lachschlaganfall
n. a condition in which a person falls unconscious due to violent laughter
Language
Multitudes
USHERS contains five pronouns: HE, HER, HERS, SHE, US.
If rearranging letters is permitted, then SMITHERY contains 17: HE, HER, HERS, HIM, HIS, I, IT, ITS, ME, MY, SHE, THEIR, THEIRS, THEM, THEY, THY, YE.
In a Word
tauromachy
n. the art of bullfighting
Working Blue
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.
Names Dropped
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 a Word
nullibiety
n. the state of being nowhere
Quite Contrary
A contronym is a word with two contrary meanings, such as cleave or sanction (more here).
The word contronym itself has no double meaning. Is it a contronym?
“Not until I came along!” writes Charles Melton in Word Ways. “I declare that it is a contronym for the simple reason that it isn’t! It is both a self-opposite and not a self-opposite. QED.”
“On a Purveyor of Chocolate”
A merchant who traded in cocoa
Much admired that strange style called rococo.
You’ll be happy to learn
That the name of his firm
Is to be The Rococo Cocoa Co.
— Leigh Mercer
Between the Lines
In 1979, the California Court of Appeal reversed the conviction of a California man for possessing obscene films. Justice L. Thaxton Hanson wrote a long dissent implying that his colleagues favored pornography. In return, Justice Robert Thompson added a footnote to the majority opinion:
We feel compelled by the nature of the attack in the dissenting opinion to spell out a response:
1. Some answer is required to the dissent’s charge.
2. Certainly we do not endorse ‘victimless crime.’
3. How that question is involved escapes us.
4. Moreover, the constitutional issue is significant.
5. Ultimately it must be addressed in light of precedent.
6. Certainly the course of precedent is clear.
7. Knowing that, our result is compelled.
Read the first letter of each line.
John Peale Bishop (1892-1944) composed this acrostical poem, entitled “A Recollection”:
Famously she descended, her red hair
Unbound and bronzed by sea-reflections, caught
Crinkled with sea-pearls. The fine slender taut
Knees that let down her feet upon the air,
Young breasts, slim flanks and golden quarries were
Odder than when the young distraught
Unknown Venetian, painting her portrait, thought
He’d not imagined what he painted there.
And I too commerced with that golden cloud:
Lipped her delicious hands and had my ease
Faring fantastically, perversely proud.
All loveliness demands our courtesies.
Since she was dead I praised her as I could
Silently, among the Barberini bees.
I haven’t been able to learn anything more about it.
In a Word
philogyny
n. love of women
mulierose
adj. fond of women
threpterophilia
n. love of female nurses