Draw any two lines, pick three points on each, and lace them all together like so:
The crossings of the laces will always form a straight line.
Short Order
A servant maid was sent by her mistress to Ben Johnson, for an epitaph on her departed husband. She could only afford to pay half-a-guinea, which Ben refused, saying he never wrote one for less than double that sum; but recollecting he was going to dine that day at a tavern, he ran down stairs and called her back. ‘What was your master’s name?’–‘Jonathan Fiddle, sir.’–‘When did he die?’–‘June the 22nd, sir.’ Ben took a small piece of paper, and wrote with his pencil, while standing on the stairs, the following:–
On the twenty-second of June,
Jonathan Fiddle went out of tune.
— Horatio Edward Norfolk, Gleanings in Graveyards, 1861
Do-Gooders
In 1978, as part of an initiative to adopt gender-neutral language, the city council of Woonsocket, R.I., dubbed its manholes “personholes.”
After two weeks of nationwide derision, they changed their minds.
Time reported, “The council members voted to go back to manholes, indicating that it will be a long time before a person-person delivers Woonsocket’s mail.”
The Value of Tardiness
One day in 1939, Berkeley doctoral candidate George Dantzig arrived late for a statistics class taught by Jerzy Neyman. He copied down the two problems on the blackboard and turned them in a few days later, apologizing for the delay — he’d found them unusually difficult. Distracted, Neyman told him to leave his homework on the desk.
On a Sunday morning six weeks later, Neyman knocked on Dantzig’s door. The problems that Dantzig had assumed were homework were actually unproved statistical theorems that Neyman had been discussing with the class — and Dantzig had proved both of them. Both were eventually published, with Dantzig as coauthor.
“When I began to worry about a thesis topic,” he recalled later, “Neyman just shrugged and told me to wrap the two problems in a binder and he would accept them as my thesis.”
Black Humor
Last words of executed murderers:
- George Appel (1928): “Well, folks, you’ll soon see a baked Appel.”
- James W. Rodgers (1960): (asked for a last request) “Why, yes — a bulletproof vest.”
- Frederick Wood (1963): “Gentlemen, you are about to see the effects of electricity upon Wood.”
- James French (1966): “I have a terrific headline for you in the morning: ‘French Fries’.”
- Jimmy Glass (1987): “I’d rather be fishing.”
In 1856, English murderer William Palmer stood on the gallows and asked, “Are you sure it’s safe?”
A Show Horse
From Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum (1820), the long-tailed stallion of Augustus II, king of Poland:
The tail and mane of this horse, exhibit an extraordinary rarity, and excite a doubt whether they may not have been the effect of some artificial means: otherwise, how happens it that the hair of no other animal of this species, should have attained such a wonderful length? The stuffed hide of this horse is preserved in the armoury at Dresden; the colour is cream pye-balled, the length of the mane is nine ells, and of the tail twelve. This horse belonged to Augustus II, king of Poland, who rode him only on extraordinary occasions, when the mane was borne by pages, and the tail by grooms; when he stood in the stable, his hair was tied up in bags.
Adaptable
Ross Eckler coined the sentence Unsociable housemaid discourages facetious behaviour.
Each of the five words contains the five major vowels in a different order.
An Alphamagic Square
Each row and column in this magic square totals 170.
If you update the contents of each cell by spelling out its number in English, counting the letters and recording the result (26 = TWENTY-SIX = nine letters = 9), you’ll produce another magic square.
“A Nocturnal Sketch”
Even is come; and from the dark Park, hark,
The signal of the setting sun–one gun!
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain,–
Or hear Othello’s jealous doubt spout out,–
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade,
Denying to his frantic clutch much touch;–
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride
Four horses as no other man can span;
Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split
Laughing at Liston, while you quiz his phiz.
Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things
Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung;
The gas up-blazes with its bright white light,
And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl,
About the streets and take up Pall-Mall Sal,
Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs.
Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash,
Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep,
But frightened by Policeman B 3, flee,
And while they’re going whisper low, “No go!”
Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads.
And sleepers waking, grumble — “Drat that cat!”
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will.
Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise
In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor
Georgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly;–
But Nursemaid, in a nightmare rest, chest-pressed,
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games,
And that she hears–what faith is man’s!–Ann’s banns
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice:
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out,
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows’ woes!
— Thomas Hood, in The Knickerbocker, October 1845
Enough Already
Acclaimed English actress Sarah Siddons made her Dublin debut in May 1784. Evidently some Irish theatergoers felt the hype was excessive — here’s one sardonic review, quoted in English as She Is Wrote, 1883:
“On Sunday, Mrs. Siddons, about whom all the world has been talking, exposed her beautiful, adamantine, soft, and lovely person, for the first time at Smock Alley Theatre in the bewitching, melting, and all tearful character of Isabella. From the repeated panegyrics of the impartial London newspapers, we were taught to expect the sight of a heavenly angel, but how were we supernaturally surprised into almost awful joy at beholding a mortal goddess! … When she came to the scene of parting with her wedding ring, ah! what a sight was there! the very fiddlers in the orchestra, albeit unused to melting mood, blubbered like hungry children crying for their bread and butter! and when the bell rang for music between the acts the tears ran from the bassoon players’ eyes in such plentiful showers that they choked the finger stops, and making a spout of the instrument poured in such torrents on the first fiddler’s book that not seeing the overture was in two sharps, the leader of the band played it in one flat. But the sobs and sighs of the groaning audience and the noise of corks drawn from smelling bottles prevented the mistakes between sharps and flats being heard. One hundred and nine ladies fainted! forty-six went into fits! and ninety-five had strong hysterics. The world will scarcely credit the truth when they are told that fourteen children, five old men, one hundred tailors, and six common councilmen were actually drowned in the inundation of tears that flowed from the galleries, the slips, and the boxes, to increase the briny pond in the pit. The water was three feet deep. An Act of Parliament will certainly be passed against her playing any more!”