Silliest British name changes of 2005, according to The Sun:
In 2002, Richard James of St. Albans agreed to change his name to Mr. Yellow-Rat Foxysquirrel Fairydiddle in exchange for a pint of beer. He paid $70 to make the change official, then realized he didn’t have enough money to change it back.
A letter to the Seattle Bureau of Prohibition, Sept. 12, 1931:
Dear Sir:
My husband is in the habit of buying a quart of wiskey every other day from a Chinese bootlegger named Chin Waugh living at 317-16th near Alder street.
We need this money for household expenses. Will you please have his place raided? He keeps a supply planted in the garden and a smaller quantity under the back steps for quick delivery. If you make the raid at 9:30 any morning you will be sure to get the goods and Chin also as he leaves the house at 10 o’clock and may clean up before he goes.
Thanking you in advance, I remain yours truly,
Mrs. Hillyer
Headmaster’s Palindromic List on His Memo Pad
| Test on Erasmus | Dr. of Law |
| Deliver slap | Stop dynamo (OTC) |
| Royal: phone no.? | Tel: Law re Kate Race |
| Ref. Football. | Caps on for prep |
| Is sofa sitable on? | Pots — no tops |
| XI — Staff over | Knit up ties (“U”) |
| Sub-edit Nurse’s order | Ned (re paper) |
| Caning is on test (snub slip-up) | Eve’s simple hot dish (crib) |
| Birch (Sid) to help Miss Eve | Pupil’s buns |
| Repaper den | T-set: no sign in a/c |
| Use it | Red roses |
| Put inkspot on stopper | Run Tide Bus? |
| Prof. — no space | Rev off at six |
| Caretaker (wall, etc.) | Noel Bat is a fossil |
| Too many d—- pots | Lab to offer one “Noh” play–or “Pals Reviled”? |
| Wal for duo? (I’d name Dr. O) | Sums are not set. |
| See few owe fees (or demand IOU?) |
— Winning entry in a New Statesman palindrome competition, 1967
When a candle is burnt so long as to leave a tolerably large wick, blow it out; a dense smoke, which is composed of hydrogen and carbon, will immediately rise. Then, if another candle, or lighted taper, be applied to the utmost verge of this smoke, a very strange phenomenon will take place. The flame of the lighted candle will be conveyed to that just blown out, as if it were borne on a cloud, or, rather, it will seem like a mimic flash of lightning proceeding at a slow rate.
— Alfred Rochefort, Healthful Sports for Boys, 1910
“Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.” — Aaron Copland
Necessity is the mother of invention. In the 1840s, when Army horses and mules were failing in the American Southwest, Secretary of War Jefferson Davis (yes, same guy) allocated $30,000 for “the purchase of camels and the importation of dromedaries, to be employed for military purposes.” The Navy sent a ship to North Africa, and in 1856 33 confused camels arrived in Indianola, Texas.
They did pretty well. After a survey expedition to California, an enthusiastic Col. Edward Beale declared, “I look forward to the day when every mail route across the continent will be conducted … with this economical and noble brute.”
The Civil War put an end to the project, but there’s a strange postscript. Some of the camels escaped into the Texas desert, where apparently they adapted to life in the wild. The last feral camel was sighted in 1941. There’s a movie in here somewhere.
This verse is a combined lipogram and pangram: Each stanza omits the letter e but includes every other letter of the alphabet:
A jovial swain should not complain
Of any buxom fair,
Who mocks his pain and thinks it gain
To quiz his awkward air.Quixotic boys who look for joys
Quixotic hazards run;
A lass annoys with trivial toys,
Opposing man for fun.A jovial swain might rack his brain,
And tax his fancy’s might;
To quiz is vain, for ’tis most plain
That what I say is right.
— W.S. Walsh, Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1892
In a 70-year lifetime, the average person sheds 44 pounds of skin.
Unfortunate epitaphs:
Sacred to the Memory of
Captain Anthony Wedgwood
Accidentally Shot by His Gamekeeper
Whilst Out Shooting
“Well Done Thou Good and Faithful Servant”
Erected to the Memory
of
John McFarlane
Drown’d in the Water of Leith
By a Few Affectionate Friends
querimonious
adj. full of complaints