This logic puzzle game was invented by Israeli mathematician Gyora Benedek. The task is simple: Write a number in each blank square so that, in the finished diagram, a continuous chain of consecutive numbers connects the lowest number, 1, to the highest, 40. The numbers can connect horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. For example, the number 8 must go in the square above 7 because 7, 8, and 9 must occupy adjacent squares. Can you complete the rest of the diagram?
Synonyms for WRITER’S CRAMP collected by Dmitri Borgmann in 1987:
CHIROSPASM
WRITERS’ PALSY
GRAPHOSPASM
SCRIVENERS’ PALSY
MOGIGRAPHIA or MOGOGRAPHIA
PENMAN’S SPASM
WRITERS’ NEUROSIS
HYPERKINESIA
DYSGRAPHIA
WRITERS’ SPASM
A STUTTERING OF THE HAND
MOGIGRAPHIA has four principal forms: SPASTIC, PARALYTIC, NEURALGIC, and TREMULOUS. Borgmann wrote, “No longer need you suffer from the WRITER’S CRAMP of the masses — you can, instead, discourse eloquently and frequently about the plethora of more elegant-sounding ailments that I have made available to you!”
(Dmitri A. Borgmann, “Quelque Chose,” Word Ways 20:1 [February 1987], 44-53.)
You’ve dealt about half the cards for a bridge game when you’re momentarily called away. When you return, no one can remember where you left off dealing. Without counting cards, how can you finish the deal accurately, so that each player receives the cards she’d have got if you hadn’t been interrupted?
The true test of happiness is whether you know what day of the week it is. A miserable man is aware of this even in his sleep. To be as cheerful and rosy-cheeked on Monday as on Saturday, and at breakfast as at dinner is to — well, make an ideal husband.
— W.N.P. Barbellion, The Journal of a Disappointed Man, 1919
There’s no blue circle here. The space among the lines is white. In the presence of black lines, the hue of a colored object seems to bleed into the surrounding background.
The phenomenon was first discovered in 1971. It’s known as neon color spreading.
The most prolific author in history may be Charles Hamilton (1876-1961), who could turn out 80,000 words a week writing long series of stories with recurring casts of characters, often set in boys’ public schools. Hamilton wrote under a variety of names and occasionally employed other writers to help with the work, but his own lifetime output has been estimated at 100 million words.
In his 1940 essay “Boys’ Weeklies,” George Orwell writes, “The stories in the Magnet are signed ‘Frank Richards’ and those in the Gem, ‘Martin Clifford’, but a series lasting thirty years could hardly be the work of the same person every week.”
He was forced to add a footnote: “This is quite incorrect. These stories have been written throughout the whole period by ‘Frank Richards’ and ‘Martin Clifford’, who are one and the same person!”
This Alternative Heritage plaque adorns the house in Hull where John Venn was born in 1834.
In 1903, David Walsh, M.D., proposed building a national monument in Hyde Park so that the greatness of the British empire might be remembered in 8,000 years.
A square pyramid 150 feet high could enclose sculptures depicting British life and serve as a mausoleum for distinguished Britons. The cost might be defrayed by public subscription.
Asked his opinion, architect Aston Webb wrote, “It sounds to me too grand to have much chance of being carried through in this material age of ours, but I wish you all success.”
In losing chess, captures are obligatory, and the goal is to lose all one’s pieces or be stalemated. This makes it perilous from the start: Of White’s 20 legal opening moves, 13 allow Black to bait him successively through 16 consecutive captures, losing (and winning) the game by force. The example above shows what happens if White unwisely opens with 1. d3. If he’d started with 1. e3, he himself could have forced a win — if he knew all the correct lines.
Center Alley worse jester pore ladle gull hoe lift wetter stop-murder an toe heft-cisterns. Daze worming war furry wicket an shellfish parsons, spatially dole stop-murder, hoe dint lack Center Alley an, infect, word orphan traitor pore gull mar lichen ammonol dinner hormone bang. Oily inner moaning disk wicket oiled worming shorted, ‘Center Alley, gad otter bet, an goiter wark! Suture lacy ladle bomb! Shaker lake!’ an firm moaning tell gnat disk ratchet gull word heifer wark lacquer hearse toe kipper horsing ardor, washer heft-cistern’s closing, maker bets, gore tutor star fur perversions, cooker males, washer dashes an doe oily udder hoard wark. Nor wander pore Center Alley worse tarred an disgorged!
— Howard L. Chace, Anguish Languish, 1956
