“History is all explained by geography.” — Robert Penn Warren
Horse Sense
From the U.K. Schools Mathematical Challenge, a multiple-choice competition for students ages 11-14:
Humphrey the horse at full stretch is hard to match. But that is just what you have to do: move one match to make another horse just like (i.e. congruent to) Humphrey. Which match must you move?
Quiet Study
When French-American philanthropist Stephen Girard founded Philadelphia’s Girard College in 1830, he explicitly excluded religion from the campus:
I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said college.
“In making this restriction, I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever,” he wrote, “but, as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce.”
Missed Spellings
Mr. Smith returns to his office to find a message asking him to call Mr. Wryquick. He doesn’t know a Wryquick, so he does nothing. The next day his attorney, Dawcy, Esq., arrives in a snit and asks why Smith didn’t return the call. What’s going on?
In leaving the message, Dawcy had spelled his name “D as in double-u, A as in are, W as in why, C as in cue, Y as in you, E as in eye, S as in sea, Q as in quay.”
That’s from Benjamin L. Schwartz, in Word Ways, August 1972. In Verbatim, Summer 1985, Anna and Taffy Holland point out that a woman named Sue Washhouse, if provoked, might spell her name “S as in see, U as in queue, E as in are, W as in ewe, A as in pea, S as in sea, H as in oh, H as in why, O as in you, U as in eau, S as in see, E as in yew.”
Carving Verbs
A dinner host in the 17th century might have wished for a usage manual — a different term was used for carving each dish, and, according to Samuel Orchart Beeton, “for a person to use wrong terms in relation to carving was an unpardonable affront to etiquette.” One might:
- allay a pheasant
- barb a lobster
- break a hare
- chine a salmon
- culpon a trout
- disfigure a peacock
- dismember a hen
- display a quail
- fin a chevin
- fract a chicken
- frush a chub
- gobbet a trout
- lift a swan
- mince a plover
- rear a goose
- sauce a capon
- scull a tench
- side a haddock
- splat a pike
- splay a bream
- spoil a hen
- string a lamprey
- tarne a crab
- thigh a pigeon
- thigh a woodcock
- transon an eel
- trench a sturgeon
- tusk a barbel
- unbrace a mallard
- unjoint a bittern
- unlace a coney
- unlatch a curlew
- wing a partridge
“Carving was a science that carried with it as much pedantry as the business of school-teaching does in the present day,” Beeton observed in 1875. By that time, happily, such lists were already considered “too long and too ridiculous to repeat.”
A Dream in Alsace
Wandering the French countryside in 1914, German soldier Hans Fleischer made a remarkable discovery:
Through the thick underbrush, I meandered my way through a small path. Wonderful woods all around me. Not too long thereafter, I came upon a lighted area, and before me lay in the middle of a blooming flower garden, in peaceful silence, the castle of Baron de Turckheim. I stood struck in sight of it, and slowly I went closer to the gentle hills. Behind me lay Blamont. A wonderful picture, this little city with its red-brown roofs, built into a rolling valley, and marked by the old weathered ruins that Bernhard once destroyed during the Thirty Year’s War, and the high, double towered gothic church. Like an old, good Swabian town, there it lay, an image of freedom in the middle of the destruction of war. I went further through the garden and fields, past Weihern, and soon I stood on the terrace of the glorious construction. With astonishment, I climbed the stair and went in.
What a miserable image of destruction! The whole glory and wonder of this castle had become ruins and piles of rubble, everything cut down and in pieces, the wonderful chamber with its glorious library and its heavy, gold shrine, the woodwork covered room with its proud row of ancestor’s portraits, the lovely living room with its uncommon furniture — everything forever demolished. With a shudder, I went through the rooms. There! In one corner in the back — was that not a grand piano? I stood in my tracks, and then almost fell down with shock. Right! A grand piano: Steinway & Sons and untouched. A miracle! Finally, finally, music! How painful and with what longing I had missed just this holiest of all arts, and now I find in the middle of all of this rubble a grand piano! The room became like a temple to me, and I sat down as if at an altar. I began slowly, my fingers gliding tremblingly over keys no different than others I have played on. All of my longings became swelling tones that went out into the summer morning. They were holy moments of the blissful memories of the world, whenI was able to make music again for the first time. I awoke like out of a dream when I stopped.
But there! What was lying right under the piano? Did I see correctly? Right, sheet music! In haste I grabbed for the ‘The Valkyries.’ That was the culmination of my happiness, to find my Valyries here! Soon, the sound rang out. Joyously and then more so. The old, raw soldier’s playing became more relaxed, and seldom has a song of love and springtime and inner power emanated from me with more emotion. Outside, the destructive struggle between life and death, with all of its terrible incidents and gruesomeness — and here, in this moment, a German song of love. Rare, unforgettable hours! Feeling deeply fulfilled and happy, I had been taken back to my peaceful garden house. I was at home. I had made German music, and now I could go into war again. Blessed, I returned to my comrades.
From Andrew Carroll’s book Behind the Lines. Fleischer is believed to have been one of 95,000 Jews fighting for the German Army. If he survived, he would have been the victim of constant persecution in the Nazi regime, even having fought for Germany. What became of him is unknown.
In a Word
misocapnist
n. one who hates the smell of tobacco smoke
The Golden Key
A monk was standing at a convent gate,
With sanctimonious phiz, and shaven pate,
Promising, with solemn cant,
To all that listen’d to his rant,
A full and perfect absolution,
With half-a-dozen hallowed benedictions,
If they would give some contribution,
Some large donation supererogatory,
To ransom fifty murder’d christians,
And free their precious souls from purgatory:
When (he asserted) they would gain
A passport from the realms of pain,
And find a speedy passage to the skies.
A knight was riding by, and heard these lies;
He stopp’d his horse, “Salve,” the parson cried;
And “Benedicite” the youth replied.
“Most reverend father,” quoth the knight,
Who, it appears, was sharp and witty,
“These martyr’d christians’ wretched plight
Believe me, I sincerely pity:
Nay, more–their sufferings to relieve,
I will these fifty ducats give.”
This was no sooner said than done;
The priest pronounc’d his benison.
“Now, I presume,” the soldier said,
“The spirits of these christians dead
Have reach’d their final place of rest?”
“Most true,” replied the rev’rend friar,
“(Unless Saint Francis is a liar;)
And, to reward the pious action
Of this most christian benefaction,
You will, no doubt, eternally be blest.”
“Well, then,” exclaim’d the soldier-youth,
“If what you say indeed be truth,
And these same pieces that I’ve given,
Have snatch’d their souls from purgatory’s pains,
And bought them a snug place in heaven,
No further use for them remains.”
He said thus much to prove, at least,
He was as cunning as the priest:
Then put the ducats in his poke
And rode off, laughing at the joke.
— “C.J.D.,” in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, 1824
Traffic Safety
In 1930, concerned about the danger posed by horseless vehicles, Heinrich Karl invented a solution — a complex mechanism that would sense when a pedestrian had been struck, stop the vehicle, and unfold a blanket to catch him. (As a bonus, “the clothes will not be soiled.”)
The thing was immensely complicated, filling a patent abstract of 10 pages, but Karl saw this as a virtue:
The fact that it will cause a certain amount of work and some loss of time to replace the several parts to their normal position after a collision has occurred is a reason for the driver of the vehicle to be cautious in driving his car or motor truck, etc., which in turn lessens the usual high number of accidents occurring from collisions with persons or vehicles, etc.
That makes a certain amount of sense.
A Population Puzzle
If I have two children, there’s a 50 percent chance that I’ll have a boy and a girl.
But if I have four children, the chance that I’ll have an equal number of boys and girls drops to 6 in 16, or 37.5 percent.
This trend continues — as the number of offspring rises, the chance of having precisely the same number of boys and girls drops:
2 children: 50 percent
4 children: 37.5 percent
8 children: 27.34375 percent
16 children: 19.6380615 percent
32 children: 13.9949934 percent
64 children: 9.9346754 percent
128 children: 7.0386092 percent
This is worrying. Does it mean that in a large population Jacks might drastically outnumber Jills?
No. As the population grows, the distribution assumes the shape of a normal bell curve concentrated near 1/2. So while the chance of precise parity drops, the chance that a large population will have approximately equal numbers of girls and boys actually increases, as we’d expect.