At the start of the French revolution, a poet was asked what he thought of the new constitution. He replied with two stanzas:
To see what he really thought, read each line straight across.
(From Henry Benjamin Wheatley, Of Anagrams, 1862.)
Language
In a Word
leighster
n. a female liar
One Man’s Meat
Somebody asked the Baron Rothschild to take venison.—’No,’ said the Baron, ‘I never eatsh wenshon, I don’t think it ish so coot ash mutton.’—’Oh,’ said the Baron’s friend, ‘I wonder at your saying so. If mutton were better than venison, why does venison cost so much more?’ ‘Vy,’ replied the Baron, ‘I vill tell you vy—in dish world de peoples alvaysh prefers vat ish deer to vat is sheep.’
— “Anecdote of Sir Richard Jebb,” recounted in A Collection of Newspaper Extracts, 1842
“Dirge”
“To the memory of Miss Ellen Gee, of Kew, who died in consequence of being stung in the eye by a bee.”
Peerless, yet hapless, maid of Q!
Accomplish’d LN G!
Never again shall I and U
Together sip our T.
For, ah! the Fates! I know not Y,
Sent ‘midst the flowers a B,
Which ven’mous stung her in the I,
So that she could not C.
LN exclaim’d, “Vile spiteful B!
If ever I catch U
On jess’mine, rosebud, or sweet P,
I’ll change your stinging Q.”
“I’ll send you, like a lamb or U,
Across th’ Atlantic C,
From our delightful village Q,
To distant OYE.”
A stream runs from my wounded I,
Salt as the briny C,
As rapid as the X or Y,
The OIO, or D.”
Then fare thee ill, insensate B!
Which stung, nor yet knew Y;
Since not for wealthy Durham’s C
Would I have lost my I.”
They bear with tears fair LN G
In funeral RA,
A clay-cold corpse now doom’d to B,
Whilst I mourn her DK.
Ye nymphs of Q, then shun each B,
List to the reason Y!
For should A B C U at T,
He’ll surely sting your I.
Now in a grave L deep in Q,
She’s cold as cold can B;
Whilst robins sing upon A U
Her dirge and LEG.
— New Monthly Magazine, reprinted in A Collection of Newspaper Extracts, 1842
In a Word
agerasia
n. youthful appearance in an old person
Also:
neanimorphism
n. the quality of looking younger than one’s age
“After You …”
Mamihlapinatapais, from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego, is considered the world’s most succinct word — and the hardest to translate.
It means “a look shared by two people, each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but that neither one wants to start.”
Poetic Justice
Sir Fletcher Norton was noted for his want of courtesy. When pleading before Lord Mansfield on some question of manorial right, he chanced unfortunately to say, ‘My lord, I can illustrate the point in an instance in my own person; I myself have two little manors.’ The judge immediately interposed with one of his blandest smiles, ‘We all know it, Sir Fletcher.’
— John Timbs, A Century of Anecdote, 1873
In a Word
psaphonic
n. planning one’s rise to wealth and fame
In a Word
exsibilation
n. the action of hissing off the stage
“A Bill of Particulars”
A certain gentleman of Worcester (Mass.) sent a very fine French clock to a well-known jeweler to be repaired, saying that he wished each item of repairing specified. The following is a copy of the bill as rendered:
To removing the alluvial deposit and oleaginous conglomerate from clock a la French, … $0.50
To replacing in appropriate juxtaposition the constituent components of said clock, … .50
To lubricating with oleaginous solution the apex of pinions of said clock, … .50
To adjusting horologically the isochronal mechanism of said clock, … .50
To equalizing the acoustic resultant of escape wheel percussion upon the verge pallets of said clock, … .50
To adjusting the distance between the centre of gravity of the pendulum and its point of suspension, so that the vibrations of the pendulum shall cause the index hand to indicate approximately the daily arrival of the sun at its meridian height, … .50
Total: $3.00
— Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882