Quill & Quire, Canada's magazine of book news and reviews, notes my latest collaboration:

As we noted last year, our 14th great-grandmother, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, has many distinctions, not the least of which is her likelihood of having written the Shakespeare plays and sonnets.  (For compelling evidence, see Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare?)  Here's an anagram we made in her honor.

"A quest is to ask a question in motion."
—Robert Irwin, The Arabian Nightmare

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

"At times I had thought of writing poetry myself but getting words to rhyme with each other is difficult, like trying to drive a herd of turkeys and kangaroos down a crowded thoroughfare and keep them neatly together without looking in shop windows.  There are so many words, and they all mean something."
—Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet

"A good middle initial can really add a lot.  Take 'R' for example."
—John Astin in Get to Know Your Rabbit

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

You've heard of a "murder of crows" and other fun collective nouns.  But what do you call a collection of elders?

"An infinity of elders." —William Beckford, Vathek

Xenagorabibliomania: an obsessive curiosity about the books that strangers read in open spaces (Nick Hornby).

Tiny gems in Shakespeare's work

We're honored to have designed the one-letter words edition of the exceedingly charming Shakespeare Papers.  Editor Robin Williams explains: "Looking at the wee bits, we believe, allows us to gain an even greater appreciation of the whole."

"Coming up with an idea is a confounded thing.  We think our brain produces them, but in reality they do what they like with our brain and are more unbiddable than any living creature."
—Gustav Meyrink, The Green Face

This bold, all-caps typo in Amanda Owen's The Power of Receiving disturbs us not because the apostrophe is upside down, and not because "don'r" isn't a word, but because "don'r" is pronounced "Donner," as in the snowbound American pioneers who didn't limit themselves to non-human meat.

(Dedicated to the ever-beguiling Martha Brockenbrough.)

Why begin "astonish" with a double S?  Interestingly, the word derives from the Latin tonāre, "to thunder," and the double S glyph of pre-Columbian Mexico is a symbol of clouds, rain, and water.

"I'm looking for the letter C," he said to the door-keeper.
"Why don't you look between B and D then?  . . . What's the matter with you?"
—Robin Llywelyn, From Empty Harbour to White Ocean

The great Australian comedy series Kath & Kim features some hilariously dumbfounding baby names, such as:

• Typhphaanniii (pronounced Tiffany)
• Eppinn'knee Rae¨</i> (Rae is followed by an [umlaut] and a [close italics])
  
• Detestannii
• Paloma
• Papiloma
• Tailuh (pronounced Tai Luh)
• Glen Waverley (after a suburb in Victoria, Australia)
• Aussie
• Fat Free Frûche
• Tiramisu
  

Then there are these baby names, inspired by a hospital visit (and please note that they all sound better with an Australian accent):

• Neil Bymouth
• Cardio Infarction (the downside being the inevitable nickname "Farct")
• Enema (for a girl)
  
• Lupus (for a boy)
  
• Catheter
  
• I.V. (for a girl)
  

"No real idea can be said to exist without the words made to measure." —Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

"Is all the mythology in the world here?"
"No . . . Only words are here.  They try to make me yield the rest but my words come from the North Country.  They can't be pinned down between book covers.  Our words like to play on the breeze.  They congregate in the hollows of streams and fill the ravines."
—Robin Llywelyn, From Empty Harbour to White Ocean

We're often asked why we blog using the majestic plural (the "royal we").  Truth be told, it's personal.  Our 27th great grandfather, King Henry II of England (so charmingly portrayed by Peter O'Toole in the classic film The Lion in Winter) is credited with the first recorded use of the majestic plural.  Please don't mistake our pronouns for "the patronizing we" (as in, "Aren't we chipper today?") or "the psychotic we" (as in Gollum's "We wants it, we needs it.  Must have the precious.")