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Play with work blend, keep warmish feet, Away drive trouble, slowly eat; Air pure breathe, and early rise; Beware excess, take exercise. Exercise take, excess beware; Rise early and breathe pure air; Eat slowly; trouble drive away; Feet warmish keep, blend work with play. — “W.E.R.,” in Truth, Jan. 13, 1881

There are several simple little drawing tricks which the nurse may use to arouse the interest of her patient as she uses puzzles and catches. The oldest of these is by Hogarth and represents a soldier and his dog going through a doorway. As is seen by the diagram, it consists of three straight lines and one curved one. — William Rush Dunton, Occupation...

In March 1939, students at McGill University dictated this sentence to a dozen faculty members: Outside a cemetery sat a harassed cobbler and an embarrassed oculist, picknicking on a desiccated apple, and gazing at the symmetry of a lady’s ankle with unparalleled ecstasy. The participants included three English professors, the head of the journalism department, and a proofreading instructor. Only Esther Korstad, instructor of...

In the classic Indian rope trick, a rope rises into the sky, its end lost to view. A boy disappears up the rope, and when he fails to return the angry magician climbs up after him. Body parts fall to the ground, the magician descends and places the parts in a basket, and the boy reappears uninjured. This is all thought to be a...

Examination questions from the final Classical Honours School at Oxford University, 1899 — “to have passed through it was the hallmark of a superbly educated man, and its graduates went on to rule the nation and, in that heyday of British imperialism, half the world too”: Sketch the history of the Syracusan democracy between the fall of Thrasybulus in 466 B.C. and the accession...

“We went back to England together. When we arrived at the customs shed, Syrie said: ‘Always choose the oldest customs official. No chance of promotion.'” — Somerset Maugham, quoting his wife

In the King James Bible, Ezra 7:21 lacks only the letter J, and 1 Chronicles 12:40 lacks only Q. In 2016 Pharmacy Times judged talimogene laherparepvec the hardest drug name to pronounce. 34 × 72 × 875 = 3472875 (B.J. van der Zwaag) The Estonian word kuulilennuteetunneliluuk (“bullet tunnel hatch”) is a palindrome. “No one ever forgets where he buried the hatchet.” — Kin...

From Wikimedia user Cmglee, two digital arithmetic techniques: Above: To multiply a positive single-digit integer by 9, hold up your hands palm up, imagine the fingers numbered consecutively 1 to 10, and fold down the finger corresponding to the number to be multiplied (here, 8). The product is the two-digit number represented by the remaining two groups of fingers — here there are seven...

A duel was lately fought in Texas by Alexander Shott and John S. Nott. Nott was shot, and Shott was not. In this case it is better to be Shott than Nott. There was a rumor that Nott was not shot, and Shott avers that he shot Nott, which proves either that the shot Shott shot at Nott was not shot, or that Nott...

In Christopher Marlowe’s play Edward II, one of the king’s gaolers receives a message reading Edwardum occidere nolite timere bonum est. This can be read either as Edwardum occidere nolite; timere bonum est (“Do not kill Edward; it is good to be afraid [to do so]”) or as Edwardum occidere nolite timere; bonum est (“Do not be afraid to kill Edward; [to do so]...

“Stilpo having escaped the burning of his city, in which he had lost wife, children, and property, Demetrius Poliorcetes, seeing him unperturbed in expression amid the great ruin of his country, asked him if he had not suffered loss. He replied No, that thanks to God he had lost nothing of his own.” — Montaigne “In general, the greatest reverses of fortune are the...

According to the Guardian (March 1872), Lord Palmerston once dictated this sentence to 11 British cabinet ministers, “not one of whom, it is said, spelled it correctly”: It is disagreeable to witness the embarrassment of a harassed peddler gauging the symmetry of a peeled potato. “And Lord R. Cecil, in the House of Commons, some time ago, quoted the following lines which he said...

An episode from P.T. Barnum’s childhood in Bethel, Connecticut: ‘What is the price of razor strops?’ inquired my grandfather of a peddler, whose wagon, loaded with Yankee notions, stood in front of our store. ‘A dollar each for Pomeroy’s strops,’ responded the itinerant merchant. ‘A dollar apiece!’ exclaimed my grandfather; ‘they’ll be sold for half the money before the year is out.’ ‘If one...

Punctuate this expression so that it makes sense: Time flies you cannot they pass at such irregular intervals.

If Socrates was born, Socrates became either when Socrates existed not or when Socrates already existed; but if he shall be said to have become when he already existed, he will have become twice; and if when he did not exist, Socrates was both existent and non-existent at the same time — existent through having become, non-existent by hypothesis. And if Socrates died, he...

A square can be divided into an even number of triangles of equal area — but not into an odd number.

A puzzle by Virginia McCarthy: A 20-story office building has one busy elevator. On a recent trip upward, the elevator transported seven passengers. Each of these went up at least two floors, but no two of them went up the same number of floors. On this one upward journey, no more than one passenger crossed the elevator’s threshold on any given floor; no passenger...

Every unjust act is inexpedient; No unjust act is expedient; No expedient act is unjust; Therefore every expedient act is just. — Ralph L. Woods, How to Torture Your Mind, 1969

He was prettily and fantastically troubled, who, having used to put his trust in dreams, one night dreamed that all dreams were vain; for he considered, if so, then this was vain, and then dreams might be true for all this: but if they might be true, then this dream might be so upon equal reason: and then dreams were vain, because this dream...

This curious epitaph is found at Martham Church in Norfolk: Here Lyeth the Body of Christr. Burraway, who departed this Life ye 18 day of October, Anno Domini 1730. Aged 59 years. And there Lyes ☞ Alice who by his Life Was my Sister, my mistress My mother and my wife. Dyed Feb. ye 12. 1729 Aged 76 years. According to Thomas Joseph Pettigrew...

The Moscow Radio announced that five million Russians filed past Josef Stalin’s bier in 72 hours. That means, according to the calculations of Frank Baker, a Mangum, Okla., accountant, that the mourners, two abreast, three and one third feet apart, ran past the bier at 22 miles an hour. Twenty-two miles an hour is 9.3 seconds a hundred yards, which is the world’s record...

“If the northern hemisphere were land, and all the southern hemisphere water, ought we to call the northern hemisphere an island, or the southern hemisphere a lake?” — Augustus De Morgan

A “simple but pretty little puzzle” by Henry Dudeney: If this flag measures 4 feet by 3 feet and presents equal areas of red and white bunting, how wide are the cross’s arms?

The French phrase ouate de phoque (“seal’s cotton wool”) sounds like what the fuck in English. For whatever that’s worth. Listen to the pronunciation file here.