(All questions written out legibly with the name and address of the
sender and accompanied by one dollar, answered immediately and without
charge.)
Harvard Student asks:
Can you tell me the date at which, or on which, Oliver Cromwell’s father
died?
Answer: No, I can’t.
Student of Mathematics asks:
Will you kindly settle a matter involving a wager between myself and
a friend? A. bet B. that a pedestrian in walking downhill over a given
space and alternately stepping with either foot, covers more ground than
a man coasting over the same road on a bicycle. Which of us wins?
Answer: I don’t understand the question, and I don’t know which of you
is A.
Chess-player asks:
Is the Knight’s gambit recognized now as a permissible opening in chess?
Answer: I don’t play chess.
Reuben Boob asks:
For some time past I have been calling upon a young lady friend at her
house evenings and going out with her to friends’ nights. I should like
to know if it would be all right to ask to take her alone with me to the
theatre?
Answer: Certainly not. This column is very strict about these things.
Not alone. Not for a moment. It is better taste to bring your father
with you.
Auction asks:
In playing bridge please tell me whether the third or the second player
ought to discard from weakness on a long suit when trumps have been
twice round and the lead is with dummy.
Answer: Certainly.
Lady of Society asks:
Can you tell me whether the widow of a marquis is entitled to go in to
dinner before the eldest daughter of an earl?
Answer: Ha! ha! This is a thing we know--something that we _do_ know.
You put your foot in it when you asked us that. We have _lived_ this
sort of thing too long ever to make any error. The widow of a marquis,
whom you should by rights call a marchioness dowager (but we overlook
it--you meant no harm) is entitled (in any hotel that we know or
frequent) to go in to dinner whenever, and as often, as she likes. On a
dining-car the rule is the other way.
Vassar Girl asks:
What is the date of the birth of Caracalla?
Answer: I couldn’t say.
Lexicographer asks:
Can you tell me the proper way to spell “dog”?
Answer: Certainly. “Dog” should be spelt, properly and precisely, “dog.”
When it is used in the sense to mean not “_a_ dog” or “_one_ dog” but
two or more dogs--in other words what we grammarians are accustomed
to call the plural--it is proper to add to it the diphthong, _s_,
pronounced with a hiss like _z_ in soup.
But for all these questions of spelling your best plan is to buy a copy
of Our Standard Dictionary, published in ten volumes, by this newspaper,
at forty dollars.
Ignoramus asks:
Can you tell me how to spell “cat”?
Answer: Didn’t you hear what we just said about how to spell “dog”? Buy
the Dictionary.
Careworn Mother asks:
I am most anxious to find out the relation of the earth’s diameter to
its circumference. Can you, or any of your readers, assist me in it?
Answer: The earth’s circumference is estimated to be three decimal one
four one five nine of its diameter, a fixed relation indicated by the
Greek letter _pi_. If you like we will tell you what _pi_ is. Shall we?
“Brink of Suicide” writes:
Can you, will you, tell me what is the Sanjak of Novi Bazar?
Answer. The Sanjak of Novi Bazar is bounded on the north by its northern
frontier, cold and cheerless, and covered during the winter with deep
snow. The east of the Sanjak occupies a more easterly position. Here the
sun rises--at first slowly, but gathering speed as it goes. After having
traversed the entire width of the whole Sanjak, the magnificent orb,
slowly and regretfully, sinks into the west. On the south, where the
soil is more fertile and where the land begins to be worth occupying,
the Sanjak is, or will be, bounded by the British Empire.