“It’s a Great Advantage to Be Able to Hurdle With Both Legs”

Memorable sportscasting quotes:

  • “And here’s Moses Kiptanui, the 19-year-old Kenyan, who turned 20 a few weeks ago.” (David Coleman)
  • “Juantorena opens his legs and shows his class.” (Ron Pickering)
  • “With half of the race gone, there is half of the race still to go.” (Murray Walker)
  • “What I said to them at halftime would be unprintable on the radio.” (Gerry Francis)
  • “I was in Saint-Etienne two years ago. It’s much the same as it is now, although now it’s completely different.” (Kevin Keegan)
  • “I imagine that the conditions in those cars are totally unimaginable.” (Murray Walker)
  • “The Baggio brothers, of course, are not related.” (George Hamilton)
  • “For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are in the all-yellow strip.” (John Motson)

“Real Madrid are like a rabbit in the glare of the headlights in the face of Manchester United’s attacks,” Hamilton once said. “But this rabbit comes with a suit of armor in the shape of two precious away goals …”

| Entertainment · Humor · Language · Quotations

When in Rome …

A Latin palindrome:

IN GIRUM IMUS NOCTE ET CONSUMIMUR IGNI.

(“We enter the circle at night and are consumed by fire.”)

It was said to describe the behavior of moths.

| Language

Semordnilaps

A palindrome is a word or phrase that is spelled the same backward and forward. A semordnilap (“palindromes” spelled backward) produces a different word when reversed:

flog — golf
edit — tide
knits — stink
leper — repel
lager — regal
pupils — slipup
drawer — reward
diaper — repaid

| Language

Sator Square

Found in the ruins of Pompeii, the Latin inscription SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS (“The sower Arepo holds the wheels with effort”) may be the most symmetrical sentence ever composed. If it’s written conventionally, it’s a palindrome, reading the same forward and backward. And if it’s written into a square:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palindrom_TENET.svg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

… it reads the same left to right, top to bottom, right to left, or bottom to top.

| Language