Authors on Authors

Oscar Wilde on Charles Dickens:

“One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing.”

Joseph Conrad on Herman Melville:

“He knows nothing of the sea. Fantastic — ridiculous.”

John Dryden on John Donne:

“Were he translated into numbers, and English, he would yet be wanting in the dignity of expression.”

Vladimir Nabokov on Joseph Conrad:

“I cannot abide Conrad’s souvenir-shop style, bottled ships and shell necklaces of romantic clichés.”

Henry James on Edgar Allan Poe:

“An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.”

H.G. Wells on George Bernard Shaw:

“An idiot child screaming in a hospital.”

Gustave Flaubert on George Sand:

“A great cow full of ink.”

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac:

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

November 26, 2011January 3, 2021 | Literature

Stormy Weather

stormy weather puzzle - 1

Stephen Barr observes that a pitched roof receives less rain per unit area than level ground does. This seems to mean that rain that falls at a slant will be less wetting than rain that falls vertically. Why isn’t this so?

	Select Click for Answer
Rain falls from a cloud that’s parallel to the ground, so it’s equally wetting regardless of the angle at which it falls. The roof example doesn’t reflect this.

November 26, 2011January 29, 2013 | Puzzles

In a Word

nemophilist
n. one who is fond of the forest

chiminage
n. a toll for passage through a forest

November 25, 2011November 24, 2011 | Language

Misc

Dorothy Parker named her dog Cliche.
27639 = 2⁷ × 6³ – 9
Tikitiki cures beriberi.
Can an object move itself?
“The best way out is always through.” — Robert Frost

November 25, 2011November 24, 2011 | Language · Literature · Quotations · Science & Math

Outlook

mary youngquist poems

November 25, 2011November 23, 2011 | Language

Limericks

A lady who deftly crocheted,
A terrible temper displeted,
On finding when through
That a dropped stitch or twough
Had spoiled the contrivance she’d meted.

A newspaper man on the Isthmus
Said, “Colonel, now what about thisthmus?”
The Colonel said, “Write
That it looks like a fite,
But I think ’twill be over by Christhmus.”

Once a Frenchman who’d promptly said “Oui”
To some ladies who’d ask him if houi
Cared to drink, threw a fit
Upon finding that it
Was a tipple no stronger than toui.

Young Brewster wed Adeline Worcester,
But nobody knew what indorcester
In writing her name
To spell it the same
And make it read Adeline Brorcester.

There was a young man from Mont.
Who slipped on a peel of ban.
He fell on his head,
And what he then said
Was quite the reverse of “Hos.”

Punctuation’s abhorrent to Thos.,
And he loathes semicolons and cos.
He is such a bad boy
That a wave of great joy
Would arise were the kid taken fros.

— Stanton Vaughn, ed., Limerick Lyrics, 1904

November 23, 2011November 22, 2011 | Language · Poems

Ghost Story

In September 1749, Arthur Davis, a sergeant in the British army, went missing while shooting in the Highlands of Scotland. A search found no trace of him, but at length his landlord’s son, Alexander Macpherson, announced that Davis’ ghost had roused him from bed, told him the location of the body, asked him to bury it, and named his murderers.

At trial, this astounding testimony was corroborated by a servant who had seen the ghost enter Macpherson’s house and approach his bed:

She saw something naked come in at the door; which frighted her so much that she drew the clothes over her head: that when it appeared, it came in a bowing posture; that she cannot tell what it was; that next morning she asked Macpherson what it was that had troubled them the night before? and that he answered, she might be easy, for it would not trouble her any more.

This ghostly evidence seemed to be swaying the jury until the defense attorney asked a fateful question: “What language did the ghost speak in?” When the youth answered, “As good Gaelic as I ever heard in Lochaber,” the jury found the accused murderers not guilty. A ghost’s testimony might be reasonable — but Arthur Davis had never learned Gaelic.

November 23, 2011November 23, 2011 | Oddities

“Spaghettibird Headdress”

Fors oar in shaving ear she goes, awful fodders broad fart hunter dish consonant hay noon action, corn sieved inebriety and addict hated tutor preposition dot omen or crated inkwell.

Non wiring caged integrate cymbal wart, tasting wither damnation, our runny gnashing, socking seed end sod defecated ken logging door. Worm head honor grape batter veal doff fat whore. Wave counter defecator potion audit felled azure vinyl roasting piece fort hose hoe hair gater wives tit tat gnashing mike leaf. Assault her gutter footing in pepper dot weigh shoe duties.

Budding awl archer since, weaken opt defecate, weekend not concentrate, working ought hello disk round. Depravement, livid indeed, hue straggle deer, heft cancer traded hit, pharaoh buff harp burp hours tatter distract. Twirled wheel ladle node orlon ram umber wad wheeze hay year, buttock an if veer fork add catered hairdo done finest walk witch day hoof otter heft dust floor show nobody at fenced. I doze rudder forest tubing hair debtor catered tuba grape tusk rim onion beef harass — dot form tease own whored did, wheat aching greased dim notion tutor cows far wish dig rave do lustful miss shore add dive ocean; dewy her holly dissolve daddies dad shell nut heft tiding feign; end it grubby men, other pimple, brother pimple, father pimple, shell nut pair rich fern dirt.

— “Labour Ham Winking” (Jim Anderson, Jeffrey Brown, and John Spencer), quoted in Willard R. Espy, The Best of an Almanac of Words at Play, 1999

November 23, 2011November 22, 2011 | Language