The Meaning of Words

Span of attention

Sincerity

Perils of the German Language

Adapted from Saki (1912) The Chronicles of Clovis

 

The Boy and the Frog

nce upon a time, a ten year old boy was strolling through the park. He was wandering aimlessly along kicking stones. He had been doing this for some time when he noticed a large and unusual target. Just before he kicked it, he realised it was actually a frog. He bent down to pick it up when he heard a voice say, "Don't kick me!"

He couldn't believe his ears and picked the frog up — the frog looked up at him, its eyes pleading — "Please don't hurt me." The boy was staggered — a talking frog!

The frog spoke again, "Don't hurt me. If you kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess."

The frog pleaded again, "Kiss me, I'll turn into a beautiful princess and do anything you want."

The boy simply tucked the frog in his pocket and carried on down the path kicking kicking stones.

The frog jumped up and down in his pocket furiously. The boy finally took the frog from his pocket and brought it up to his face. "What's the matter?" he asked the frog. The frog replied, "I told you that if you kissed me I'd turn into a beautiful princess and I'll do anything you like, but you just put me in your pocket — why?"

"I'd rather have a talking frog."

The Calf Path

ne day, through the primeval wood, a calf walked home, as good calves should;
But made a trail all bent askew, a crooked trail as all calves do.
Since then two hundred years have fled, and, I infer, the calf is dead.
But still he left behind his trail, and thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day by a lone dog that passed that way;
And then a wise bell-wether sheep pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,
And drew the flock behind him, too, as good bell-wethers always do.
And from that day, o’er hill and glade, through those old woods a path was made.

And many men wound in and out, and dodged, and turned, and bent about;
And uttered words of righteous wrath because ’twas such a crooked path.
But still they followed — do not laugh — the first migrations of that calf.
And through this winding wood-way stalked, because he wobbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane, that bent, and turned, and turned again;
This crooked lane became a road, where many a poor horse with his load,
Toiled on beneath the burning sun, and travelled some three miles in one.
And thus a century and a half they trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on in swiftness fleet, and the road became a village street;
And this, before men were aware, a crowded city thoroughfare;
And soon the central street was this of a renowned metropolis;
And men two centuries and a half trod in the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout followed the zigzag calf about;
And o’er his crooked journey went the traffic of a continent.
A hundred thousand men were led by one calf near three centuries dead.
They followed still his crooked way, and lost one hundred years a day.

For thus such reverence is lent to well-established precedent.
A moral lesson this might teach, were I ordained and called to preach;
For men are prone to go it blind along the calf-paths of the mind,
And work away from sun to sun to do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track, and out and in, and forth and back,
And still their devious course pursue, to keep the path that others do.
How the wise old wood-gods laugh, who saw the first primeval calf;
Ah, many things this tale might teach — but I am not ordained to preach.

Sam Walter Foss (1858–1911)

The Mouse and Henry Carson

ne evening deep in June, mid-summer to be exact, a mouse ran into the office of the Educational Testing Service, and accidentally triggered a delicate point in the apparatus just as the College Entrance Examination Board’s data on Henry Carson was being scored.

Henry was an average secondary school pupil, uncertain of himself and of his talents. Without the mouse, Henry’s scores would have been average or below, but the mouse changed all that, and the computer obligingly produced amazingly high scores in both verbal and quantitative areas.

Henry’s extraordinary abilities were soon known throughout the school. His teachers looked at him in a new light, wondering how they could have underestimated his ability. Counsellors were puzzled at how they had missed his obvious talent, and college administrators vied with one another to win Henry for their colleges.

For Henry the world changed, and he grew as a person and as a student. For the first time he recognised his potentialities, and gained in confidence, beginning ‘to put his mind in the way of great things’. So was born one of the best men of his generation.

The Fable of Plato’s Horse

nce upon a time, many years ago (386BC or thereabouts) in Ancient Greece there was a philosopher by the name of Plato. Besides writing his dialogues (sounds like a contradiction in terms doesn’t it?) he founded a Training School which he called the Academy. One of his main teaching methods was discussion leading.

One fine Grecian evening Plato and a group of his students were seated around a rock on the shores of the Aegean Sea. (They had taken an Awayday from Athens.) After a while the discussion centred round teeth — horses teeth in fact — and more specifically: “What do you consider to be the correct number of teeth for an adult, male horse to possess?”

Glaucon said that as a horse had such a small mouth it was obvious that there could be no more than fifteen teeth.

“Nonsense!” cried Thrasymachus “Any fool can see that a horse has a very long jaw bone so it must have forty-two teeth.”

By this time the discussion became very heated and Plato decided that it was time to control the pace of the discussion by summarising: “Glaucon has said that a horse has fifteen teeth because it has a small mouth, and Thrasymachus has said that a horse has forty-two teeth because of its long jaw.” (Notice how careful Plato was not to put forward his own ideas on the subject. Plato was convinced that a horse has eighty-two teeth because of an image that he saw in the shadows of some cave or other.)

But this strategy didn’t work. As soon as Plato had finished his summary, Aristophanes threw aside his pet frog, jumped to his feet and exclaimed that a horse must have twenty-three teeth because it takes 23 minutes to eat a bag of hay.

The discussion went on this vein for a further two days and nights. (They had to hitch-hike back to Athens because their Awayday had expired.) Eventually Socrates who was not looking very well and had remained silent for the whole of the discussion (black mark to Plato for not bringing him in earlier) suggested that they should walk over to one of the horses, that were used for giving rides on the beach, open its mouth and count the number of teeth. The class was so amazed at the sagacity of the suggestion that silence reigned for the first time in three days.

The moral of this story is... no I’m not going to tell you — you should be able to work it out for yourself.

Death and Taxes...

nce upon a time, there was a merchant of Baghdad who learnt one day that Death was looking for him. So, he decided to flee from Baghdad to a very distant city. After pushing his horse for many hours at top speed, he arrived triumphant but exhausted at his destination. He cantered into the marketplace and there found Death, whose jaw dropped with astonishment and said, ‘I knew I had an appointment with you today, and I just didn’t how I was going to make it in time to Baghdad!’