Misc

  • The sum of the numbers on a roulette wheel is 666.
  • ANTITRINITARIANIST contains all 24 arrangements of the letters I, N, R, and T.
  • The Empire State Building has its own zip code.
  • 63945 = 63 × (-9 + 45)
  • “Isn’t it strange that we talk least about the things we think about most!” — Charles Lindbergh
| Language · Quotations · Science & Math · Trivia

Season’s Greetings

Comes Christmas merry? Hungry birds; no bright berries;
Rents high, not paid; long bills; empty barns, no peace and prosperity.

Read this backward and it becomes:

Prosperity and peace; no barns empty; bills long paid;
Not high rents; berries bright; no birds hungry; merry Christmas comes.

J.A. Lindon composed the following verse, in which the first line, the first word of each line, and the nth word of each nth line spell the same message:

A merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Merry, merry carols you’ll have sung us;
Christmas remains Christmas even when you are not here,
And though afar and lonely, you’re among us.
A bond is there, a bond at times near broken.
Happy be Christmas then, when happy, clear,
New heart-warm links are forged, new ties betoken
Year ripe with loving giving birth to year.

| Language

“The Siege of Belgrade”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Battle_of_Nandorfehervar.jpg

An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery beseiged Belgrade;
Cossack commanders cannonading come,
Dealing destruction’s devastating doom;
Every endeavour engineers essay
For fame, for fortune, forming furious fray;
Gaunt gunners grapple, giving gashes good;
Heaves high his head heroic hardihood;
Ibraham, Islam, Ismail, imps in ill,
Jostle John, Jarovlitz, Joe, Jack, Jill,
Kick kindling Kutosoff, kings’ kinsmen kill;
Labor low levels loftiest, longest lines;
Men marched ‘mid moles, ‘mid mounds, ‘mid murd’rous mines.
Now nightfall’s near, now needful nature nods,
Opposed, opposing, overcoming odds.
Poor peasants, partly purchased, partly pressed,
Quite quaking, Quarter! quarter! quickly quest.
Reason returns, recalls redundant rage,
Saves sinking soldiers, softens seigniors sage.
Truce, Turkey, truce! Truce, treach’rous Tartar train!
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine!
Vanish, vile vengeance! Vanish, victory vain!
Wisdom wails war — wails warring words. What were
Xerxes, Xantippe, Ximenes, Xavier?
Yet Yassey’s youth, ye yield your youthful yest,
Zealously, zanies, zealously, zeal’s zest.

— William T. Dobson, Literary Frivolities, Fancies, Follies and Frolics, 1880

| History · Language

Grammagrams

A phonetic puzzle by Woody Rowe:
grammagram grid

Across

1. What mosquitoes do.
2. What snakes do.
3. What dogs do.
4. What teeth do.

Down:

1. Insects
2. Optical organs
3. Annoy
4. Comfort

The solution:

grammagram solution - english

Get it? Remarkably, the same idea works in French:

grammagram grid

Across

1. Que font les moustiques
2. Que font les chiens
3. Que font les serpents
4. Que font les dents

Down

1. aime
2. au
3. air
4. dé

grammagram solution - french

| Language