The classic, of course, is the story that tells how Mrs. Webster once accidentally walked into a room and found her husband kissing the maid. ‘Noah!’ she exclaimed, ‘I’m surprised.’ Noah, ever the verbalist, was nonplussed. ‘No, my dear,’ he corrected. ‘It is I who am surprised. You are astonished.’
— Evan Esar, Humorous English, 1961
In March 1985, Science Digest published four pangrams composed by its readers — each 26-letter sentence uses every letter in the English alphabet:
Shiv cwm lynx, fjord qutb, zap keg. (Randall Kryn) “A powerful Islamic saint (qutb) who lives in a fjord is told first to knife a troublesome lynx that lives in a mountain hollow (cwm) and then to celebrate by awesomely attacking a keg of brew.”
Schwyz fjord map vext Qung bilk. (Brian Phillips) “A cheat (bilk) from the Qung tribe in southern Africa could not understand a map of fjords in Schwyz, a canton of Switzerland.”
Fly vext bird; zag cwm’s qoph junk! (Kent Teufel) “A blimp explodes, shattering a sign in Hebrew. Pieces of qoph, the nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, fall into a cwm. An annoyed, low-flying bird is told to zag in order to avoid the falling pieces.”
Qoph’s jag biz vext drunk cwm fly. (Falko Schilling) “The business of making the sharp notched edge on the nineteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet irritated the inebriated fly from the mountain hollow.”
All the words appear in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary.
Last November, the National Security Agency published five pangram crosswords — in each completed grid, every letter of the alphabet must appear once.
scribacious
adj. fond of writing
moiler
n. a toiler; a drudge
demiss
adj. downcast; humble; abject
guerdon
n. a reward, recompense, or requital
By the end of the 1960s, William Gaddis had secured an advance and an NEA grant that allowed him to work full-time on the novel J R.
“Even then, however, Gaddis would be so in need of money that he would ghostwrite articles for a dentist in exchange for root canals. His son recalls one day happening to find his checkbook, and noting the balance, meticulously calculated, of twelve cents. This was at the time when Gaddis had just won the 1976 National Book Award.”
From Joseph Tabbi’s introduction to Gaddis’ “Treatment for a Motion Picture on ‘Software'” in The Rush for Second Place: Essays and Occasional Writings, 2002.
Raymond Queneau’s 1947 book Exercises in Style tells the same story in 99 different ways, from telegram to ode:
Narrative:
“One day at about midday in the Parc Monceau district, on the back platform of a more or less full S bus (now No. 84), I observed a person with a very long neck who was wearing a felt hat which had a plaited cord round it instead of a ribbon. …”
Apostrophe:
“O platinum-nibbed stylograph, let thy smooth and rapid course trace on this single-side calendared paper those alphabetic glyphs which shall transmit to men of sparkling spectacles the narcissistic tale of a double encounter of omnibusilistic cause. …”
Sonnet:
“Glabrous was his dial and plaited was his bonnet,
And he, a puny colt — (how sad the neck he bore,
And long) — was now intent on his quotidian chore —
The bus arriving full, of somehow getting on it. …”
In response, Colin Crumplin’s 1977 book Hommage à Queneau features 100 different drawings of a cup, and Philip Ording’s 99 Variations on a Proof proves the same mathematical result in 99 different ways.
renitence
n. unwillingness, resistance to persuasion
subdolous
adj. cunning, crafty, sly
autoschediasm
n. something done on the spur of the moment or without preparation
legerity
n. physical or mental quickness
FDR’s secretary of state, Cordell Hull, was famously unforthcoming, concealing his plans and emotions with the skill of a poker player.
When Hull was a legislator in Tennessee, one of his friends bet that he could get a direct answer out of him. He stopped him in the capitol and asked him the time.
Hull took out his timepiece, looked at it, and said, “What does your watch say?”
From Martin Geldart’s Guide to Modern Greek, 1883:
Here we are (arrived) at the station.
What luggage have you, sir?
I have two trunks, a travelling-bag, and a hat-box, for the luggage van.
These I wish to register.
My other luggage I will take with me.
That is to say — a foot-wrapper, a stick, three or four parcels, a gun, a lap-dog, two Turkish pipes, and a live tortoise.
As for the rest, let them pass; but for the dog a separate ticket must be taken, and he must go in the van.
As for the tortoise, you must leave that behind: we don’t convey vermin!
Vermin! So you reckon a tortoise among the vermin?
Certainly, sir; it’s an insect.
An insect! My good fellow, where did you go to school (study)?
I refer you to the Zoological Garden(s), and there you will learn, if you have any brains in your head, that the tortoise is a four-footed reptile, and that insects are all six-footed.
There’s a shilling for you, the price of admission to the Zoological Gardens, except on Mondays, when it is only sixpence.
If you have time on Mondays, go twice, that you may be more thoroughly enlightened.
Oh, that alters the question, sir! And, now I come to think of it, the landlord over the way has a book with those kind of creatures in it. I daresay you’re right (lit. Let be then). All the same, four-foot and six-foot have another meaning in my business.
All the better! Mind your own business then, and leave the four-footed reptiles to me.
The second stanza of this poem is an anagram of the first:
A girl once kept a tiny sheep,
Widely famed for whiteness:
This pet would dog her every step,
No certain sign of brightness.
‘Twas viewed, the pest, one day in class
By impish children there;
Kids laugh to see pets, goofing off,
Weren’t trying — open, err!
(Colin Rose)Lord David Cecil called Samuel Johnson “an outstanding example of the charm that comes from an unexpected combination of qualities. In general, odd people are not sensible and sensible people are not odd. Johnson was both and often both at the same time.”
Palindromes submitted by correspondent Henry Campkin to Notes and Queries in 1873:
A milksop jilted by his lass, or wandering in his wits,
Might murmer STIFF, O DAIRYMAN, IN A MYRIAD OF FITS!
A limner, by Photography dead beat in competition,
Thus grumbled: NO IT IS OPPOSED, ART SEES TRADE’S OPPOSITION!
A nonsense-loving nephew might his soldier-uncle dun,
With NOW STOP, MAJOR GENERAL, ARE NEGRO JAM POTS WON?
A supercilious grocer, if inclined that way, might snub
A child with, BUT RAGUSA STORE, BABE, ROTS A SUGAR TUB!
Thy sceptre, Alexander, is a fortress, cried Hephaestion:
Great A. said, NO, IT’S A BAR OF GOLD, A BAD LOG FOR A BASTION!
A timid creature fearing rodents — mice and such small fry —
STOP, SYRIAN, I START AT RATS IN AIRY SPOTS, might cry.
A simple soul, whose wants are few, might say, with hearty zest,
DESSERTS I DESIRE NOT, SO LONG NO LOST ONE RISE DISTRESSED.
A stern Canadian parent might — in earnest, not in fun —
Exclaim, NO SOT NOR OTTAWA LAW AT TORONTO, SON!
A crazy dentist might declare, as something strange or new,
That PAGET SAW AN IRISH TOOTH, SIR, IN A WASTE GAP! True!
A surly student, hating sweets, might answer with élan;
NAME TARTS, NO, MEDIEVAL SLAVE, I DEMONSTRATE MAN!
He who in Nature’s bitters, findeth sweet food every day,
EUREKA! TILL I PULL UP ILL I TAKE RUE, well might say.
“Dr. Johnson has somewhere said that there are many things difficult to accomplish, and which, when accomplished, are not worth the labour expended upon them. Sage correspondents of ‘N. & Q.,’ after scanning the above, will doubtless concur in opinion with the sententious old Moralizer.”