Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English Language defines lizard as “an animal resembling a serpent, with legs added to it.”
Unquote
“Three blokes walk into a pub. One of them is a little bit stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability.” — Bill Bailey
“Jumpin’ Yuccy”
The Scientific Monthly reported a startling discovery in October 1952: the Schuss-yucca, a rare desert plant whose stalk could grow 10 feet in 2 minutes.
Readers’ letters generally joined in the spirit of the hoax — including one that mentioned a boxer who “stopped hiking long enough to inspect a yucca at just the wrong time.”
The plant shot up 16 feet at that moment, dealing him an uppercut that ended his career. “All he would say of the unfortunate incident was ‘Any time a goddam bush can lay me out cold, I know prizefighting ain’t for me.'”
“12 Years Without a Birthday”
In It’s About Time (1935), Gerald Lynton Kaufman tells the fanciful story of sailor Timothy J. McCloskey, who was born on Leap Day 1876 and thus had celebrated only five birthdays when he went to sea in 1896. No leap year was observed in 1900, and he awoke after the night of February 28, 1904, to find that his ship had crossed the international date line in the night, bypassing Leap Day.
Thus he had to wait from February 29, 1896, to February 29, 1908, to advance from his fifth birthday (celebrated at 20 years of age) to his sixth birthday (celebrated at 32).
In Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1879 operetta The Pirates of Penzance, hero Frederic thinks he has completed his pirate apprenticeship at the end of his 21st year — but learns that he was born on February 29 and so must serve another 63 years to reach his “twenty-first birthday.”
How quaint the ways of Paradox!
At common sense she gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Years twenty-one I’ve been alive,
Yet reckoning by my natal day,
I am a little boy of five!
Notice
Sign on an English industrial computer, October 1968:
ACHTUNG ALLES LOOKENPEEPERS
Das computermachine ist nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitssparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken bei das dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets — relaxen und watch das blinkenlights.
(Via Eureka.)
Term Limits
Little-used words:
anopisthograph
adj. having writing on one side only
antapology
n. a reply to an apology
antephialtic
n. something that prevents nightmares
centesimate
v. to select one person in every hundred for a punishment
citramontane
adj. relating to this side of the mountains
demonachize
v. to remove monks from
frounce
n. a canker in the mouth of a hawk
hendecad
n. a period of eleven years
laquearian
adj. armed with a noose
pastinaceous
adj. of the nature of a parsnip
philosophunculist
n. an insignificant philosopher
spartostatics
n. the study of the strength of ropes
swinehood
n. pigs collectively
togated
adj. clad in a toga
trouserdom
n. the domain of those who wear trousers
yealing
n. a person of one’s own age
See Specialists.
“A Terrible Infant”
I recollect a nurse call’d Ann
Who carried me about the grass,
And one fine day a fine young man
Came up, and kiss’d the pretty lass:
She did not make the least objection!
Thinks I, “Aha!
When I can talk I’ll tell Mamma.”
— And that’s my earliest recollection.
Hail
Two thousand years ago, a Roman man pressed his hand into a brick that had been set out to dry before firing.
The brick is now held at the Archaeological Museum of Cherchell in Algeria.
From Reddit’s ArtefactPorn.
Observations
Aphorisms of Sir Arthur Helps (1813-1875):
- The business of the head is to form a good heart, and not merely to rule an evil one, as is generally imagined.
- There is hardly a more common error than that of taking the man who has one talent, for a genius.
- The world will find out that part of your character which concerns it; that which especially concerns yourself, it will leave for you to discover.
- (“An eastern proverb which rightly belongs to the western world”:) People resemble still more the time in which they live, than they resemble their fathers.
- The worst use that can be made of success is to boast of it.
- Few have wished for memory so much as they have longed for forgetfulness.
- The Simoon of the desert is not the only evil that may be avoided by stooping.
- War may be the game of kings, but, like the games at ancient Rome, it is generally exhibited to please and pacify the people.
- The sun is shining all around, but there are some who will only contemplate their own shadows.
- Misery appears to improve the intellect, but this is only because it dismisses fear.
- Eccentric people are never loved for their eccentricities.
- When we see the rapid motions of insects at evening, we exclaim, how happy they must be! — so inseparably are activity and happiness connected in our minds.
- Tact is the result of refined sympathy.
- Soothe the present as much as we may; look forward as hopefully as we can to the future, still the dreadful past must overshadow us.
- Simple Ignorance has in its time been complimented by the names of most of the vices, and of all the virtues.
- Tolerance is the only real test of civilization.
- The reasons which any man offers to you for his own conduct, betray his opinion of your character.
- An author’s works are his esoteric biography.
- The trifling of a great man is never trivial.
- If you would understand your own age, read the works of fiction produced in it. People in disguise speak freely.
- We must often consider, not what the wise will think, but what the foolish will be sure to say.
“A very useful book might be written with the sole object of advising what parts of what books should be read. It should not be a book of elegant extracts, but should merely refer to the passages which are advised to be read. It might also indicate what are the chief works upon any given subject. For example, take rent; the important passages in Adam Smith, Ricardo, Jones, Mill, and other writers, should be referred to.”
From Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd, 1835.
Subtext
William Browne’s 17th-century poem “Behold, O God!” forms a sort of symbolic acrostic. The text can be read conventionally, scanning each line from left to right, but the letters shown here in bold also spell out three verses from the New Testament:
- Luke 23:42: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
- Matthew 27:46: “O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
- Luke 23:39: “If thou art the Christ, save thyself and us.”
The three embedded quotes represent the three figures crucified on Golgotha, and the “INRI” at the top of the middle cross stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM — Latin for “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).