“The Siege of Djklxprwbz”

Before a Turkish town
The Russians came
And with huge cannon
Did bombard the same.

They got up close
And rained fat bombshells down,
And blew out every
Vowel in the town.

And then the Turks,
Becoming somewhat sad,
Surrendered every
Consonant they had.

— Eugene Fitch Ware

A soldier of the Russians
Lay japanned at Tschrtzvkjskivitch,
There was lack of woman’s nursing
And other comforts which
Might add to his last moments
And smooth the final way;–
But a comrade stood beside him
To hear what he might say.
The japanned Russian faltered
As he took that comrade’s hand,
And he said: “I never more shall see
My own, my native land;
Take a message and a token
To some distant friends of mine
For I was born at Smnlxzrskgqrxzski,
Fair Smnlxzrskgqrxzski on the Irkztrvzkimnov.”

— W.J. Lampton

| Poems

Oops

In 1950, Stanford graduate student Robert E. Young realized that two chapters of Henry James’ novel The Ambassadors had been reversed in every American edition since 1903.

“Various discrepancies in facts and time are apparent on careful reading of the chapters in their present order,” he wrote. “On the other hand, the reversal of the two results in the complete elimination of these discrepancies.”

It turned out that the two chapters appeared in the opposite order in the English editions, and many American publishers adopted that order accordingly.

But James himself had not noted any error in revising the American text in 1909, and it’s possible to view that version as correct and the English text as reversed, if one allows for some chronological inconsistency.

The result is that there is no definitive text. “The mishap is particularly ironic,” Young wrote, “in view of the fact that James regarded The Ambassadors as his most perfectly constructed novel, his masterpiece.”

| Literature

Immemorial

http://www.palmbeachbiketours.com/santa-fes-dennis-oleary-who-was-he/
Image: Ken Steinhoff

New Mexico’s Santa Fe National Cemetery contains 16,000 headstones and only one statue, a life-size sandstone carving of Army private Dennis O’Leary, who died in 1901 at age 23.

Legend has it that O’Leary was stationed at lonely Fort Wingate, where he carved the statue himself, inscribed the death date, and shot himself. Military records show that a Pvt. Dennis O’Leary died of tuberculosis on this date. But then who carved the statue, and why?

| Death · Oddities

Officer Material

Three privates in the Army Air Forces caused some confusion when they showed up at the advanced flying school at Mather Field in California in 1942.

Their names were Admiral C. Allen, General Rudolph Merriweather, and Lieutenant Garnes. (Berkeley Daily Gazette, Oct. 8, 1942)

General L. Phillips and Lieutenant Tisdale were inducted into the Army (as privates) in Knoxville, Tenn., in 1952. (Lubbock Evening Journal, March 20, 1952)

“Private Colonel Underwood found it convenient to drop the title when requesting hotel reservations while on leave,” wrote Elsdon Coles Smith in The Story of Our Names (1970). “He would say, ‘This is Colonel Underwood speaking.’ It usually worked.”

| Language

Dog Tech

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=4n1eAAAAEBAJ

With J.R. Richards’ dog exercising device, patented in 1939, your pet can walk himself. Just strap him into the harness above the adjustable treadmill and he can “walk, run or exercise at practically any speed, according to his own desire, and without compulsion, preliminary training or instruction.” (The device is not powered, so the dog controls the pace.)

After his workout, send him through Clem Blafford’s automatic dog washer, below, which will spray him with soapy and then clear water and then blow him dry. “It is undesirable to remove the animal from the housing while it is still wet since the animal in such conditions generally shakes itself vigorously … and this results in the animal handler, the adjacent floor, walls and any others who may be in the vicinity being the recipient of the water.”

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=9-AvAAAAEBAJ

| Technology

Words and Numbers

There are only six integers between 1 and 1,000,000 whose English names contain six letters: ELEVEN, TWELVE, TWENTY, THIRTY, EIGHTY, and NINETY.

As it happens, the same is true in Spanish: CUATRO (4), QUINCE (15), VEINTE (20), MIL UNO (1,001), MIL DOS (1,002), and DOS MIL (2,000).

(Thanks, Claudio.)

| Language

Sparks

http://books.google.com/books?id=kI1aAAAAMAAJ&rview=1&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Many of the characters in Lewis Carroll’s stories were suggested by the illustrated tiles that decorated the fireplace in his study at Christ Church, Oxford:

  • At top is the ship that the Bellman steered, though “the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes.”
  • At top left is the Lory, who joined in the Caucus-Race in Alice in Wonderland.
  • Below the Lory is the Dodo, who claimed a thimble as his prize.
  • At bottom left is the Fawn that couldn’t remember its name in Through the Looking-Glass.
  • At top right is the Eaglet, another Caucus-Race participant.
  • Below the Eaglet is the Gryphon, also from Wonderland.
  • At bottom right is the Beaver from “The Hunting of the Snark,” the only creature that the Butcher knew how to kill.

One of Carroll’s child-friends, Enid Stevens, supplied these particulars for The Lewis Carroll Picture Book, published in 1899. “As I sat on Mr. Dodgson’s knee before the fire,” she wrote, “he used to make the creatures have long and very amusing conversations between themselves. The little creatures on the intervening tiles used to ‘squirm’ in at intervals. I think they suggested the ‘Little birds are feeding,’ &c., in ‘Sylvie and Bruno.'”

| Literature

Limericks

When you think of the hosts without no.
Who are slain by the deadly cuco.,
It’s quite a mistake
Of such food to partake,
It results in a permanent slo.

A young lady sings in our choir
Whose hair is the color of phoir,
But her charm is unique,
She has such a fair chique,
It is really a joy to be nhoir.

There once was a choleric colonel
Whose oaths were obscene and infolonel,
And the chaplain, aghast,
Gave up protest at last,
But wrote them all down in his jolonel.

— Anonymous

| Language · Poems