Found this on the Wikimedia Commons — a self-obligating graffito.
Good Manners
Humor
Notice
Plaque at St. Ann’s Well, Malvern, Worcestershire, August 2009.
Footwork
Conclusion of a 2021 investigation by physicist Eve Armstrong of her cat’s reactions to a laser pointer:
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fffscinating and merits further investigation.
(Eve Armstrong, “My Cat Chester’s Dynamical Systems Analysyyyyy7777777777777777y7is of the Laser Pointer and the Red Dot on the Wall: Correlation, Causation, or SARS-Cov-2 Hallucination?”, arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.17058 [2021].)
“Geographical Enigma”
Charles Craik of Weston-super-Mare received this enigmatic postcard from a friend in 1901 and sent it on to the Strand:
I think it rather cleverly done, and it took me some time before I could understand its meaning.
The principal message is on the big island in the centre of the map — an invitation to meet the sender at a café, with the day. The name of the island below on the left-hand side is at once translated, ‘If so, do.’ The names of the land at the bottom of the map are meant for ‘Same time and place as before’ and ‘Don’t let anything hinder you’ respectively.
The following is a translation beginning at the top and working to the right: ‘Straights of cash. If you don’t come, all sorts of ills befall you. Come early. Let me know if you can come or not. I say, there’s a peculiar thing! You’re getting it by degrees. Can’t you see? Bay rhum. Get your hair cut! Deuced bad straights. See you later. Don’t you see? Devil take you. You are a merry cus! Good old flipper. Love to all. Oh! Tut, tut. R.S.V.P. Yours ever, Guy.’
Still Waiting
In a 1901 parody edition, the journal Mind! offered £1,000 to any philosopher who could produce adequate documentary evidence that he:
- Knows what he means.
- Knows what anyone else means.
- Knows what everyone means.
- Knows what anything means.
- Knows what everything else means.
- Means what he says.
- Means what he means.
- Means what everyone else means.
- Means what everyone else says that he means.
- Can express what he means.
- Knows what it signifies what he means.
- Knows what it matters what he signifies.
“At first sight it might seem as though the Twelve Labours of Hercules would be in comparison with this a slighter achievement,” the editors wrote. “But in view of the extensive and peculiar knowledge of the Absolute’s Mind which is now possessed by so many philosophers, a large number of solutions may confidently be expected.”
Minimalism
There are several simple little drawing tricks which the nurse may use to arouse the interest of her patient as she uses puzzles and catches. The oldest of these is by Hogarth and represents a soldier and his dog going through a doorway. As is seen by the diagram, it consists of three straight lines and one curved one.
— William Rush Dunton, Occupation Therapy, 1915
In the 1950s, humorist Roger Price invented “Droodles,” simple enigmatic drawings explained by their captions. Frank Zappa used one on the cover of a 1982 album:
It’s called Ship Arriving Too Late to Save a Drowning Witch.
Horseplay
I just found this in a 1950 issue of Pi Mu Epsilon Journal:
Question: How many legs has a horse?
Answer: Twelve; two in front, two behind, two on each side, and one in each corner.
Later in the same volume, Marlow Sholander shows that in fact every horse has an infinite number of legs.
That’s to say nothing of color. And see Chasing Leo.
Correspondence
Excerpts from letters received by the British pensions office, quoted in George Lyttelton’s Commonplace Book, 2002:
- Mrs R. has no clothes, has not had any for many years. The clergy have been visiting her.
- In reply to your letter, I have already cohabited with your officers, so far without any result.
- You have changed my little boy to a little girl. Will this make any difference?
- Please send money at once, as I have fallen in errors with my landlord.
- I have no children, as my husband is a bus-driver and works all day and night.
- In accordance with your instructions, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope.
- I have been in bed with the doctor for a week, and he does not seem to be doing me any good. If things don’t improve I shall have to get another doctor.
- Milk is wanted for the baby, and the father is unable to supply it.
- The teeth on top are all right, but the ones in my bottom are hurting terribly.
“Almost Too Ceremonious”
A gentleman walked up to another gentleman, who was standing before the fire in a Coffee Room, and immediately said, ‘I beg your pardon, Sir, but may I ask your name?’ ‘I am not in the habit, Sir,’ said the other man, ‘of giving my name to strangers, but, as you are so pertinacious, Sir, my name is Thompson, Sir.’ ‘Then, Mr. Thompson, Sir,’ said the first speaker, ‘now I know your name, I beg, Sir, to inform you that your coat tails are on fire.’
— Frederick Locker-Lampson, Patchwork, 1879
Zoology
Reponse of a 10-year-old child invited to write an essay about a bird and a beast:
The bird that I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all by day and at night is as blind as a bat.
I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast which I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mammal. It has six sides — right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with, and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell; one can smell it far away. This is the reason for the fresh air in the country.
The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos, and when it says nothing it is because its inside is all full up with grass.
— Ernest Gowers and Sir Bruce Fraser, The Complete Plain Words, 1973