- fifteen Es
- seven Fs
- four Gs
- six Hs
- eight Is
- four Ns
- five Os
- six Rs
- eighteen Ss
- eight Ts
- four Us
- three Vs
- two Ws
- three Xs
Language
A Pangrammatic Highway
A 0.8-mile stretch of northbound Interstate 287 in New Jersey contains these signs:
WASHINGTON’S HEADQUARTERS
NO TRUCKS IN LEFT LANE
LAFAYETTE AVE.
EXIT 20 MPH
BRIDGE FREEZES BEFORE ROAD SURFACE
INTERSTATE NEW JERSEY 287
To date this is the shortest reported stretch of U.S. highway whose permanent, official signs contain all 26 letters of the alphabet. Do you know a shorter one?
“The Farmer’s Life”
The farmer leads no E Z life;
The C D sows will rot;
And when at E V rests from strife
His bones all A K lot.
In D D has to struggle hard
To E K living out:
If I C frosts do not retard
His crops there’ll B A drought.
The hired L P has to pay
Are awful A Z, too;
They C K rest when he’s away,
Nor N E work will do.
Both N Z can not make to meet,
And then for A D takes
Some boarders who so R T eat
& E no money makes.
Of little U C finds this life;
Sick in old A G lies.
The debts he O Z leaves his wife.
And then in P C dies.
— Anonymous, The Indiana School Journal, August 1886
Reversible Cursive
Written in script, the word chump reads largely the same upside down.
In a Word
nosocomial
adj. (of an infection) acquired in a hospital
iatrogenic
adj. (of a medical disorder) caused by a doctor
Immortalized
In 1914, Collier’s assigned writer Julian Street to write a feature about Denver. Street duly arrived in town, but he didn’t venture far from the red-light district on Myers Avenue, and he spent most of his time there interviewing a Madam Leo, who gave him a story “hot enough to burn the paper on which it is written.”
To get even for the bad press, the town council ordered a new name for the prostitutes’ lane: They called it Julian Street.
In a Word
mammothrept
n. a spoiled child
Literally, “a child brought up by its grandmother.”
“Ape Owe ‘Em”
When fur stews can this sill leer I’m,
Toot rye tomb ache theme e’en ink Lear,
Youth inked wood butt bee weigh sting thyme;
Use eh, “It’s imp lean on scents shear!”
Gnome attar; Anna lies align!
Nation mice lender verse says knot–
Fork rip tick poet real Ike mine,
How Aaron weal, demesnes allot.
— Deems Taylor
Equivalent Expressions
What do these sentences have in common?
They’re all precisely the same length.
Off With Their Heads!
Show this bold Prussian that praises slaughter, slaughter brings rout. Teach this slaughter-lover his fall nears.
Grim, no? But remove the first letter of each word and the mood changes:
How his old Russian hat raises laughter — laughter rings out! Each, his laughter over, is all ears.
“Language,” wrote Flaubert, “is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.”