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The Extra Mile

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JamesMayAutocar.jpg

Many thanks to podcast listener Matt Taylor for this:

In 1992 British journalist James May was hired to compile the annual “Road Test Year Book” for Autocar magazine, a collection of the year’s car reviews. The task “was extremely boring and took several months,” May said, so to amuse himself he began to hide acrostics in the text. The design of the supplement called for four reviews on each two-page spread, with the first letter of each review presented as a large red capital letter. May arranged the text so that the four red letters on one spread spelled out ROAD, another spread spelled TEST, and so on.

Readers who noticed this might have been disappointed to find that the pattern didn’t continue — the four-letter phrases soon reverted to non-words such as SOYO and UTHI.

But those with the patience to put all the non-words together found a masterly 81-letter message:

SO YOU THINK ITS REALLY GOOD YEAH YOU SHOULD TRY MAKING THE BLOODY THING UP ITS A REAL PAIN IN THE ARSE

Autocar’s editors overlooked the acrostic entirely — they learned about it only when readers called in seeking a prize.

May was fired, but he went on to bigger things: He was a co-presenter of the motoring program Top Gear for 13 years.

| Language

Breath Control

In 1999 the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern passed a law governing the labeling of beef; its short title was Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz (PDF). The hyphen indicates that the first word would have the same ending as the second; thus the two words are Rinderkennzeichnungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz and Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. (The law’s formal long title is Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung, or “Law on Delegation of Duties for Supervision of Cattle Marking and Beef Labeling.”)

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz was nominated for Word of the Year by the German Language Society. Here it is sung by the Australian National University’s UniLodge Choir:

There’s more: In 2003 a decree was passed modifying real estate regulations; its short title was Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung. Can someone sing that?

| Language

A Mathless Math Puzzle

hess bug puzzle

Richard Hess posed this problem in the Spring 1980 issue of Pi Mu Epsilon Journal. At noon on Monday, a bug departs the upper left corner, X, of a p × q rectangle and crawls within the rectangle to the diagonally opposite corner, Y, arriving there at 6 p.m. He sleeps there until noon on Tuesday, when he sets out again for X, crawling along another path within the rectangle and reaching X at 6 p.m. Prove that at some time on Tuesday the bug was no farther than p from his location at the same time on Monday.

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

A Launching

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:0256-Stuttgart_Finlay-11-02.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Scottish poet Ian Hamilton Finlay erected this sculpture in Stuttgart in 1975.

The engraving appears meaningless until it’s viewed across a body of water — and the German word schiff (ship) floats reflected on the surface.

| Art

Course Change

berouw

The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the most powerful natural sound ever experienced by humans. Captain Sampson of the British vessel Norham Castle, 40 kilometers away, wrote, “I am writing this blind in pitch darkness. We are under a continual rain of pumice-stone and dust. So violent are the explosions that the ear-drums of over half my crew have been shattered. My last thoughts are with my dear wife. I am convinced that the Day of Judgment has come.”

During the maelstrom the Dutch steam gunship Berouw was picked up by a wave and smashed down at the mouth of the Koeripan River, probably killing all 28 of her crew. Then a second enormous wave picked her up and carried her two miles inland, all the way up the river valley, and set her down upright, athwart the river and 60 feet above sea level.

The crew of a rescue ship discovered her there the following month: “She lies almost completely intact, only the front of the ship is twisted a little to port, the back of the ship a little to starboard. The engine room is full of mud and ash. The engines themselves were not damaged very much, but the flywheels were bent by the repeated shocks. It might be possible to float her once again.”

That never happened. In 1939 visitors reported that she was rusting in place, covered with vines, and home to a colony of monkeys. A few pieces remained in the 1980s, and today all trace of her is gone. In Krakatoa, Simon Winchester notes that Berouw is the Dutch word for “remorse.”

| Oddities

“A Brief in Rhyme”

From the Ohio Law Reporter: In 1916 a defendant filed this brief in the Court of Common Pleas in Fayette County, Ohio:

The sages of old with reason assumed
The shorter the horse the sooner he’s groomed;
And so with this case and the questions involved,
They’re exceedingly brief and speedily solved.

The plaintiff below was a broker, it seems,
And perhaps being broke, saw a fee in his dreams,
He had from one Ellis a small farm to sell
And likewise, from Strobel, a town-lot as well.

One day on the street by accident strange
He met Mr. Strobel and proposed an exchange.
He also, quite prudently, spoke of the fee
And told Brother Strobel how much it would be.

He stated both principals ought to agree
On the portion each party would pay of said fee.
“Very well,” then said Strobel, “I’ll trade for his farm,
And as for your fee, have not an alarm,

“Go straight and see Ellis, and get him to say
How much of said fee he’ll be willing to pay.”
The broker then started to see Mr. Ellis,
And now his reply Brother Ellis will tell us:

“I’ll pay just $2, and no more,” said he;
“Of the said $16 you charge as your fee.
If Strobel won’t trade upon that I’d as well
Keep my money and let the — trade go — a spell.”

Then the broker returned and reported to Strobel
Who sanctioned the terms in these words grand and noble
“$2 from 16 leaves 14 for me
And this I will pay you, to make up your fee;

“Day-after-tomorrow I’ll pay you a V
And the rest in installments — to this I agree;
Go close up the deal as soon as can be,
The sooner the better for you and for me.”

So the deal was soon closed and the deeds passed, you bet
But that “day-after-tomorrow” has never come yet
And that was the day Strobel promised to pay
That first V installment in such a sure way.

The evidence shows that when Strobel sent
The broker to see Mr. Ellis, he went
And did everything he required that he should
And tried to get Ellis to pay all he could.

And now I submit, Your Honor, to you
In absence of proof to a contrary view,
The law will presume good faith in this case
And order the broker to win in the race.

(signed) W.E. MAYNARD
Washington Court House, Ohio

“Of the result of his effort we are not informed,” reports the journal, “but it no doubt was given ‘careful consideration.'”

| Poems

Close Call

From reader Isaac Lubow:

In 2008 a Learjet operated by Kalitta Air was en route from Manassas, Va., to Ypsilanti, Mich., when the air traffic controller noted that the pilot’s microphone button was being pressed continuously. When he contacted the plane, the pilot told him in slow, slurred words, over the sound of audible alarms, that he was unable to maintain altitude, speed, or heading but that everything else was “A-OK.”

Euphoria is a sign of hypoxia. With the help of the pilot of a nearby aircraft, the controllers were able to understand that the Learjet had become depressurized. It turned out that the first officer had been completely unconscious, and his flailing arm had both disengaged the autopilot and keyed the microphone. The open microphone had alerted the controllers, and the need to hand-fly the plane had kept the pilot conscious and able to respond to their commands.

The pilot managed to descend from 32,000 feet to 11,000, where the crew recovered, and the plane landed safely at Detroit’s Willow Run Airport. Controllers Jay McCombs and Stephanie Bevins were awarded the Archie League Medal of Safety, and the episode is now used as a classroom teaching aid at the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute in Oklahoma City.

(From Fear of Landing. Thanks, Isaac.)

| Oddities

Gesundheit

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nasothek-2.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Classical statues tend to lose their noses, and in the 19th century museums would commonly replace them with “restoration” noses, to preserve the appearance of the original sculpture.

In the 20th century some museums changed philosophies and “de-restored” their collections, thinking it better to present each piece in its authentic state.

This created a superfluity of noses, and some museums collect these into displays of their own. Charmingly, there’s even a word for this: A collection of noses is a Nasothek.

Above is the collection in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen.

(Thanks, Carsten.)

| Art · Oddities

Hoss Sense

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fotothek_df_tg_0006177_Landwirtschaft_%5E_Nutztierhaltung_%5E_Biologie_%5E_Pferd_%5E_Medizin_%5E_Krankheit.jpg

In a case regarding the value of a dead horse, Judge Squire Sprigg of Butler County, Ohio, charged the jury as follows:

Gentlemen of the Jury: This is a hoss case. We make quick work of hoss cases in this court. These people killed Doc’s old hoss; if Doc’s hoss was worth anything, then he is entitled to recover; if he wasn’t worth anything, then he ain’t. Some hosses are worth something and a good many more are worth nothing. So, it is for you to say, whether this hoss was worth anything or not. You are to be governed by the preponderance of testimony. Preponderance is a big word, which I must explain to you. It means this: If one side has fifty witnesses and you think they are all liars, and the other side has one witness, and you don’t think he is a liar, or at least as big a liar as the other fifty, then the testimony of the one will preponderate over that of the others, and will knock the socks off of the other fifty. Now, if by a preponderance of the testimony, as I have explained it to you, you think the Doc’s old hoss was worth anything, find what that is and give it to him; if you think he was worth nothing, why say so. Doc will think this is pretty hard on the medical profession, but he will have to take the medicine which the law prescribes. The law provides for just such cases; it calls this damnum absque injuria, which means, as I interpret it, that a man is usually hurt a damned sight less than he thinks he is.

Now, gentlemen, I believe I have covered the whole case. You have heard the evidence and the law as I have given it to you. Remember that you are under oath in this business and that the court expects quick verdicts, especially in hoss cases.

They found for the defendant, the SPCA, and declared that Doc must pay the costs. “I stood true to the honor of our noble profession, and put a chattel mortgage on my household goods, and paid it off in weekly installments like a man,” he wrote. “But I have never had a law suit since.”

(From the Ohio Law Reporter, Jan. 30, 1905.)

| Society