“Pitkern”

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The mutiny on the Bounty is a landmark of sea law, but it also has a curious linguistic sequel. After setting Captain Bligh adrift, Fletcher Christian fled to Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific. With him were eight other crewmen, six Tahitian men, and 11 women. In order to understand each other, they developed a creole mix of English and Tahitian known as “Pitcairnese”:

English Pitkern
How are you? Whata way ye?
Where are you going? About ye gwen?
Are you going to cook dinner? You gwen whihi up suppa?
Would you like some food? Ye like-a sum whettles?
I don’t think so I nor believe
It doesn’t matter Do’ mine

The mutineers were a diverse lot, with origins from Scotland to the West Indies, so the mix is a linguistic hodgepodge. For instance, “whettles,” above, meaning food, is a throwback to the Old English victuals.

| History · Language

Cecil Rhodes’ Secret Ambition

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Now remembered chiefly for establishing Rhodes scholarships, South African diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes left an alarming provision in his will — he hoped to take over the world:

To and for the establishment, promotion and development of a Secret Society, the true aim and object whereof shall be for the extension of British rule throughout the world, the perfecting of a system of emigration from the United Kingdom, and of colonisation by British subjects of all lands where the means of livelihood are attainable by energy, labour and enterprise, and especially the occupation by British settlers of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the Islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the Islands of the Pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire, the inauguration of a system of Colonial representation in the Imperial Parliament which may tend to weld together the disjointed members of the Empire and, finally, the foundation of so great a Power as to render wars impossible and promote the best interests of humanity.

“I contend that we (the British) are the finest race in the world,” he once wrote, “and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race.”

| History

Petroleum V. Nasby on “The Woman Question”

  • From the begining woman has occupied a dependent position, and has been only what man has made her. The Turks, logical fellows, denied her a soul, and made of her an object of barter and sale; the American Indians made of her a beast of burden. In America, since we extended the area of civilization by butchering the Indians, we have copied both.
  • The inferiority of the sex is easy of demonstration. It has been said that the mother forms the character of the man so long, that the proposition has become axiomatic. If this be true, we can crush those who prate of the equality of women, by holding up to the gaze of the world the inferior men she has produced. Look at the Congress of the United States.
  • My friend is learned. She has a tolerable knowledge of Greek, is an excellent Latin scholar, and as she has read the Constitution of the United States, she excels in political lore the majority of our representatives in Congress. But nevertheless I protest against her voting for several reasons:
    1. She cannot sing bass! Her voice, as Dr. Bushnell justly observes in his blessed book, is pitched higher than the male voice, which indicates feminine weakness of mind.
    2. Her form is graceful rather than strong.
    3. She delights in millinery goods.
    4. She can’t grow whiskers.

— Satirical lyceum speaker Petroleum Vesuvius Nasby, “The Struggles of a Conservative with the Woman Question,” 1868

| History · Society

A Word to the Wise

“Servants are a necessary evil. He who shall contrive to obviate their necessity, or remove their inconveniences, will render to human comfort a greater benefit than has yet been conferred by all the useful-knowledge societies of the age. They are domestic spies, who continually embarrass the intercourse of the members of a family, or possess themselves of private information that renders their presence hateful, and their absence dangerous. It is a rare thing to see persons who are not controlled by their servants. Theirs, too, is not the only kitchen cabinet which begins by serving and ends by ruling.”

— From The Laws of Etiquette, by “A Gentleman,” 1836

| History · Society

The Turk

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People were willing to believe in a chess-playing automaton as early as 1769. That’s when Wolfgang von Kempelen unveiled “The Turk,” a cloaked and turbaned robot that played over a maplewood cabinet full of clockwork. The contraption toured the courts of Europe, where it beat Benjamin Franklin and Charles Babbage, among many others.

The machine’s secret emerged only in 1854, after the automaton was destroyed in the great Philadelphia fire. The cabinet had contained a human player who followed the game by watching magnets on the board’s underside. He made his moves on a secondary board that transmitted them to the Turk.

Still, it played some good games. Here it beats the crap out of Napoleon Bonaparte, who has White:

1. e4 e5 2. Qf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ne2 Bc5 5. a3 d6 6. O-O Bg4 7. Qd3 Nh5 8. h3 Bxe2 9. Qxe2 Nf4 10. Qe1 Nd4 11. Bb3 Nxh3+ 12. Kh2 Qh4 13. g3 Nf3+ 14. Kg2 Nxe1+ 15. Rxe1 Qg4 16. d3 Bxf2 17. Rh1 Qxg3+ 18. Kf1 Bd4 19. Ke2 Qg2+ 20. Kd1 Qxh1+ 21. Kd2 Qg2+ 22. Ke1 Ng1 23. Nc3 Bxc3+ 24. bxc3 Qe2# 0-1

| History · Technology

War Pigeon

Humans have no monopoly on valor. A pigeon won the French Croix de Guerre for heroic service delivering messages in Verdun during World War I.

Cher Ami, a Black Check cock, delivered 12 important messages for the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

On his final mission, during the battle of the Argonne in October 1918, he was shot through the breast and still delivered his message. It was found in a capsule hanging from his shattered leg, and helped saved around 200 U.S. soldiers of the 77th Infantry Division’s “Lost Battalion.”

| History

“Sending Vessels Over Niagara Falls”

“SENDING VESSELS OVER NIAGARA FALLS. — There have been three such instances. The first was in 1827. Some men got an old ship — the Michigan — which had been used on Lake Erie, and had been pronounced unseaworthy. For mere wantonness they put aboard a bear, a fox, a buffalo, a dog and some geese and sent it over the cataract. The bear jumped from the vessel before it reached the rapids, swam toward the shore, and was rescued by some humane persons. The geese went over the falls, and came to the shore below alive, and, therefore, became objects of great interest, and were sold at high prices to visitors at the Falls. The dog, fox, and buffalo were not heard of or seen again.

“Another condemned vessel, the Detroit, that had belonged to Commodore Perry’s victorious fleet, was started over the cataract in the winter of 1841, but grounded about midway in the rapids, and lay there till knocked to pieces by the ice.

“A somewhat more picturesque instance was the sending over the Canada side of a ship on fire. This occurred in 1837. The vessel was the Caroline, which had been run in the interest of the insurgents in the Canadian rebellion. It was captured by Colonel McNabb, an officer of the Canada militia, and by his orders it was set on fire then cut loose from its moorings. All in flames, it went glaring and hissing down the rapids and over the precipice, and smothered its ruddy blaze in the boiling chasm below. This was witnessed by large crowds on both sides of the falls, and was described as a most magnificent sight. Of course there was no one on board the vessel.”

— From Barkham Burroughs’ Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889

| Entertainment · History

An Unlikely Spy

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Looks pretty innocuous, right? This is part of a letter composed by New York doll shop owner Velvalee Dickinson in May 1942. The FBI decoded it as follows:

I just secured information on an aircraft carrier warship. It had been damaged, that is, torpedoed in the middle. But it is now repaired. … They could not get a mate for this, so a plain ordinary warship is being converted into a second aircraft carrier. …

Probably she was referring to the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Saratoga. Apparently Dickinson had been operating as a Japanese spy throughout the war — her letters to Buenos Aires, ostensibly about doll collecting, had actually contained detailed information about U.S. warships, coastal defenses, and repair operations.

She protested her innocence but got the maximum sentence, 10 years and a $10,000 fine. She died in 1980.

| Crime · History

Wisdom of the Seven Sages

The condensed wisdom of Greece’s “seven sages,” as recorded on the temple wall at Delphi:

  • Solon of Athens – “Nothing in excess.”
  • Chilon of Sparta – “Know thyself.”
  • Thales of Miletus – “To bring surety brings ruin.”
  • Bias of Priene – “Too many workers spoil the work.”
  • Cleobulus of Lindos – “Moderation is the chief good.”
  • Pittacus of Mitylene – “Know thine opportunity.”
  • Periander of Corinth – “Forethought in all things.”
| History