Someone at the pub said what does ‘whelm’ mean? You can overwhelm or underwhelm, but can you whelm? Is whelming some kind of middle way?

A bit of research reveals that originally there was just whelm, a disaster that could happen to a boat or ship, meaning it could be overcome by weight of water and sink. Overwhelm just added the sense of a mass of water descending on the vessel.

So what about underwhelm? Well it seems to be a humorous coinage, first recorded in 1956. Here’s a couple of quotations the OED gives for whelm and underwhelm.

a1513   R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) II. f. clxxxviii   By the Mysgydynge of the Sterysman he was set vpon the Pylys of the Brydge, and the Barge whelmyd.

1956    T. K. Quinn Giant Corporations viii. 61   He wrote..commending the action of one of the giant corporations for a..price reduction at a time when prices were rising. I was underwhelmed, and investigated.

I had a terrible dream in which I was a cocktail made by incompetent bar staff. Woke up feeling badly shaken.

I was fascinated to read that researchers have succeeded in sequencing the genome of a man from Pompeii who died in the AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius. There is a really good article at

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/26/pompeii-victim-genome-successfully-sequenced-first-time

His genome was similar to that of others living in Italy at the time but with some genes shared by people in modern Sardinia. The authors of the original part commented “Further ancient genomes from Pompeii could help to reconstruct the genetic history of an ancient Roman city frozen in time.”

That’s the fascination of Pompeii: it’s a time capsule. And this research is a new window into it.

I never saw this until today, but it seems to have been going the rounds for some years and generated a lot of discussion. Googling the first phrase gets over 2 million hits.

A man buys a horse for £60 and sells it for £70. He then repurchases for £80, and sells it for £90.

Has he gained or lost, if so by how much? Or has he broken even?

Sometimes it’s a goat or a pig etc.

Snow and ice

Isn’t nice.

9 students and 9 professors attend a dinner at which they sit at a round table. The organisers wish to arrange the seating so that no one is seated between two professors. Is this possible?

… and this is what I got 

Two herrings walked into a bar. Well, they got kippered.

For several hours there has been almost no wind in my garden, the wind speed is effectively 0 km/h.

I think this must be quite unusual, although the Hairy Ball Theorem tells us that there must always be a point on the earth where the wind isn't blowing at any given moment.