Why did the fox cross the road?
To get to the other chicken.
Why did the fox cross the road?
To get to the other chicken.
Knock-knock!
Who's there?
Alfred.
Who's Alfred?
Who's Alfred of the Big Bad Wolf!
Not everyone appreciates how smart fish can be. For instance flatfish - soles, plaice, flounders, and similar - are often highly intelligent. Astonishingly there are undersea crime gangs operated by these fishes.
Once, in a submarine investigation I had a sea cliff at my back, whilst in front was a flatfish I knew had been paid to kill me.
And as it happens I had just put my foot on some gluey seaweed. I thought: has my life come to this?
Stuck between a rock and a hired plaice.
James Joyce is said to have disliked inverted commas (AKA quotation marks); in Ulysses and elsewhere he avoided them in favour of the dash. He referred to perverted commas, although the quip seems to go back earlier [reference needed]. Here's a famous example
STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him
by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:
—Introibo ad altare Dei.
Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called up coarsely:
—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!
~WELL~...
I like quotation marks (a.k.a 'quotes', I think they are fun. You can nest them and that's the kind of stuff I like, it's the wordpuzzleist/programmer/mathematician/... in me. In the UK the nesting goes
""
"''"
"'""'"
In the US they start with the single quote*.
You can in principle nest as deep as you need or please, but it gets hard to construe after about three levels. Grammar books often have artificial examples such as
Jack said "Jill said, 'Never say, "Never say, 'Never'"'"
The deepest nesting I know where it arises naturally from the plot is from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (who —they said, —spoke in Polish, thought in French, and wrote in English, which was more or less correct). The narrator, Marlow, is describing what someone else said about someone else. Marlow says
“I was broad awake by this time [...] The fat man sighed. 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here. “Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.” Conceive you—that ass! And he wants to be manager! No, it's—' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my head the least bit."
Colours help us follow the speakers
“I was broad awake by this time [...] The fat man sighed. 'Very sad.' 'And the pestiferous absurdity of
his talk,' continued the other; 'he bothered me enough when he was here.
“Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a
centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving,
instructing.” Conceive you—that ass! And he wants to be manager! No,
it's—' Here he got choked by excessive indignation, and I lifted my
head the least bit."
I am pretty sure Conrad is using this as way of building up the atmosphere of the book, which is quite (and quote) deep. Heart of Darkness has many levels; the grammar echoes them.
* Why? I don't know either but the sparkling David Crystal explains somewhere in one of his books (I think).
They told the XXX: 'The design is correct in all respects and carefully follows the correct protocol for displaying the Union Flag on an aircraft.
'The convention is for the flag design to appear as though it is flying from a flag placed on the nose of the aircraft as it travels through the air.
'When viewing the starboard side [right side], this can give the mistaken impression that the design is backwards, or upside down, when in fact the observer is simply viewing the reverse side of the flag.'
I love the way the writer felt the only possible point of confusion could be what starboard means.
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As I write this is the end of day 100 of isolation for me.
But I think with sorrow of the huge numbers of elderly people who are isolated for years on end.
This morning I woke at six and into my head flooded this song
It's a lovely day tomorrow
Tomorrow is a lovely day
Come and feast your tear dimmed eyes
On tomorrow's clear blue skies
Vera Lynn died a few days ago and I suppose her most famous song was “We’ll meet again”, often heard in the first days of lockdown. But a lovely day tomorrow seems more immediately optimistic; it is a favourite song and on my Spotify starred song list. And I think Vera Lynn’s voice, voice control, and ability to convey simple sincerity are amazing. This song, sung at a bleaker time even than now, is a message of calm optimism and steadfastness.
Q. What’s the difference between an introvert and an extrovert mathematician?
A. When conversing, the introvert mathematician looks at their own shoes. The extrovert look at yours.
* Not mine, it’s old, but contains an element of truth.
Mathematician are less concerned with answers, than with asking the right questions. That is the hard part.
I sent you a joke
But I guess you didn’t get it
Laughter all.
Mike. Ron.
Home Planet's message
Is all good in your locality?
I was
Too ashamed
To
Reply
“I’m guessing you should have been here earlier”, Tom speculated.
I came across a song, Vergiss Mein Nicht, performed by the tenor Fritz Wunderlich, famous for Mozartian roles according to Wikipedia, but this is more in the tradition of singers such as Richard Tauber. I sent a link to a friend who is very into operetta style songs - it is a shared interest! - but he wanted to know what the lyrics would be in English. He couldn't find an English version and neither could I, so I had a go with the aid of Google Translate and some tidying up. I think the original and the translation stand quite well on their own as poems, which is often true of this song genre, but not of all song lyrics of course.
I took a certain liberty in line 3, because red is not mentioned in the original, but I think it works and it helps with the rhythm of the verse.
When you're so tender
Then I think, Forget me not!
And when your red lips kiss my mouth
Then I dream, Forget me not!
When you wrap your arm around me
Then I pray, Forget me not!
And when the day comes that we part
Please, Forget me not!
I turned up at some pottery classes
And found them all reciting vases.
A slip of the ears
It appears.
Q. What would a mathematical cowboy do with 0.5 of a steer?
A. Round it up.
I found these English words by computer search using a small program I wrote. What is unusual about them?
Abroad
Breach
Please
Spending
Stable
Stone
Strain
Here’s a little puzzle, that no-one can find out,
Whether every little swing has a little roundabout.
Many years ago an aged relative passed away, and for some reason I inherited her ear trumpet. I've always treasured it, as a relic from a past era.
I've been sheltering for 12 weeks, because I am quite vulnerable.
Today I went out, at last. Infection in my locaility is down to the level just before the lockdown. So I decided that, given the good weather, it would be safe to emerge blinking into the sunlight. It could be "Now or never", with "Now" being the better option.
Here is a record of the exploration* I made on my mobility scooter.
* "X" marks a spot where a car pulled up on the other side of the road and the driver wound down the window and said "Dr Walker, I presume." Well not exactly that, it was someone I knew, who said "How are you?" but roughly similar.
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