In England’s Court of Chancery, a litigant’s charges were converted into “interrogatories,” or searching questions to be put to the defendant, who had to answer them under oath. For example:

“Whether or no was the said testator, G. H., at the time of his death indebted to any and what persons or person in any and what sums or sum of money?”

Composing these questions was such mournfully mechanical work that a thoughtless clerk could turn almost anything into an interrogatory. Junior counsel Edward Karslake once submitted a rather florid account of a broken trust, and the clerk absently returned this:

“Did not the defendant fall down on her knees or on one and which of them and implore the plaintiff with tears in her eyes or in one and which of them to advance the said sum of £—- to her husband to save him from bankruptcy and their children from ruin or how otherwise?”

According to one story, a junior counsel wagered that if the first few lines of Paradise Lost were inserted into a bill, his clerk would render them into interrogatories “without turning a hair.” Here’s Milton’s text:

Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe …

And here’s what the clerk produced:

“Was it man’s first or some other and what disobedience, and the fruit of that forbidden or some other and what tree, whose mortal taste brought death into this or some other and what world and all our woe, and if not why not or how otherwise?”

It was this tedious officiousness that Dickens railed about in Bleak House. He had some justice: The novel’s central case was inspired by a Chancery suit that took 36 years to get through court.

The second Earl of Leicester sat in Parliament for 67 years without saying a word.

His son, the third earl, was silent for 32 years.

His grandson, the fourth earl, said nothing for 23 years.

His great-grandson, the fifth earl, Thomas William Edward Coke, kept his silence for 22 years, then in 1972 rose and said, “I hope we shall use safer chemicals in place of those which have devastated the countryside.”

“My record of silence is not all that remarkable because I know that my family have not been overtalkative in this house,” he said later.

“Certain rules to discover married couples in large societies or in public,” from The Meteor; or, General Censor, 1814:

1. If you see a gentleman and lady disagree upon trifling occasions, or correcting each other in company, you may be assured they have tied the matrimonial noose.
2. If you see a silent pair in a hackney or any other coach, lolling carelessly one at each window, without seeming to know they have a companion, the sign is infallible.
3. If you see a lady drop her glove, and a gentleman by the side of her kindly telling her to pick it up, you need not hesitate in forming your opinion; or,
4. If you see a lady presenting a gentleman with anything carelessly, her head inclined another way, and speaking to him with indifference; or,
5. If you meet a couple in the fields, the gentleman twenty yards in advance of the lady, who perhaps is getting over a stile in difficulty, or picking her way through a muddy path; or,
6. If you see a lady whose beauty and accomplishments attract the attention of every gentleman in the room but one, you can have no difficulty in determining their relationship to each other–the one is her husband.
7. If you see a gentleman particularly courteous, obliging, and good-natured, relaxing into smiles, saying smart things, and toying with every pretty woman in the room excepting one, to whom he appears particularly reserved, cold, and formal, and is unreasonably cross–who that one is nobody can be at a loss to discover; or,
8. If you see a young or an old couple jarring, checking, and thwarting each other, differing in opinion before the opinion is expressed; eternally anticipating and breaking the thread of each other’s discourse, yet using kind words, like honey-bubbles floating on vinegar, which soon are overwhelmed by the preponderance of the fluid; they are, to all intents, man and wife! it is impossible to be mistaken.

“The rules above quoted are laid down as infallible in just interpretation; they may be resorted to with confidence; they are upon unerring principles, and reduced from every day’s experience.”

In 1984, grad student Deborah Linville asked students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to rate the perceived sexiness of 250 female names. Sexiest (on a scale of 1 to 7) were Christine (5.08), Candace (4.92), Cheryl (4.91), Melanie (4.91), Dawn (4.83), Heather (4.83), Jennifer (4.83), Marilyn (4.83), Michelle (4.83), and Susan (4.83). Least sexy were Ethel (1.00), Alma (1.08), Zelda (1.16), Florence (1.5), Mildred (1.5), Myrtle (1.5), Silvana (1.5), Edna (1.66), Eurolinda (1.66), and Elvira (1.69).

Then Linville asked another group of students to play boss and rate the job applications of eight equally qualified women — submitted under particularly sexy and unsexy names.

Men hired and promoted non-sexy applicants much more frequently than women did. Linville concluded that “there is a prejudice toward women applicants based on the degree of sexiness of their names,” perhaps because men particularly expect female managers to possess strengths, such as motivation and decisiveness, that they don’t associate with sexy-sounding names.