A poser from Jerome S. Meyer’s Puzzle Quiz and Stunt Fun (1956):
“The mark above is the mark of evil. It is the symbol of murder and terror. Millions have died for it and millions have died because of it. Can you tell what it is?”
Divide and Conquer
In 1980, Colorado math teacher William J. O’Donnell was explaining that
when a student noted that
“My immediate reaction was that this student had stumbled onto a special case where this algorithm worked,” O’Donnell wrote in a letter to Mathematics Teacher. “Later, a couple of minutes of work revealed that this technique works for all fractions. Let a, b, c, and d be integers. Then
“Whereas this method can be conveniently applied on occasion, it does not offer the student much advantage when c does not divide a and d does not divide b.”
Sound Choices
Bertrand Russell’s 20 favorite words, given in response to a reader’s inquiry in 1958:
- wind
- heath
- golden
- begrime
- pilgrim
- quagmire
- diapason
- alabaster
- chrysoprase
- astrolabe
- apocalyptic
- ineluctable
- terraqueous
- inspissated
- incarnadine
- sublunary
- chorasmean
- alembic
- fulminate
- ecstacy
These are notable, I think, because it appears he wasn’t influenced by meaning.
Lv Lttr
Confined to an asylum in 1849, poet John Clare made this curious entry in a notebook:
M Drst Mr Cllngwd
M nrl wrn t & wnt t hr frm Nbd wll wn M r hv m t n prc & wht hv dn D knw wht r n m Dbt — kss’s fr tn yrs & lngr stll & Ingr thn tht whn ppl mk sch mstks s t cll m Gds bstrd & whrs p m b shttng m p frm Gds ppl t f th w f cmmn snse & thn tk m hd ff bcs th cnt fnd m t t hrds hrd
Drst Mr r fthfll r d thnk f m knw wht w sd tgthr — dd vst m n hll sm tm bck bt dnt cm hr gn fr t s ntrs bd plc wrs nd wrs nd w r ll Frnchmn flsh ppl tll m hv gt n hm n ths wrld nd s dnt believe n th thr nrt t mk mslf hvn wth m drst Mr nd sbscrb mslf rs fr vr & vr
Jhn Clr
Decoding it is simple enough — Clare had removed all vowels and the letter Y. Evidently it was the draft of a letter:
My Dearest Mary Collingwood
I am nearly worn out and want to hear from you — Nobody will own me or have me at any price and what have I done — Do you know what you are in my Debt — kisses for ten years and longer still and longer than that — when people make such mistakes as to call me God’s bastard and whores pay me by shutting me up from God’s people out of the way of common sense and then take my head off because they can’t find me — it out-Herods Herod.
Dearest Mary are you faithful or do you think of me — you know what we said together — you did visit me in hell sometime back but don’t come here again for it is a notorious bad place worse and worse and we are all turned Frenchmen — foolish people tell me I have got no home in this world and as I don’t believe in the other [? undertake] to make myself heaven with my dearest Mary and subscribe myself yours for ever and ever
John Clare
I almost offered this as a puzzle, but it’s too sad. “This is among the most disturbing letters that Clare ever wrote,” notes biographer Jonathan Bate. “It takes us inside his head during a phase of derangement. Even once one has broken the code, it is impossible to decipher the sub-text, especially as we know nothing about the identity of Mary Collingwood beyond the fact that in another of his lists Clare identified her as a Northampton girl.”
Episode
Darth Vader is piloting a barge to Salt Lake City to give a workshop on evildoing. Suddenly he finds himself approaching a crumbling brick aqueduct, at the foot of which is a basket of adorable kittens. He struggles to stop the barge, but it’s too late. The terrified kittens mew piteously, but they’re too weak to escape. Inexorably, implacably, the barge floats out directly over the basket. What happens?
Nothing happens. The barge displaces its weight in water, so there’s no additional load on the aqueduct.
The workshop is a great success.
Unquote
“In literature, as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.” — André Maurois
Intriguing Epitaphs
Grave marker in Folsom, N.M.:
In honored memory of Sarah J. Rooke
Telephone Operator
Who perished in the flood waters
of the Dry Cimarron at Folsom
New Mexico, August 27, 1908
while at her switchboard warning
others of the danger. With heroic
devotion she glorified her calling
by sacrificing her own life that
others might live.
Old South Cemetery, Montague, Mass.:
In Memory of Mr. Elijah Bardwell
who died Janry 26th 1786 in ye 27th
Year of his Age having but a few days
surviv’d ye fatal Night when he was
flung from his Horse & drawn by ye Stirrup
26 rods along ye path as appear’d by ye place
where his hat was found & where he had
Spent ye whole following severe cold night
treading ye Snow in a Small Circle.
Emily Spear, died 1901, age 64, Glendale Cemetery, Cardington, Ohio:
My husband
promised me
that my
body should
be cremated
but other
influences
prevailed.
Lizzie Angell, died 1932, age 83, Forest Hill Cemetery, East Derry, N.H.:
I don’t know how to die.
Jennie E. Wilson, died 1882, age 29, College Hill Cemetery, Lebanon, Ill.:
She was more to me
Than I expected.
Borrowed Blessing
“Webster’s” means nothing. The word entered the public domain when the copyright lapsed on Noah Webster’s original dictionary in the 19th century. The name still conveys authority, though, so it’s become a marketing ploy among dictionary publishers, who display it even on books that have no connection to Webster’s original work. You can, too, if you like.
Misc
- No bishop appears in Through the Looking-Glass.
- Can a law compel us to obey the law?
- 98415 = 98-4 × 15
- Why does the ghost haunt Hamlet rather than Claudius?
- “Put me down as an anti-climb Max.” — Max Beerbohm, declining to hike to the top of a Swiss Alp
Sudden Death
Twenty-five basketball teams compete in a knockout tournament — each team is eliminated after its first loss. How many games must be played to establish a winner?