To a Thesaurus

O precious codex, volume, tome,
Book, writing, compilation, work,
Attend the while I pen a pome,
A jest, a jape, a quip, a quirk.

For I would pen, engross, indite,
Transcribe, set forth, compose, address,
Record, submit–yea, even write
An ode, an elegy to bless–

To bless, set store by, celebrate,
Approve, esteem, endow with soul,
Commend, acclaim, appreciate,
Immortalize, laud, praise, extol

Thy merit, goodness, value, worth,
Experience, utility–
O manna, honey, salt of earth,
I sing, I chant, I worship thee!

How could I manage, live, exist,
Obtain, produce, be real, prevail,
Be present in the flesh, subsist,
Have place, become, breathe or inhale

Without thy help, recruit, support,
Opitulation, furtherance,
Assistance, rescue, aid, resort,
Favour, sustention, and advance?

Alack! Alack! and well-a-day!
My case would then be dour and sad,
Likewise distressing, dismal, gray,
Pathetic, mournful, dreary, bad.

Though I could keep this up all day,
This lyric, elegiac, song,
Meseems hath come the time to say
Farewell! Adieu! Good-by! So long!

— Franklin P. Adams, collected in Carolyn Wells, The Book of Humorous Verse, 1920

| Humor · Language · Poems

Sky Fanfare

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

Introduced at the end of the 19th century, hail cannons offered farmers a novel way to protect their crops: They could disrupt the formation of hailstones by blasting sound at approaching storms.

Unfortunately, there’s no scientific evidence that they work. And anyway, if loud sounds can prevent hail, won’t thunder do the work for us?

See also Japanese War Tuba.

| Technology

Market Forces

The following question was a favourite topic for discussion, and thousands of the acutest logicians, through more than one century, never resolved it: ‘When a hog is carried to market with a rope tied about its neck, which is held at the other end by a man, whether is the hog carried to market by the rope or the man?’

— Isaac Disraeli, Curiosities of Literature, 1893

| Science & Math

The Misfortune Field

One of the most enduring contributions to the [Wolfgang] Pauli legend was the ‘Pauli Effect,’ according to which Pauli could, by his mere presence, cause laboratory accidents and catastrophes of all kinds. Peierls informs us that there are well-documented instances of Pauli’s appearance in a laboratory causing machines to break down, vacuum systems to spring leaks, and glass apparatus to shatter. Pauli’s destructive spell became so powerful that he was credited with causing an explosion in a Göttingen laboratory the instant his train stopped at the Göttingen station.

– William H. Cropper, Great Physicists, 2004

(To exaggerate the effect, Pauli’s friends once arranged to have a chandelier crash to the floor when he arrived at a reception. When he appeared, a pulley jammed, and the chandelier refused to budge.)

| Oddities · Science & Math

First Class

On April 19, 1944, Howard Hughes flew a Lockheed Constellation from California to Washington, D.C., in just under seven hours.

On the way back he picked up Orville Wright in Ohio, giving him the last airplane flight of his life.

The Constellation’s wingspan, 126 feet, was 6 feet greater than the length of Wright’s first flight in 1903.

| Technology

Tacet

When George Bernard Shaw was a music critic, he dined one evening at a restaurant with a mediocre orchestra.

Recognizing Shaw, the leader sent him a note asking what he would like them to play next.

Shaw replied, “Dominoes.”

| Literature · Society

Fugue State

http://nationalatlas.gov/

John lives in an East Coast state and Mary in a West Coast state. During a phone conversation one night, they realize that it is the same time in both locations. How can this be?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles