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April 15th, 2026 (Permalink)
You Don't Say!
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There is no foreign institution with which, in any basic sense, [the American presidency] can be compared, because, basically, there is no comparable foreign institution. The President of the United States is both more and less than a king; he is, also, both more and less than a Prime Minister.1
- The following blurb is from the front cover of a Sax Rohmer novel2:
"…one of the 'greats' of horror fiction."―San Francisco Examiner
Notice that "greats" is in quotation marks within the quotation marks. So, whoever wrote this comment for the San Francisco Examiner was not calling Rohmer one of the "greats", but quoting someone else. I would suspect that the quote was made up by the publisher except for the inner quotation marks, which suggest irony. I doubt whether anyone, even in 1962, would have seriously thought Rohmer was a "great" of horror fiction or any other genre. Unfortunately, it would be hard to check the quote to see if its context is actually a favorable review of the book since the citation only gives the name of the newspaper with no date or page, and the book in question was published in 1962. Rohmer's novel was originally published in 19323, so there's a thirty year span in which the quote might have been made. The Examiner quote was probably the best that could be found, and the publisher hoped that the potential reader wouldn't notice the quotation marks around "greats".
- Riddle me this: What ancient invention makes it possible for people to walk through solid walls? Click on the button below to see the answer.
Doors
This is a variation of a riddle usually asking what invention lets people see through solid walls―you should be able to figure that out on your own4.
Notes:
- ↑ Harold J. Laski, The American Presidency: An Interpretation (1943), p. 23. I found the first sentence of this quote in: Paul F. Boller, Jr., Quotemanship: The Use and Abuse of Quotations for Polemical and Other Purposes (1967), p. 253.
- ↑ Sax Rohmer, The Mask of Fu Manchu (Pyramid Books, 1962).
- ↑ Ibid., p. 4.
- ↑ If not, see: David J. Bodycombe, The Riddles of the Sphinx (2007), pp. 352 & 556.
April 4th, 2026 (Permalink)
(W)retch
[W]hen I spot an error (like this egregious misspelling from―yes―The New Yorker: '[A]fter drinking it I wondered for several moments if I would wretch.'), my blood begins to boil, or at least come to a simmer you could poach an egg in.1
A wretch may retch, you may feel wretched while retching, and reading The Wretched of the Earth may make you retch, but not all who retch are wretches.
The error in The New Yorker that Florey was referring to in the quote above was that of putting a "w" on the beginning of the final word. Despite the fact that "retch" and "wretch" are pronounced exactly the same and differ in spelling only by that silent "w", the two words belong to distinct grammatical categories. "Wretch" is a noun referring to a person in a wretched condition, that is, miserable2; whereas "retch" is a verb for vomiting or, alternatively, what is called "dry heaving", that is, trying to vomit but not succeeding3. So, the author of the article that Florey quoted may have felt wretched or like a wretch, but that was because he felt as though he would retch.
I decided to run the sentence with the misspelling by GPT-5 mini to see how it compared to The New Yorker's "vaunted" fact checking department―this is the magazine's own term for it4―and here is that exchange:
Me: Can you check a sentence for grammar and spelling?GPT-5 mini: Sure―paste the sentence and I'll check it.
Me: "The nose was almost nonexistent, but after drinking it I wondered for several moments if I would wretch.5"
GPT-5 mini: Corrected sentence:
The nose was almost nonexistent, but after drinking it I wondered for several moments whether I would wretch.
Notes: Changed "if" to "whether" for formality/clarity. "Wretch" is uncommon; if you meant "retch" (to vomit), use "retch" instead. Example with that change:
The nose was almost nonexistent, but after drinking it I wondered for several moments whether I would retch.6
The change of "if" to "whether" is unnecessary but a stylistic improvement, in my opinion, but the problem with "wretch" is not that it's uncommon, it's that it's ungrammatical and not what the author meant. Still, GPT-5 mini did better than The New Yorker's presumably human editors, since it at least suggested the proper correction in the end. Are there layoffs in the magazine's "vaunted" department in the future?
The confusion of the two words is not common enough to be mentioned in any of the reference books I usually consult, but if it's good enough for The New Yorker, that's good enough for me.
Notes:
- ↑ Kitty Burns Florey, Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences (2006), p. 116.
- ↑ "Wretch", Cambridge Dictionary, accessed: 4/1/2026.
- ↑ "Retch", Cambridge Dictionary, accessed: 4/1/2026.
- ↑ Zach Helfand, "The History of The New Yorker's Vaunted Fact-Checking Department", The New Yorker, 8/25/2025. There's an amphiboly in this headline: Is it the fact checking that is vaunted or the department?
- ↑ Jack Turner, "Green Gold: The Return of Absinthe", The New Yorker, 3/6/2006. The misspelling is still uncorrectd.
- ↑ Private chat with GPT-5 mini, 3/29/2026.
April 1st, 2026 (Permalink)
From the E-Mailbag
A reader writes to ask:
If I ride my bicycle one mile at thirty miles per hour (MPH) to the top of a hill, how fast will I have to coast down the other side for a mile to average sixty MPH for the whole two-mile trip? A friend told me ninety MPH but I can't get the math to work. Help!
Can you solve the reader's problem?
What is the date of this entry?
It's impossible.
Explanation: To average sixty MPH, he would have to cover the two miles at an average of a mile a minute, which would take two minutes. However, it took him two minutes to climb to the top of the hill at thirty MPH. Therefore, he would have to cover the second mile instanteously, which is not possible even going downhill.
Disclaimer & Disclosure: This puzzle is fictional as is the e-mail. This is my version of a traditional "gotcha" puzzle often given in terms of a one-mile race track. I'd seen it before but was reminded of it by the following book: David J. Bodycombe, The Riddles of the Sphinx (2007), pp. 276 & 536.