Why are old bachelors bad grammarians?
Because when asked to conjugate, they invariably decline.
— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879
Language
In a Word
menticulture
n. cultivation and improvement of the mind
A Better Invention
This magic word cube was devised by Jeremiah Farrell. Each cell contains a unique three-letter English word, and when the three layers are stacked, the words in each row and column can be anagrammed to spell MOUSETRAP.
Setting O=0, A=1, U=2, M=0, R=3, S=6, P=0, E=9, and T=18 produces a numerical magic cube (for example, MAE = 0 + 1 + 9 = 10).
Unquote
“The mind is at its best when at play.” — J.L. Synge
In this spirit, Synge invented Vish (for “vicious circle”), a game designed to illustrate the hopeless circularity of dictionary definitions.
Each player is given a copy of the same dictionary. When the referee announces a word, each player writes it down and looks up its meaning. Then she chooses one word from the definition, writes that down and looks up its meaning. A player wins when the same word appears twice on her list.
The point is that any such list must eventually yield circularity — if it’s continued long enough, the number of words in the list will eventually exceed the total number of words in the dictionary, and a repetition must occur.
“Vish is no game for children,” Synge writes. “It destroys that basic confidence in the reasonableness of everything which gives to society whatever stability it possesses. To anyone who has played Vish, the dictionary is never the same again.”
In a Word
calamistrate
v. to curl the hair
Transmutation
Discovered by Zoran Radisavljevic — this set of 36 chemical elements:
HYDROGEN XENON BARIUM TANTALUM BORON PRASEODYMIUM IRIDIUM HASSIUM PLUTONIUM THALLIUM GERMANIUM SCANDIUM THULIUM EINSTEINIUM ERBIUM CADMIUM BERYLLIUM TIN ACTINIUM SEABORGIUM CARBON FLUORINE INDIUM OSMIUM NITROGEN POTASSIUM LEAD PROTACTINIUM SILICON LUTETIUM RHENIUM MERCURY ARGON NEODYMIUM PLATINUM THORIUM
… can be anagrammed into another set of 36 elements:
LANTHANUM OXYGEN TERBIUM RADON SAMARIUM DYSPROSIUM IODINE BOHRIUM ALUMINIUM CHROMIUM PALLADIUM TUNGSTEN LITHIUM CAESIUM DUBNIUM MEITNERIUM NIOBIUM YTTERBIUM GALLIUM ARSENIC IRON SODIUM NOBELIUM FRANCIUM ASTATINE STRONTIUM COPPER GADOLINIUM YTTRIUM SELENIUM CURIUM CHLORINE PROMETHIUM GOLD URANIUM ANTIMONY
UPDATE: Mike Keith discovered a “doubly true” transmutation in 1999 — this list:
HYDROGEN ZIRCONIUM TIN OXYGEN RHENIUM PLATINUM TELLURIUM TERBIUM NOBELIUM CHROMIUM IRON COBALT CARBON ALUMINUM RUTHENIUM SILICON YTTERBIUM HAFNIUM SODIUM SELENIUM CERIUM MANGANESE OSMIUM URANIUM NICKEL PRASEODYMIUM ERBIUM VANADIUM THALLIUM PLUTONIUM
… can be rearranged to spell:
NITROGEN ZINC RHODIUM HELIUM ARGON NEPTUNIUM BERYLLIUM BROMINE LUTETIUM BORON CALCIUM THORIUM NIOBIUM LANTHANUM MERCURY FLUORINE BISMUTH ACTINIUM SILVER CESIUM NEODYMIUM MAGNESIUM XENON SAMARIUM SCANDIUM EUROPIUM BERKELIUM PALLADIUM ANTIMONY THULIUM
And in this case, the equality still holds if you replace each element with its atomic number.
(Thanks, Tony.)
Noted
Christopher Morley named his cats Shall and Will, “because nobody can tell them apart.”
The End of the Road
The following anagram on the original name of Napoleon I, the most renowned conqueror of the age in which he lived, may claim a place among the first productions of this class, and fully shows in the transposition, the character of that extraordinary man, and points out that unfortunate occurrence of his life which ultimately proved his ruin. Thus: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ contains ‘No, appear not on Elba.’
— Kazlitt Arvine, Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes of Literature and the Fine Arts, 1856
Home Again
Unprepossessing English town names:
- Bishop’s Itchington
- Brokenborough
- Great Snoring
- Mockbeggar
- Turners Puddle
- Pett Bottom
- Twelveheads
- Ugley
- Nether Wallop
- Nasty
- Wetwang
- Blubberhouses
- Yelling
Charles Dickens called the chipper-sounding Chelmsford “the dullest and most stupid spot on the face of the earth.”
In a Word
fubsy
adj. somewhat fat and squat
pyknic
adj. short and fat