insessor
n. one who sits in or on
Language
Field Notes
Two perceptive entries from the journals of English naturalist Gilbert White:
“December 4, 1770 – Most owls seem to hoot exactly in B flat according to several pitch-pipes used in tuning of harpsichords, & sold as strictly at concert pitch.”
“February 8, 1782 – Venus shadows very strongly, showing the bars of the windows on the floors & walls.”
Between these he makes what may be the earliest written use of the word golly, in 1775.
Rough Crossing
Notable expressions of dismay made by Panurge during a tempest at sea in Gargantua and Pantagruel:
Ughughbubbubughsh!
Augkukshw!
Bgshwogrbuh!
Abubububugh!
Bububbububbubu! boo-hoo-hoo-hoo!
Ubbubbughschwug!
Ubbubbugshwuplk!
ubbubbubbughshw
bubbubughshwtzrkagh!
Alas, alas! ubbubbubbugh! bobobobobo! bubububuss!
Ubbubbughsh! Grrrshwappughbrdub!
Bubububbugh! boo-hoo-hoo!
Ubbubbubbugh! Grrwh! Upchksvomitchbg!
Ububbubgrshlouwhftrz!
Ubbubbububugh! ugg! ugg!
Ubbubbubbugh! Boo-hoo-hoo!
“My personal favorite, however, is the incredible-sounding ‘Wagh, a-grups-grrshwahw!’,” writes wordplay enthusiast Trip Payne. “Aside from its logological interest (eight consecutive consonants, albeit divided by a hyphen), the word simply does not sound anything like a wail could possibly sound. The ingenuity of Panurge to come up with such a fresh-sounding, imaginative exclamation — particularly under such pressure — is awe-inspiring.” (All these expressions are from Jacques Leclercq’s 1936 translation.)
(Trip Payne, “‘Alas, Alack!’ Revisited,” Word Ways 22:1 [February 1989], 34-35.)
Misc
- After a rain, the Bolivian salt flat Salar de Uyuni becomes the world’s largest mirror.
- The letter J appears nowhere in the periodic table of the elements.
- 9(9 – 6) yields same result upside down: (9 – 6)6 = 729. (Erich Friedman)
- Rearrange the letters in SUPRARATIONAL and you get PRO-AUSTRALIAN.
- “A good book praises itself.” — German proverb
A Syntax Maze
David Morice posed this puzzle in the February 1989 issue of Word Ways. The following sentence is such a thicket of interrupting clauses that it’s difficult to divine its meaning. Who is accused, what’s the verdict, what are the crimes, and what’s the real name of the real criminal? “Let’s see you unChandler this one!”
Big Mike, when Susan, without whom he, whose rugged jaw, as he muttered, “Why did you, who committed, after you changed your name, though nobody –” but he paused, while he glared at her, even though Melissa thought, which seemed immaterial, for the courtroom, where the judge, before the verdict, whether Big Mike was guilty, though Melissa, since Ted no longer, however she, when Big Mike, because she blamed him, while the cops, who trusted, although they sensed, until Detective Jennings, against his better judgment, fell in love with the lady, her guilt, her innocence, held him at gunpoint, for her bank robbery, was picked up, played her cards, wanted to buy diamonds for her, murdered him with a dagger, or framed, could be decided, heard Susan’s surprise testimony, was packed with an angry mob, to the prosecuting attorney, of Ted as her real lover, in the witness stand, to catch his breath, “– seems to realize, from Melissa to Joyce, both crimes, lay your rap on me?” under his breath, was clenched bitterly, wouldn’t have been arrested, fingered him, was found guilty!
Top Score
Corresponding with the Daily Mail in 1933, Compton Mackenzie presented two lists of the 10 most beautiful words in English. The first was phrased in blank verse:
Carnation, azure, peril, moon, forlorn,
Heart, silence, shadow, April, apricot.
The second was an Alexandrine couplet:
Damask and damson, doom and harlequin and fire,
Autumnal, vanity, flame, nectarine, desire.
In his 1963 autobiography he said that these lists had a “strange magic for me … a sort of elixir of youth.” See Euphony and Poetry Piecemeal.
Being There
The 1937 phrasebook Collins’ Pocket Interpreters: France paints an alarming picture of a typical visit to France:
I cannot open my case.
I have lost my keys.
I did not know that I had to pay.
I cannot find my porter.
Excuse me, sir, that seat is mine.
I cannot find my ticket!
I have left my gloves (my purse) in the dining car.
I feel sick.
The noise is terrible.
Did you not get my letter?
I cannot sleep at night, there is so much noise.
There are no towels here.
The sheets on this bed are damp.
I have seen a mouse in the room.
These shoes are not mine.
The radiator doesn’t work.
This is not clean, bring me another.
I can’t eat this. Take it away!
The water is too hot, you are scalding me!
It doesn’t work.
This doesn’t smell very nice.
There is a mistake in the bill.
I am lost.
Someone robbed me.
I shall call a policeman.
That man is following me everywhere.
There has been an accident!
She has been run over.
He is losing blood.
He has lost consciousness.
James Thurber, who came upon the book in a London bookshop, described it as a “melancholy narrative poem” and “a dramatic tragedy of an overwhelming and original kind.” “I have come across a number of these helps-for-travelers,” he wrote, “but none has the heavy impact, the dark, cumulative power of Collins’. … The volume contains three times as many expressions to use when one is in trouble as when everything is going all right.”
I can’t find the 1937 edition that Thurber describes, but this seems to be a 1962 update.
In a Word
crastin
n. the day after, the morrow
festinate
adj. hurried
hammajang
adj. in a disorderly or chaotic state
disceptation
n. disputation, debate, discussion
What time did various incidents happen? Everyone agrees that the Titanic hit the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. and sank at 2:20 a.m. — but there’s disagreement on nearly everything that happened in between. … There was simply too much pressure. Mrs. Louis M. Ogden, passenger on the Carpathia, offers a good example. At one point, while helping some survivors get settled, she paused long enough to ask her husband the time. Mr. Ogden’s watch had stopped, but he guessed it was 4:30 p.m. Actually, it was only 9:30 in the morning. They were both so engrossed, they had lost all track of time.
— Walter Lord, A Night to Remember, 1955
Misc
- Samuel Johnson said that sending a timid boy to a public school is “forcing an owl upon day.”
- Inscribed over the door of the library at Murcia, Spain: “Here the dead open the eyes of the living.”
- TRICE in Pig Latin is ICE TRAY.
- 35 × 1482 × 9760 = 3514829760 (Jean-Marc Falcoz)
- “Mauve is pink trying to be purple.” — Whistler
Pekwachnamaykoskwaskwaypinwanik Lake is a lake in Manitoba. Its name is Cree for “where the wild trout are caught by fishing with hooks.”
Muckanaghederdauhaulia, a townland in County Galway, means “pig-marsh between two sea inlets.”
Saaranpaskantamasaari, an island in northeastern Finland, means “an island shat by Saara.”
Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya is a hill in South Australia. Its name means “where the devil urinates.”
(Thanks, Colin.)
Lost in Translation
Apocryphal but entertaining: Allegedly a Paris (or Genoese?) opera company provided this synopsis of Carmen to its English-speaking patrons:
Act 1. Carmen is a cigar-makeress from a tabago factory who loves with Don José of the mounting guard. Carmen takes a flower from her corsets and lances it to Don José (Duet: ‘Talk me of my mother’). There is a noise inside the tabago factory and the revolting cigar-makeresses burst into the stage. Carmen is arrested and Don José is ordered to mounting guard her but Carmen subduces him and he lets her escape.
Act 2. The Tavern. Carmen, Frasquita, Mercedes, Zuniga, Morales. Carmen’s aria (‘The sistrums are tinkling’). Enter Escamillio, a balls-fighter. Enter two smuglers (Duet: ‘We have in mind a business’) but Carmen refuses to penetrate because Don José has liberated her from prison. He just now arrives (Aria: ‘Slop, here who comes!’) but hear are the bugles singing his retreat. Don José will leave and draws his sword. Called by Carmen shrieks the two smuglers interfere with her but Don José is bound to dessert, he will follow into them (final chorus: ‘Opening sky wandering life’).
Act 3. A roky landscape, the smuglers shelter. Carmen sees her death in cards and Don José makes a date with Carmen for the next balls fight.
Act 4, A place in Seville. Procession of balls-fighters, the roaring of the balls heard in the arena. Escamillio enters, (Aria and chorus: ‘Toreador, toreador, all hail the balls of a Toreador’). Enter Don José (Aria: ‘I do not threaten, I besooch you.’) but Carmen repels himwants to join with Escamillio now chaired by the crowd. Don José stabbs her (Aria: ‘Oh rupture, rupture, you may arrest me, I did kill der’) he sings ‘Oh my beautiful Carmen, my subductive Carmen …’
From what I can tell, the earliest date claimed for the opera performance is 1928, and this excerpt didn’t appear until 1966. No one anywhere makes any confident claim as to the writer.