Most Popular
1500 questions
9
votes
1 answer
Looking for a sci-fi short about a super computer that deduced that humour was an alien experiment
I read it back in the early 90’s, it may have been in a collection of short stories. At the end the scientists tried to remember a joke but couldn’t and if they read a printed joke it wasn’t funny…
Ivo
- 91
- 3
9
votes
1 answer
Who is "Reported Missing" addressed to?
Anna Keown's poem "Reported Missing" is addressed to a World War One soldier by a first-person narrator who is desperately hopeful that he isn't dead. Here's the poem in full:
My thought shall never be that you are dead:
Who laughed so lately in…
Rand al'Thor
- 72,435
- 26
- 236
- 488
9
votes
2 answers
Since when did Merlin have an owl?
I was reading some ten-year-old comments on a Q&A about owls in Harry Potter and learned that some versions of the Arthurian legend have the wizard Merlin possessing an owl which is called Archimedes. One comment by user PLL claims:
Archimedes…
Rand al'Thor
- 72,435
- 26
- 236
- 488
9
votes
5 answers
Why does the "ô" in this "rôle" have a circumflex?
I am reading League of Dragons, by Naomi Novik, as an e-book. Based on the cover art I have the first edition. In Chapter 15, there is what looks like an "o" with a hat:
Laurence sighed privately. He would have been glad for a different…
bobble
- 9,774
- 4
- 35
- 81
9
votes
2 answers
Why does Night say Desire and Morpheus are alike?
In The Sandman: Overture #5, Morpheus speaks with Night while paying a "social visit". There, Night claims Morpheus and Desire are very much alike:
Click for the full resolution
I tend to agree with Morpheus on this one. It is true that he acted…
Gallifreyan
- 8,405
- 5
- 33
- 87
9
votes
2 answers
How did they track Llewelyn Moss in "No Country for Old Men"?
How is Llewelyn Moss tracked by Chigurh and the Mexicans in No Country for Old Men? I'm asking several clarifying questions here, but I'm really just wondering what I missed about the tracking device(s) (were there more than one?).
Llewelyn made a…
tobiasvl
- 633
- 1
- 6
- 11
9
votes
3 answers
Why did "they" go to sea in a sieve?
In the poem 'The Jumblies' by Edward Lear, the protagonists go to sea in a sieve.
They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,
In a Sieve they went to sea:
In spite of all their friends could say,
On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,
In a…
Valorum
- 4,753
- 26
- 40
9
votes
0 answers
Was Isidora's fate in Melmoth the Wanderer directly inspired by Faust?
When reading Charles Robert Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer I couldn't help but notice that Isidora's fate largely resembled Gretchen's in Goethe's Faust and especially the endings of both storylines are largely similar.
Apart from the obvious…
Cahir Mawr Dyffryn æp Ceallach
- 1,391
- 1
- 16
- 37
9
votes
3 answers
Is Frederic 21 or 22 in "Pirates of Penzance"?
As we discover in act 2, Frederic has "lived twenty-one years" or "Years twenty-one I’ve been alive". Yet in the opening chorus it states:
Two and twenty, now he’s rising,
So what's going on here? Seems unlikely this is an oversight given that…
falsedot
- 193
- 4
9
votes
1 answer
Why did Urquhart choose "neck of a goose" in his English translation of Gargantua?
In Rabelais' Gargantua, in Chapter 13, we find a discussion on the best means to wipe one's bum.
You can find Urquhart's translation here. I am specifically interested in the conclusion:
But, to conclude, I say and maintain, that of all…
Greg Sadetsky
- 193
- 4
9
votes
1 answer
Short story about chess
In the book The Complete Chess Addict by Mike Fox and Richard James, the following passage appears on page 156.
Alekhine, near the end of his life, lonely and sick, but still world champion, told a friend of the amazing happenings at the great St…
Timothy Chow
- 435
- 4
- 9
9
votes
1 answer
Two men traveling through desert with sheep, older one holds water in mouth to reduce thirst and blows tobacco on sheep to remove ticks
This was a fictional story about 2 men travelling through the desert with a herd of sheep.
I remember one of the men was much older and wiser. He knew how to survive in the desert. He explains at one point the best way to drink water to minimize…
Qthedude
- 91
- 2
9
votes
1 answer
Who first claimed that Blake’s “dark Satanic Mills” referred to the Church of England, and what was their argument?
William Blake’s poem ‘And did those feet in ancient time’ (1808) contains the lines
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
The meaning of the phrase “dark Satanic Mills” is obscure, and several interpretations have been…
Gareth Rees
- 55,828
- 5
- 142
- 288
9
votes
2 answers
Is there actually such a thing as "OCR-pirated" books?
A recent answer/comment to a different question prompted me to ask this: Why does Tolkien use neither quotes nor cursive writing, and all lower-case, in this specific "quote"?
Somebody seems to suggest that somebody had painstakingly scanned in all…
Bevin
- 101
- 1
- 3
9
votes
1 answer
What does the term "one heat down" in Dickens's "Little Dorrit" mean?
Mr Casby lived in a street in the Gray’s Inn Road, which had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into the valley.
Little Dorrit, chapter 13
What does the term "one heat down" mean?
anjan
- 791
- 1
- 5