In 1855, the town of Salitpa in southern Alabama applied for a federal post office. The residents had intended to name their community after nearby Satilpa Creek, but in completing the paperwork the applicant mistakenly crossed the L instead of the T. The town has been Salitpa ever since.
The Silver Rule
“When asked by a disciple if there were one single word which could serve as a principle of conduct for life, Confucius replied, ‘Perhaps the word reciprocity will do. Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.'” — Analects
In a Word
balneal
adj. pertaining to a warm bath
Seniority
Annie, Betty, Carrie, Darla, and Eve all have the same birthday, but all are different ages. On their shared birthday:
- Darla said to Betty: “I’m 9 years older than Eve.”
- Eve said to Betty: “I’m 7 years older than Annie.”
- Annie said to Betty: “Your age is exactly 70 percent greater than mine.”
- Betty said to Carrie: “Eve is younger than you.”
- Carrie said to Darla: “The difference between our ages is 6 years.”
- Carrie said to Annie: “I’m 10 years older than you.”
- Carrie said to Annie: “Betty is younger than Darla.”
- Betty said to Carrie: “The difference between your age and Darla’s is the same as the difference between Darla’s and Eve’s.”
Whenever one of them spoke to someone older than herself, everything she said was true, but when she spoke to someone younger, everything she said was false. How old is each person?
“To a Lost Sweetheart”
When Whistler’s Mother’s Picture’s frame
Split, that sad morn, in two,
Your tense words scorched me like a flame —
You shrieked, “Ah, glue! Get glue!”
O Glue! O God! there was not glue
Enough in all the feet
Of all the kine the wide world through
To hold you to me, Sweet!
A Union Cipher
This baffling message illustrates a cipher adopted by the Union Army in 1862:
TO GEORGE C. MAYNARD, Washington
Regulars ordered of my to public out suspending received 1862 spoiled thirty I dispatch command of continue of best otherwise worst Arabia my command discharge duty of my last for Lincoln September period your from sense shall duties the until Seward ability to the I a removal evening Adam herald tribune.
PHILIP BRUNER
The address and signature are “covers” that don’t enter into the cipher. The first word, Regulars, is a code indicating that the original message had been written in five columns of nine words each. Tribune, herald, spoiled, Seward, for, and worst are null words; Lincoln is code for Louisville, Kentucky; Adam means General Henry Wager Halleck; and Arabia is code for Major General Don Carlos Buell. The word Period indicates a full stop. This had been the original message:
Louisville, Kentucky September thirty 1862 General Halleck: (Adam) (period) I received last evening your dispatch suspending my removal from command. Out of a sense of public duty, I shall continue to discharge the duties of my command to the best of my ability until otherwise ordered. D.C. Buell, Major General
This message had been enciphered by reading up the fourth column, down the third, up the fifth, down the second, and up the first; inserting the null words; and encoding the most sensitive particulars. The system worked well until July 1864, when Union cipher operator Stephen L. Robinson was captured by Confederate guerrillas and the key seized.
(John Laffin, Codes and Ciphers Secret Writing Through the Ages, 1964.)
Conclusions
From John Boyce Bennett’s 1980 logic textbook Rational Thinking:
If it’s false that no dopips are fraks, characterize each of these propositions as true, false, or doubtful:
a. All dopips are fraks.
b. Few dopips are fraks.
c. Some dopips are fraks.
d. No fraks are dopips.
e. Some dopips are not fraks.
The Last Straw
In Marriage and Morals (1929), Bertrand Russell mentions that, while “[c]ruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, … it may be interpreted so as to become absurd”:
When the most eminent of all film stars was divorced by his wife for cruelty, one of the counts in the proof of cruelty was that he used to bring home friends who talked about Kant.
I haven’t been able to figure out who this is. Russell writes, “I hardly suppose that it was the intention of the California legislators to enable any woman to divorce her husband on the ground that he was sometimes guilty of intelligent conversation in her presence.”
05/11/2026 UPDATE: Russell was referring to the 1920 divorce of Mildred Harris from Charlie Chaplin. The two had married in 1918, when Chaplin was 29 and Harris was 16. In 2015, Silent Film Quarterly republished an interview with Harris: “He brought men home to dinner. But such men! Old, grave, and intellectual men! They were 50 years old or more. They talked of things I could not possibly understand. I was seventeen. What could I know of philosophy, or of Voltaire, or Rousseau, or Kant?” Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this.
Black and White
Progress
I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the lords to stop the progress of reform reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town; the tide rose to an incredible height; the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington’s spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs. Partington.
— Sydney Smith on the Reform Bill, Taunton, Oct. 12, 1831