A puzzle by Henry Dudeney:
If five submarines, sunk on the same day, all went down at the same spot where another had previously been sunk, how might they all lie at rest so that every one of the six U-boats should touch every other one? To simplify we will say, place six ordinary wooden matches so that every match shall touch every other match. No bending or breaking allowed.
From reader Ian Duff:
“It is easy to establish that the self-descriptive phrase ‘this phrase contains thirty-five letters’ is the only such one with a correct count. No equivalent is possible in French or German, but in Italian questa frase contiene XX lettere, where XX is a number in word form, again has only one solution.”
What is it?
Ulysses Grant and Jefferson Davis never met, but their widows became good friends. They met at West Point in June 1893, when Varina Davis arrived to watch a cadet parade. Julia Grant presented herself and said, “I am Mrs. Grant.” “I am very glad to meet you,” Davis replied.
They ate dinner together on the piazza as curious guests looked on. “She is a very noble-looking lady,” Grant said afterward. “She looked a little older than I had expected. I have wanted to meet her for a very long time.”
They corresponded and met frequently after that. At Grant’s tomb Davis heard Julia say, “I will soon be laid beside my husband in this solemn place,” and she attended the memorial service in 1902 when these words were fulfilled, among men who had fought on both sides of the war.
In a tribute to her friend published in The World in April 1897, Davis had quoted Ulysses Grant’s motto “Let us have peace.” She added, “I believe every portion of our reunited country heartily joins in the aspiration.”
(From Ishbel Ross, First Lady of the South, 1958.)
Letter to the Times, June 23, 2000:
Sir, The shortest ambiguous sentence I have come across is a road sign found everywhere in New York. It consists of three words: ‘Fine for Parking.’
But I would not like to argue the point with a New York traffic cop.
Yours faithfully,
Millett
House of Lords
10/16/2023 UPDATE: From reader Brieuc de Grangechamps:
A puzzle by Henry Dudeney:
“It will be seen that we have arranged six cigarettes so as to represent the number 57. The puzzle is to remove any two of them you like (without disturbing any of the others) and so replace them as to represent 0, or nothing.”
My neighbor has been stealing my newspaper. And when I confront him, he apologizes with a sarcastic, condescending air, as if to say that he’s surprised I can read at all. I find it impossible to forgive him, but then I learn that he’s about to lose his job. He’s an aging executive with a large family to support, and I’m sure that this misfortune will soften his scorn and make him more sincerely apologetic. I decide to forgive him when all this happens.
This seems odd — if I’m sure that he’ll lose his job and express real contrition for stealing the paper, why do I have wait for this to happen? Why can’t I forgive him now?
Another twist: I learn that I (and only I) can save his job. This would amount to doing him a large favor, so I feel justified in withholding my help until I’ve forgiven him. But is this fair? Can I refuse to help him until I get a sincere apology, knowing that this will happen only after he loses his job?
Xanthippe is angry that Socrates is late, but she knows that he’ll apologize when she starts making dinner. Knowing this, can’t she skip the dinner and just forgive him? “In other words,” asks Tennessee State University philosopher James Montmarquet, “knowing that he would apologize, may she not still forgive him — having elected, for quite good reasons, not to allow conditions apt for his apology even to take place?”
(James Montmarquet, “Planned Forgiveness,” American Philosophical Quarterly 44:3 [July 2007], 285-296.)
Once I read a book of 100 numbered pages with one sentence on each page. Page 1: ‘The sentence on page 2 is true.’ Page 2: ‘The sentence on page 3 is true.’ And so on to page 100: ‘The sentence on page 1 is false.’
On the second reading, page 100 changes the entire book. If page 1 is false, then the truth is ‘The sentence on page 2 is false.’ Likewise, page 2 becomes ‘The sentence on page 3 is false.’ And so on to page 100, which now should be read as ‘The sentence on page 1 is true.’
What happens on the third reading?
— David Morice, “Kickshaws,” Word Ways 26:1 (February 1993), 44-55. See Yablo’s Paradox.
Add the same three letters, in order, both before and after the following to make a familiar English word:
ERGRO
Linguist John Quijada designed the experimental language Ithkuil to permit “maximal communication in the most efficient manner”: Cognition processes far more information than natural languages typically express, and natural languages are full of vagueness and ambiguity; Ithkuil tries to express deep levels of cognition precisely while making the speaker’s intent clear.
The results can be striking. The 19-word English phrase “On the contrary, I think it may turn out that this rugged mountain range trails off at some point” can be expressed in two words in Ithkuil. And the passage above reads “As our vehicle leaves the ground and plunges over the edge of the cliff toward the valley floor, I ponder whether it is possible that one might allege I am guilty of an act of moral failure, having failed to maintain a proper course along the roadway.” And both of these expressions indicate the speaker’s full intent directly, where natural languages would tend to leave their full meaning to be inferred.
No one actually speaks Ithkuil — Quijada says he regards it as “an exercise in exploring how human languages could function, not how human languages do function.”
(John Quijada, A Grammar of the Ithkuil Language, 2011.)
Entries in the keyword index of C. Bernard Ruffin’s Last Words (1995), a collection of the final utterances of famous people:
Minutes before his death, retired Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter told an aide visiting him in the hospital, “I hope I don’t spoil your Washington’s birthday.”
