Much Ado About Nothing

You can fool some of the people all of the time.

Perhaps inspired by Thomas Chatterton, the teenage Samuel William Henry Ireland (1777-1835) “found” an old deed with Shakespeare’s signature.

His father, a collector, was overjoyed, so Ireland went on finding more Shakespeareana — a promissory note, a declaration of Protestant faith, letters to Anne Hathaway and to Queen Elizabeth, books with notes in the margins and “original” manuscripts for Hamlet and King Lear.

Amazingly, these were all authenticated by experts of the day. Ireland wasn’t caught until at age 18 he wrote an entire “lost” play, which was mounted at Drury Lane Theatre. As a playwright, he couldn’t match the Bard, and Vortigern and Rowena closed after a single performance on April 2, 1796.

Sadly, his father took the blame, as no one could believe such a young man could pull off such a forgery. His son fled to France and died in obscurity.

| Crime · History · Hoaxes · Literature

The Sky Falls Again

Remember the Y2K crisis? We thought society was going to collapse because we hadn’t trained our computers for the future.

Well, it’s going to happen again. We’re going to run out of Social Security numbers.

Your number is unique; it’s not recycled when you die. About a billion numbers are possible, but we’ve been assigning them since 1936 and we’ve already used up about a third of the possibilities. According to some estimates we could run out by 2075.

What happens then? Who knows? But if our government collapses, head to South Korea: Their social security numbers give access to online video games.

| Society

SPQR

The initials SPQR appear everywhere in Rome — they were emblazoned on the standards of the Roman legions, and they appear today in the city’s coat of arms. The only trouble is that no one knows what they stand for. Historians think it’s probably one of these mottoes:

  • Senatus Populus Quiritium Romanus (“The senate and the citizens’ Roman people”)
  • Senatus Populusque Quiritium Romanorum (“The senate and people of the Roman citizens”)
  • Senatus Populusque Romanus (“The senate and the Roman People”)
  • Senatus Populusque Romae (“The senate and the people of Rome”)

But that hasn’t stopped everyone else from making suggestions:

  • Sono Pazzi Questi Romani (“These Romans are crazy.”)
  • Sono Porci Questi Romani (“Those Romans are pigs.”)
  • Solo Pago Quando Ricevo (“I will pay when I get paid.”)
  • Soli Preti Qui Regnano (“Only priests rule here.”)

Supposedly Pope John XXIII noted that SPQR backward reads RQPS, which he suggested meant “Rideo Quia Papa Sum” — “I laugh, because I am the Pope.”

| History · Language

A Superhero Monk

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nessie_ill_artlibre_jn.jpg

The Loch Ness monster is not only shy, he’s old. The Life of St. Columba, by the 7th-century Scottish abbot Adomnan of Iona, contains an account of the monster attacking a Pict in 565, and being fought off by the courageous saint:

[He] raised his holy hand, while all the rest, brethren as well as strangers, were stupefied with terror, and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster, saying, “Thou shalt go no further, nor touch the man; go back with all speed.” Then at the voice of the saint, the monster was terrified, and fled more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes, though it had just got so near to Lugne, as he swam, that there was not more than the length of a spear-staff between the man and the beast. Then the brethren seeing that the monster had gone back, and that their comrade Lugne returned to them in the boat safe and sound, were struck with admiration, and gave glory to God in the blessed man. And even the barbarous heathens, who were present, were forced by the greatness of this miracle, which they themselves had seen, to magnify the God of the Christians.

| History · Oddities

Operation Mincemeat

In 1943, the Allies set a dead man adrift off Spain. The corpse of “Major William Martin” carried a set of keys, theater stubs from a recent performance, a bank overdraft notice — and “secret documents” that detailed a plan to invade Europe via Sardinia.

The ruse worked — the Germans found the documents and prepared for a Sardinian attack that never came, and the Allies successfully invaded Europe through Sicily.

Who was the corpse? Apparently he was a vagrant Welsh alcoholic named Glyndwr Michael who ingested rat poison — a rare posthumous war hero.

| History · Hoaxes

“CAPILLARY, a Little Caterpillar”

There have always been bad students. Here’s what kids were writing on English exams 150 years ago:

  • ABORIGINES, a system of mountains.
  • ALIAS, a good man in the Bible.
  • AMENABLE, anything that is mean.
  • AMMONIA, the food of the gods.
  • ASSIDUITY, state of being an acid.
  • AURIFEROUS, pertaining to an orifice.
  • CORNIFEROUS, rocks in which fossil corn is found.
  • EMOLUMENT, a headstone to a grave.
  • EQUESTRIAN, one who asks questions.
  • EUCHARIST, one who plays euchre.
  • FRANCHISE, anything belonging to the French.
  • IDOLATER, a very idle person.
  • IPECAC, a man who likes a good dinner.
  • IRRIGATE, to make fun of.
  • MENDACIOUS, what can be mended.
  • MERCENARY, one who feels for another.
  • PARASITE, a kind of umbrella.
  • PARASITE, the murder of an infant.
  • PUBLICAN, a man who does his prayers in public.
  • TENACIOUS, ten acres of land.
  • REPUBLICAN, a sinner mentioned in the Bible.
  • PLAGIARIST, a writer of plays.

— From Mark Twain, “English as She Is Taught: Being Genuine Answers to Examination Questions in Our Public Schools,” 1887

| History · Humor · Language

CSS Shenandoah

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:CSSShenandoah.jpg

The Civil War didn’t quite end with Lee’s surrender. The Confederate man-of-war CSS Shenandoah was in the Arctic Ocean at the time, and kept attacking Union ships for four more months.

By the time it stopped, the Shenandoah had carried the Confederate flag completely around the world. It sank or captured 38 ships, two-thirds of them after the war ended, and took close to a thousand prisoners. Oops.

| History · Oddities

A Good Word

Words dropped since the 1901 edition of the Chambers Dictionary:

  • decacuminated adj. having the top cut off
  • effodient adj. habitually digging (zoology)
  • essorant adj. about to soar
  • flipe v. to fold back, as a sleeve
  • lectual adj. confining to the bed
  • neogamist n. a person recently married
  • nuciform adj. nut-shaped
  • numerotage n. the numbering of yarns so as to denote their fineness
  • pantogogue n. a medicine once believed capable of purging away all morbid humours
  • parageusia n. a perverted sense of taste
  • presultor n. the leader of a dance
  • ramollescence n. softening, mollifying
  • roytish adj. wild, irregular
  • sagesse n. wisdom
  • salebrous adj. rough, rugged
  • sammy v. to moisten skins with water
  • sarn n. a pavement
  • scavilones n. men’s drawers worn in the sixteenth century under the hose
  • tarabooka n. a drumlike instrument
  • tortulous adj. having swellings at regular intervals
  • wappet n. a yelping cur
| History · Language