Actress Alice Jeanne Leppert could have chosen any stage name she liked, but she decided on Alice Faye.
She didn’t notice that this is Pig Latin for phallus.
Brad Pitt’s daughter is named Shiloh … which yields an unfortunate spoonerism.
See Double Feature.
In his Night Thoughts (1953), Edmund Wilson lists these “anagrams on eminent authors”:
A! TIS SOME STALE THORN.
I ACHE RICH BALLADS, M!
I’M STAGY WHEN NEER.
LIVE MERMAN: HELL.
AWFUL KILLIN’, ERMA!
MAKZ ‘N NICE COMPOTE.
He gives no solutions. How many can you identify?
08/23/2023 UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Golding worked out the answers:
THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT
ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
HERMAN MELVILLE
WILLIAM FAULKNER
COMPTON MACKENZIE
Thanks, Jonathan!
In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the “close door” button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003.
Similarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. “You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat,” said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. “Guess what? They quit calling you.”
In 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 “walk” buttons in New York intersections do nothing. “The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on.”
(Thanks, Tad.)
The situation is reminiscent of the two monks, Theophilus and Gottlieb, who are quarreling over whether one may engage in smoking and praying at the same time. Theophilus, an unbending ascetic, says no. Gottlieb, an easy-going smoker, says why not. They meet again some weeks later. Theophilus triumphantly reports, ‘I took the issue to the pope. I asked him point-blank “Is it permissible to smoke during prayer?” and he said “Absolutely not.”‘ Gottlieb protests: ‘That’s not what he said when I asked him.’ He smiles sheepishly. ‘Of course I did phrase the question a little differently. I asked him “Is it permissible to pray while I smoke?” and he said “Of course.”‘
— Leo Katz, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds, 1987
A French diplomat, seeking to ingratiate himself with the patriotic Lord Palmerston, said, “If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman.”
“If I were not an Englishman,” replied Palmerston, “I should wish to be an Englishman.”
At a London banquet, Winston Churchill was asked who he would most like to be.
He took his wife’s hand and said, “If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be Mrs. Churchill’s second husband.”
Roll this magic square into a tube by joining the upper and lower edges, then join the ends of the tube. Every row, column, and diagonal on the resulting torus will add to 34.
Bend this chessboard similarly into a torus, then mate in 4.
Hint: The solution comprises only two lines.
In 1968, Australian psychologist Paul R. Wilson took a visiting Englishman around to five different groups of Sydney students. He introduced the man differently to each group, and when the visitor had left, Wilson asked the students to estimate his height. Results:
That’s an increase of 2.5 inches. “Wilson’s experiment suggests that extra inches are available to anyone who achieves increasing degrees of success, on campus or off,” reported Time. “But apparently the success must be of considerable dimension. For even when he was Professor England, the visitor’s estimated height still fell more than half an inch short of his actual height (6 ft. 1 in.).”
nullibiety
n. the state of being nowhere
The following story, told of Franklin’s mode of treating the animal, called in those days ‘lounger,’ is worth putting into practice occasionally, even in this age and generation:
One fine morning, when Franklin was busy preparing his newspaper for the press, a lounger stepped into the store, and spent an hour or more looking over the books, &c., and finally, taking one in his hand, asked the shop-boy the price.
‘One dollar,’ was the answer.
‘One dollar,’ said the lounger, ‘can’t you take less than that?’
‘No, indeed, one dollar is the price.’
Another hour had nearly passed, when the lounger asked, ‘Is Mr. Franklin at home?’
‘Yes, he is in the printing office.’
‘I want to see him,’ said the lounger.
The shop-boy immediately informed Mr. Franklin that a gentleman was in the store wanting to see him. Franklin was soon behind the counter, when the lounger, with book in hand, addressed him thus: ‘Mr. Franklin, what is the lowest you can take for this book?’
‘One dollar and a quarter,’ was the ready answer.
‘One dollar and a quarter? Why, your young man asked only a dollar.’
‘True,’ said Franklin, ‘and I could have better afforded to have taken a dollar then, than to have been taken out of the office.’
The lounger seemed surprised, and wishing to end the parley of his own making, said, ‘Come, Mr. Franklin, tell me what is the lowest you can take for it.’
‘One dollar and a half.’
‘One dollar and a half? Why, you offered it yourself for a dollar and a quarter.’
‘Yes,’ said Franklin, ‘and I had better have taken that price then, than a dollar and a half now.’
The lounger paid down the price, and went about his business–if he had any–and Franklin returned into the printing office.
— Arthur’s Home Magazine, January 1854
Thomas Edison offered this burlesque on perpetual motion. “There will always be a nine opposed to a six,” explains Sam Loyd, “and as nine weighs more than six, it will make the wheel revolve rapidly, as well as your head when you understand it thoroughly.”