Someone asked Wellington, at a dinner party, what was the most inane remark he had ever heard. His reply — possibly not politically correct — was that before a battle in the Peninsular War he had heard a Portuguese General address his troops saying, ‘Remember, men, you are Portuguese.’
What’s New, Pussycat?
Tom Jones’ “Sex Bomb” rendered in the style of a 16th-century chanson, by music theory lecturer Jonas Quin:
Via MetaFilter.
“We and They”
Father, Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.
And They live over the sea,
While We live over the way,
But — would you believe it? — They look upon We
As only a sort of They!
We eat pork and beef
With cow-horn-handled knives.
They who gobble Their rice off a leaf,
Are horrified out of Their lives;
And They who live up a tree,
And feast on grubs and clay,
(Isn’t it scandalous?) look upon We
As a simply disgusting They!
We shoot birds with a gun.
They stick lions with spears.
Their full-dress is un-.
We dress up to Our ears.
They like Their friends for tea.
We like Our friends to stay;
And, after all that, They look upon We
As an utterly ignorant They!
We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!
All good people agree,
And all good people say,
All nice people, like Us, are We
And every one else is They:
But if you cross over the sea,
Instead of over the way,
You may end by (think of it!) looking on We
As only a sort of They!
— Kipling
An Orderly Vacation
A puzzle from Peter Winkler’s excellent Mathematical Puzzles (2021):
A certain island contains a network of roads. Each road segment (between one intersection and the next) has its own name. If d is the average number of road segments that meet at an intersection, show that it’s possible to take a drive on the island that traverses at least d road segments and hits them in alphabetical order.
Shelf Concepts
Henry Wheatley’s 1878 monograph “What Is an Index?” gives a list of “titles of books that have given trouble to bibiographers” or been assigned to the wrong subjects:
- Maria Edgeworth’s “Essay on Irish Bulls” and a treatise on the Great Seal of the United States have both been listed under Zoology.
- A description of Napier’s bones, John Napier’s manual calculating device, has been listed under Anatomy.
- “Under the Microscope,” poet Algernon Charles Swinburne’s 1872 invective against critic Robert Buchanan, has been listed under Optical Instruments.
- A volume of poetry titled The Viol and the Lute has been listed under Musical Instruments.
- John Ruskin’s Notes on the Construction of Sheepfolds, an 1851 pamphlet on divinity, has been listed under Agriculture.
- Scottish minister William McEwen’s writings on biblical types have been listed under Printing.
Best: German naturalist Johann Heinrich Linck’s De stellis marinis liber singularis, a treatise on sea stars, has been listed under Astronomy.
Road Thoughts
A puzzle by Sam Loyd:
Here is a pretty problem which I figured out during a ride from Bixley to Quixley astride a razor-back mule. I asked Don Pedro, a native guide who walked ahead of me pulling the mule forward by its reins, if my steed had another gait. He said it had but that it was much slower, so I pursued my journey at uniform speed. To encourage Don Pedro, who was my chief propelling power, I said we would pass through Pixley, so as to get some liquid refreshments; and from that moment he could think of nothing but Pixley.
After we had been traveling for forty minutes I asked how far we had gone. Don Pedro replied: ‘Just half as far as it is to Pixley.’
After creeping along for seven miles more I asked: ‘How far is it to Quixley?’ He replied as before: ‘Just half as far as it is to Pixley.’
We arrived at Quixley in another hour, which induces me to ask you to determine the distance from Bixley to Quixley.
The Ringelmann Effect
In studying the relationship between productivity and efficiency in 1913, French agricultural engineer Maximilien Ringelmann found that members of a group perform worse on average as the size of the group increases. In a tug of war, as the size of a team grows, each member begins to “loaf,” relying on his teammates to put forth the necessary effort. Worse, the team’s growing size makes it increasingly difficult to coordinate its actions.
Interestingly, though, ants have been shown to increase in efficiency when working in teams. New World army ants can carry larger loads as a team than if the burden were distributed among them individually, and Weaver ants organize pulling chains that can effectively double the strength of each member. So “the Ringelmann effect” isn’t inescapable.
Lingua Franca
Mathematician Giuseppe Peano created an auxiliary language to facilitate communication between people of different nations. Latin already served as an international language, he reasoned; “Latino sine flexione” could retain that language’s vocabulary but simplify its grammar as much as possible. In a 1908 speech announcing the idea, he began speaking in classical Latin and adopted each simplification as he described it until he was speaking in the new language. Here’s the Lord’s Prayer:
Nostro patre, qui es in caelos,
que tuo nomine fi sanctificato;
que tuo regno adveni;
que tuo voluntate es facto
sicut in caelo et in terra.
Da hodie ad nos nostro pane quotidiano,
et remitte ad nos nostro debitos,
sicut et nos remitte ad nostro debitores.
Et non induce nos in tentatione,
sed libera nos ab malo.
Amen.
In the end it was not widely adopted, but most of Peano’s books and papers are written in his proposed language.
A Fable
A paper kite, that soared on high,
While looking down was able to descry
A joyous butterfly,
And cried, “We faintly see your foolish efforts zealous;
Confess that you are rather jealous,
When you behold our elevated lot.”
“Jealous? Oh, surely not.
Your grandeur is a phantom, or an empty vision,
Your tethered flight awakes, believe me, but derision;
Can happiness be got from an existence ever fettered?
And how could life for me be bettered?
As I aspire I venture higher,
And never, solely for another’s idle leisure
And pleasure,
Lose freedom I desire.”
— Ivan Krylov
Succinct
A puzzle by Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, from the October 1991 issue of Games magazine:
You’re visiting a familiar island on which each resident either invariably lies or invariably tells the truth. Three residents appear.
Resident 1: We’re all liars.
Resident 2: Just one of us is a truth teller.
The third resident doesn’t speak. Which of the three are telling the truth?