Recursive Gratitude

Mathematician J.E. Littlewood once wrote a paper for the French journal Comptes Rendus. A Prof. M. Riesz did the translation, and at the end Littlewood found three footnotes:

I am greatly indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the present paper.

I am indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the preceding footnote.

I am indebted to Prof. Riesz for translating the preceding footnote.

Littlewood notes that this could have gone on indefinitely but “I stop legitimately at number 3: however little French I know I am capable of copying a French sentence.”

| Language · Science & Math

Back and Forth

Most people think of palindromes as being symmetrical arrangements of letters:

SIT ON A POTATO PAN, OTIS.

But they can also work at the level of individual words:

FALL LEAVES AFTER LEAVES FALL.

YOU CAN CAGE A SWALLOW, CAN’T YOU, BUT YOU CAN’T SWALLOW A CAGE, CAN YOU?

And even phonetically: The Hungarian phrase a bátya gatyába (“the brother in underpants”) and the Japanese ta-ke-ya-bu ya-ke-ta (“a bamboo grove has been burned”) (both transliterated here) sound the same when reversed.

Bonus palindrome, by Stephen Fry:

RETTEBS IFLAHD NOCES, EH? TTU, BUT THE SECOND HALF IS BETTER.

| Language

Finding Religion

Here are the first three verses of Genesis:

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Pick any word in the first verse, count its letters, and move ahead by the corresponding number of words. For example, if you start at beginning, you’d count 9 letters and move ahead 9 words, landing on the in the second verse. Count that word’s letters and continue in this manner until you’ve entered the third verse.

You’ll always arrive at God.

(Discovered by Martin Gardner.)

| Language · Oddities · Religion

“Double-Entendre”

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/116942

This double-entendre was originally published in a Philadelphia newspaper a hundred years ago. It may be read three different ways: First, let the whole be read in the order in which it is written; second, read the lines downward on the left of each comma in every line; third, in the same manner on the right of each comma. In the first reading the Revolutionary cause is condemned, and by the others it is encouraged and lauded —

Hark! Hark! the trumpet sounds, the din of war’s alarms,
O’er seas and solid grounds, doth call us all to arms;
Who for King George doth stand, their honors soon shall shine;
Their ruin is at hand, who with the Congress join.
The acts of Parliament, in them I much delight,
I hate their cursed intent, who for the Congress fight;
The Tories of the day, they are my daily toast,
They soon will sneak away, who independence boast;
Who non-resistance hold, they have my hand and heart,
May they for slaves be sold, who act a Whiggish part;
On Mansfied, North and Bute, may daily blessings pour,
Confusion and dispute, on Congress evermore;
To North and British lord, may honors still be done,
I wish a block or cord, to General Washington.

— Frank H. Stauffer, The Queer, the Quaint and the Quizzical, 1882

| Language · Poems