Ball and Intercourse, saying “we have decided that it may be advantageous for our direct mail to bear the postmark of your city.” They were turned down — so they used Middlesex, N.J., instead.

| Language

Student Protest

A few days ago a little girl about twelve years of age walked deliberately into the sea near Sunderland pier, and attempted to drown herself. A pilot observing her, rushed into the watery element, and brought her safe on shore. On questioning the child as to the cause of her attempt at suicide, she declared that it was in consequence of her mother insisting upon her learning to write, and obliging her to provide money to pay for her instruction, by gathering and selling sticks!

— The Morning Chronicle, Jan. 31, 1815

| Society

All the Way Down

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Irrationality_of_sqrt2.svg

Caltech number theorist Tom Apostol devised this elegant proof of the irrationality of \sqrt{2}.

Suppose the number is rational. Then there must be an isosceles right triangle with minimum integer sides (here, triangle ABC with sides n and hypotenuse m).

By drawing two arcs as shown, we can immediately establish triangle FDC — a smaller isosceles right triangle with integer sides.

This leads to an infinite descent. Hence n and m can’t both be integers, and \sqrt{2} is irrational.

| Science & Math

Roll Call

More unusual personal names:

From John Train’s Remarkable Names of Real People (1988):

  • Ave Maria Klinkenberg
  • Gaston J. Feeblebunny
  • Humperdink Fangboner
  • Larry Derryberry
  • Mary Louise Pantzaroff
  • Norman Icenoggle
  • Primrose Goo
  • Rapid Integration
  • Verbal Funderburk

From Barbara Fletcher’s Don’t Blame the Stork (1981):

  • Bobo Yawn
  • Louise Ghostkeeper
  • Constance Stench
  • Naughtybird Curtsey
  • Rat Soup
  • Sir Dingle Foot
  • Consider Arms
  • Craspius Pounders
  • Gizella Werberzerk-Piffel
  • Barbara Savage Machinest

The most impressive specimens come from H.L. Mencken’s magisterial American Language. In 1901 Loyal Lodge No. 296 Knights of Pythias Ponca City Oklahoma Territory Smith was baptized in Ponca City, and in 1949 John Hodge Opera House Centennial Gargling Oil Samuel J. Tilden Ten Brink was interviewed for the Linguistic Atlas in upstate New York. I don’t know what he said.

| Language · Oddities

Nice Try

COMMON PLEAS — Yesterday Barton, an attorney, was brought from the Fleet prison. It was stated that the prisoner had written a very violent and voluminous libel on himself. This he procured to be printed, and then brought his action against the printer for defamation; but in this he was non-suited, and sent to prison for costs attending to the prosecution.

— Observer, Nov. 11, 1798

| Oddities · Society

A Virtue of Necessity

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

Enterprise, Ala., has the world’s only monument to an agricultural pest.

In the 1890s the Mexican boll weevil arrived in the American South and began ravaging Alabama’s cotton crop. By 1916 the insects had infested the whole state, inflicting $20 to $40 million each year in economic damages. Insecticides, controlled burning, and innovative planting schedules were tried, but nothing worked.

So local businessman H.M. Sessions convinced indebted farmer C.W. Bastion to try planting peanuts instead of cotton. When Bastion produced 8,000 bushels that year, neighboring farmers followed suit, and in 1917 Coffee County brought forth the largest peanut harvest in the nation.

Because the new, diversified crops proved more profitable than cotton, in 1919 local businessman Roscoe Fleming proposed dedicating a statue to the pest that had proven a “herald of prosperity,” and an $1,800 classical statue was commissioned from an Italian sculptor. Thirty years later, one Luther Baker fashioned a large weevil to place atop her outstretched arms. Might as well be explicit.

| Oddities