“When asked by a disciple if there were one single word which could serve as a principle of conduct for life, Confucius replied, ‘Perhaps the word reciprocity will do. Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.'” — Analects
Search Results for: in a word
“To a Lost Sweetheart”
When Whistler’s Mother’s Picture’s frame
Split, that sad morn, in two,
Your tense words scorched me like a flame —
You shrieked, “Ah, glue! Get glue!”
O Glue! O God! there was not glue
Enough in all the feet
Of all the kine the wide world through
To hold you to me, Sweet!
A Union Cipher
This baffling message illustrates a cipher adopted by the Union Army in 1862:
TO GEORGE C. MAYNARD, Washington
Regulars ordered of my to public out suspending received 1862 spoiled thirty I dispatch command of continue of best otherwise worst Arabia my command discharge duty of my last for Lincoln September period your from sense shall duties the until Seward ability to the I a removal evening Adam herald tribune.
PHILIP BRUNER
The address and signature are “covers” that don’t enter into the cipher. The first word, Regulars, is a code indicating that the original message had been written in five columns of nine words each. Tribune, herald, spoiled, Seward, for, and worst are null words; Lincoln is code for Louisville, Kentucky; Adam means General Henry Wager Halleck; and Arabia is code for Major General Don Carlos Buell. The word Period indicates a full stop. This had been the original message:
Louisville, Kentucky September thirty 1862 General Halleck: (Adam) (period) I received last evening your dispatch suspending my removal from command. Out of a sense of public duty, I shall continue to discharge the duties of my command to the best of my ability until otherwise ordered. D.C. Buell, Major General
This message had been enciphered by reading up the fourth column, down the third, up the fifth, down the second, and up the first; inserting the null words; and encoding the most sensitive particulars. The system worked well until July 1864, when Union cipher operator Stephen L. Robinson was captured by Confederate guerrillas and the key seized.
(John Laffin, Codes and Ciphers Secret Writing Through the Ages, 1964.)
Training
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. …
The chess-board is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. …
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture, a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win — and I should accept it as an image of human life.
Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority, or of numbers, upon the other side.
— Thomas Huxley, “A Liberal Education and Where to Find It,” 1868
Taking Stock
A self-inventorying crossword from Lee Sallows:
This one even tallies the number of spaces it contains!
(Thanks, Lee!)
Interloper
The first edition of the Collins COBUILD English Language Dictionary (1987) contains a fictitious entry, presumably to catch content thieves:
hink, hinks, hinking, hinked. If you hink, you think hopefully and unrealistically about something.
Phony or not, this is a useful word. If it’s adopted widely enough, perhaps the dictionary entry will bootstrap itself into legitimacy.
Ready to Hand
Synonyms for WRITER’S CRAMP collected by Dmitri Borgmann in 1987:
CHIROSPASM
WRITERS’ PALSY
GRAPHOSPASM
SCRIVENERS’ PALSY
MOGIGRAPHIA or MOGOGRAPHIA
PENMAN’S SPASM
WRITERS’ NEUROSIS
HYPERKINESIA
DYSGRAPHIA
WRITERS’ SPASM
A STUTTERING OF THE HAND
MOGIGRAPHIA has four principal forms: SPASTIC, PARALYTIC, NEURALGIC, and TREMULOUS. Borgmann wrote, “No longer need you suffer from the WRITER’S CRAMP of the masses — you can, instead, discourse eloquently and frequently about the plethora of more elegant-sounding ailments that I have made available to you!”
(Dmitri A. Borgmann, “Quelque Chose,” Word Ways 20:1 [February 1987], 44-53.)
Inksmanship
The most prolific author in history may be Charles Hamilton (1876-1961), who could turn out 80,000 words a week writing long series of stories with recurring casts of characters, often set in boys’ public schools. Hamilton wrote under a variety of names and occasionally employed other writers to help with the work, but his own lifetime output has been estimated at 100 million words.
In his 1940 essay “Boys’ Weeklies,” George Orwell writes, “The stories in the Magnet are signed ‘Frank Richards’ and those in the Gem, ‘Martin Clifford’, but a series lasting thirty years could hardly be the work of the same person every week.”
He was forced to add a footnote: “This is quite incorrect. These stories have been written throughout the whole period by ‘Frank Richards’ and ‘Martin Clifford’, who are one and the same person!”
Read It Aloud
Center Alley worse jester pore ladle gull hoe lift wetter stop-murder an toe heft-cisterns. Daze worming war furry wicket an shellfish parsons, spatially dole stop-murder, hoe dint lack Center Alley an, infect, word orphan traitor pore gull mar lichen ammonol dinner hormone bang. Oily inner moaning disk wicket oiled worming shorted, ‘Center Alley, gad otter bet, an goiter wark! Suture lacy ladle bomb! Shaker lake!’ an firm moaning tell gnat disk ratchet gull word heifer wark lacquer hearse toe kipper horsing ardor, washer heft-cistern’s closing, maker bets, gore tutor star fur perversions, cooker males, washer dashes an doe oily udder hoard wark. Nor wander pore Center Alley worse tarred an disgorged!
— Howard L. Chace, Anguish Languish, 1956
Memory Span
The peculiar architecture of Echo Bridge, in Newton, Massachusetts, will re-echo a human voice 18 times and a pistol shot (reportedly) 25 times.
In 1889 author Moses King wrote, “The favorite word to hurl at the arch is JULY, and the serious charge of lie — lie — lie is thrown back as vigorously and almost as frequently as if the bridge were a political newspaper in campaign time.”