This verse by Lewis Carroll is remarkable for more than its melancholy:
It can be read both “across” and “down.”
Language
As Advertised
The seven seas contain seven Cs:
A Chemical Compound
What’s unusual about this list of elements?
- Protactinium
- Radium
- Praseodymium
- Oxygen
- Iron
- Sulfur
- Silicon
- Oxygen
- Nitrogen
- Aluminum
- Sulfur
Assemble their symbols and you get PaRaPrOFeSSiONAlS.
Other long “chemistry words”: HYPoThAlAmICoHYPoPHYSeAlS and PNEuMoCYSTiS CArInII PNEuMoNiAs.
In a Word
temulence
n. drunkenness
Civic-Minded
COMMUNICATORIALLY contains COMMUNITY, COUNTRY, COUNTY, and CITY, each in the proper order.
Flash Flood
Write the word RAVINE and advance each letter 13 places through the alphabet, and you’ll get RAVINE spelled backward:
In a Word
jeofail
n. a lawyer’s mistake
Mouthful
Composed in 390 B.C., Aristophanes’ play Ecclesiazusae concludes with the name of a dish on which the characters plan to feast.
The word is lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimupotrimmatosilphioliparomelitoaktakexhumeno-kichlepikossuphophattoperisteralektruonoptopiphallidokinklopeleioplagoosiraiobaphetragalopterugon. At 169 letters, it’s still the longest word in the Greek language.
Fine Scotch
A sentence composed entirely of contractions taken from Robert Burns poems:
E’en th’ flow’rs afiel’ ha’e fac’t heav’n wi’ th’ rightfu’, shinin’ blessin’ that’s prevail’d i’ th’ min’ o’ th’ faithfu’ servan’ an’ th’ mournfu’, wand’ring craz’d o’ th’ worl’: heav’n’s pray’rs ha’e honour’d th’ cheerfu’ an’ th’ gen’rous ‘gainst t’other worl’s glib-tongu’d, wither’d pow’r.
When the English poet laureate Alfred Austin unveiled a statue of Burns in 1896, Punch proposed some remarks for him.
“Ye ken I canna mak’ ye a lang speech, bein’ mair a wanchansie mon, ram-feezled wi’ writin’, than a skirlin’, tapetless glib-gabbet,” he was to say. “Burns was nae feckless gowk, sae it’s a pleasure tae me tae unveil this sonsie statue.”
In a Word
dentiloquy
n. speech through gritted teeth