The Wine Merchant’s Will
A wine merchant left 24 casks of wine to his three sons, and the casks were in the following conditions: 5 casks were full. 11 casks were half-full. 8 casks were empty. His last will said that each son...
View ArticleSome Weird Acronyms
While most acronyms are just plain and forgettable, there are some acronyms that are just weird. Here are some examples: ABITHAD: Another Blithering Idiot Thinks He’s A Doctor (I saw this one on a...
View ArticleMark Twain’s Plan to Make a Bestseller
When Mark Twain published The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in 1876, a Canadian publisher pirated it which negatively affected its sales in the US and overseas. The bootlegged edition of the books proved to...
View Article“Inspiring” Quotes from a Bot
We have all seen those inspirational quotes printed on posters (or photos, if you are a social media person) that talk about conquering challenges, achieving impossible dreams or learning from...
View ArticlePun of the Weak: Power Struggle
Power Struggle — What happens in an office full of people and few electrical outlets.
View Article“The Arrow and the Song”
I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not...
View ArticleQuotable #90: Silence
“Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.” — Attributed to Pythagoras Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the...
View ArticleWhat Color Is the Dragon?
Credit: Antonio J. Manzanedo Two knights encounter a dragon, who quickly responds, “I am protected by the king’s decree.” Gray rational dragons and red predator dragons always tell the truth; red...
View ArticleWisdom from Around the World #1
Albanian: “For various reasons a good advice or a genuine warning is often disregarded or considered of no importance.” Arab: “Riches disclose bad qualities which poverty conceals.” Cambodian: “The...
View ArticleGleanings from the Past #90
The Persistence of Memory What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and...
View ArticleBeing a Criminal Lawyer
Raymond Burr in Perry Mason In 1977, Michael George Cummings of Tulsa, Oklahoma was charged with purse-stealing. He refused to have a lawyer defend him at his impending trial. His reason? He said that...
View Article“To Blossom”
Fair pledges of a fruitful tree, Why do ye fall so fast? Your date is not so past; But you may stay yet here a while To blush and gently smile, And go at last. What, were ye born to be An hour or...
View ArticleThe Big Universe
In his book, The Book of Naturalists (1944), naturalist William Beebe related an interesting anecdote about him and his friend Theodore Roosevelt during his visits to Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s...
View ArticleA Witty Exchange
George Bernard Shaw (left) and Winston Churchill (right) When playwright George Bernard Shaw started a new play, he invited Winston Churchill to attend the opening night. He thought of a witty...
View ArticlePuns of the Weak #1
Starting this week, “Pun of the Weak” will be renamed as “Puns of the Weak”. When I was down, a friend told me, “Just look on the bright side, at least, you are not stuck in the hole underground full...
View ArticleDecide
In The Devil’s Dictionary (1906), Ambrose Bierce defined “Decide” as “to succumb to the preponderance of one set of influences over another set.” What followed is this short verse: A leaf was riven...
View ArticleSome Weird Index Cross-References
The Monthly Magazine for June 1801 talked about a weird and curious cross-references found in William Hawkins’ Treatise of the Pleas of the Crown (1795, 7th ed.). The magazine observed that “a plain,...
View ArticleA Missing Hyphen Can Change Everything
Image: Imgur Well, I’m not sure whether I would laugh or cringe when I first saw this. The Pratt Tribune changed the headline of the online version to “Students get job-site training during Disability...
View ArticleGleanings from the Past #91
Monotony The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding...
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