Small Security

What was the wonderful work of Mark Scalliot? Probably the smallest lock and key ever made. He was a London blacksmith, and this piece of mechanism (1578) was of iron, steel, and brass, all of which, with a pipe-key to it, weighed but one grain of gold. He also made a chain of gold, consisting of forty-three links, and having fastened the chain to the lock and key, he put the chain around the neck of a flea. The flea could hop around with ease in spite of the weight. The lock, key, chain and animal, all in a lump, weighed only one grain and a half.

— Albert Plympton Southwick, Handy Helps, No. 1, 1886

| Technology

“Grammatical Puzzle”

Let the rich, great, and noble banquet in the festal halls,
And pass the hours away, as the most thoughtless revel;
Then seek the poor man’s dreary home, whose very dingy walls
Proclaim full well to all how low his rank and level.

“Take away one letter from a word in the above stanza, and substitute another, leaving the word so metamorphosed still a word of the English language; and, by that change, totally alter the syntactical construction of the whole sentence, changing the moods and tenses of verbs, turning verbs into nouns, nouns into adjectives, and adjectives into adverbs, &c., and so make the entire stanza bear quite a different meaning from that which it has as it stands above.”

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| Language · Puzzles

Self-Help

In a dialogue prefixed to Lessius’ Hygiasticon (1634), a glutton reforms himself by arguing with his own echo:

Gl. My belly I do deifie.
Echo. Fie.
Gl. Who curbs his appetite ‘s a fool.
Echo. Ah, fool!
Gl. I do not like this abstinence.
Echo. Hence.
Gl. My joy ‘s a feast, my wish is wine.
Echo. Swine.
Gl. We epicures are happie, truely.
Echo. You lie.
Gl. Who ‘s that which giveth me the lie?
Echo. I.
Gl. What? Echo, thou that mock’st a voice?
Echo. A voice!
Gl. May I not, Echo, eat my fill?
Echo. Ill.
Gl. Will ‘t hurt me if I drink too much?
Echo. Much.
Gl. Thou mock’st me, Nymph! I’ll not beleeve ‘t.
Echo. Beleeve ‘t.
Gl. Dost thou condemne, then, what I do?
Echo. I do.
Gl. I grant it doth exhaust the purse.
Echo. Worse.
Gl. Is ‘t this which dulls the sharpest wit?
Echo. Best wit.
Gl. Is ‘t this which brings infirmities?
Echo. It is.
Gl. Whither will ‘t bring my soul? canst tell?
Echo. T’ Hell.
Gl. Dost thou no gluttons vertuous know?
Echo. No.
Gl. Would’st have me temperate till I die?
Echo. I.
Gl. Shall I therein finde ease and pleasure?
Echo. Yea, sure.
Gl. But is ‘t a thing which profit brings?
Echo. It brings.
Gl. To minde or bodie? or to both?
Echo. To both.
Gl. Will it my life on earth prolong?
Echo. O, long!
Gl. Will ‘t make me vigorous untill death?
Echo. Till death.
Gl. Will ‘t bring me to eternal blisse?
Echo. Yes.
Gl. Then, sweetest Temperance, I’ll love thee.
Echo. I love thee.
Gl. Then, swinish Gluttonie, I’ll leave thee.
Echo. I’ll leave thee.
Gl. I’ll be a belly-god no more.
Echo. No more.
Gl. If all be true which thou dost tell,
They who fare sparingly fare well.
Echo. Farewell!

| Language

Koko’s Morality

Koko the gorilla is famous for mastering more than 1,000 signs based on American Sign Language, which she uses to communicate with Stanford researchers.

That’s not all she’s learned from humans. One day her attendants discovered that a steel sink in her enclosure had been torn from its moorings. When they confronted her, she pointed to her pet kitten.

“Cat did it,” she signed.

| Language

Varying Reports

Which statements on this list are true?

  1. Exactly one statement on this list is false.
  2. Exactly two statements on this list are false.
  3. Exactly three statements on this list are false.
  4. Exactly four statements on this list are false.
  5. Exactly five statements on this list are false.
  6. Exactly six statements on this list are false.
  7. Exactly seven statements on this list are false.
  8. Exactly eight statements on this list are false.
  9. Exactly nine statements on this list are false.
  10. Exactly ten statements on this list are false.
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| Puzzles