English Chess Forum

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson ?

I hope no-one will be too disappointed to hear that there have been no correct answers so far.

It was George Walker who used those words in reply to a correspondent. Acknowledgement and thanks to Edward Winter's feature article on Alexander McDonnell which contained the column from the 13 November 1842 edition of Bell’s Life in London (page 2):

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/mcdonnell.html

That's an interesting article you linked to, John. I must admit that I doubt that I would have got the answer however much time I had.

The same newspaper article that contained the quote mentions McDonnell playing 1...Nf6 as Black (perhaps I should say "the second player") and continuing with 1.e4 Nf6 2.e5 Ng8!? and saying that "his adversary's king's pawn was weakened, by being thus prematurely advanced". Very hyper-modern looking!

Thank you, Colin. I suppose it was quite a difficult question, but I thought it might have been guessed, as George Walker was a prolific writer.

How do we connect these two words Liddell and Glass?

Alice Liddell, daughter of the then Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was the inspiration for the central character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and its chess-themed sequel Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There.

[Edited to get the titles exactly right.]

Okay, looks like that was a bit too easy.

OK, this one shouldn't be too hard either.

You could take up chess instead but you may find the game too fast.

What fictional character made this cautious suggestion? And "chess instead" of what other pastime?

Molesworth! The alternative is Snakes and Ladders.

John Clarke wrote: ↑

Thu Nov 28, 2019 3:22 am

Alice Liddell, daughter of the then Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, was the inspiration for the central character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and its chess-themed sequel Through The Looking Glass, And What Alice Found There.

[Edited to get the titles exactly right.]

I must add that this greatly undersells the good Dean. In addition to being Dean he was part of the duo who completed the mammoth Greek English Lexicon (dictionary) still referred to by the pseudonym "Liddell and Scott" and which includes such vital and useful words as καλλισφυροϛ (kallisphuros) "beautifully-ankled" which it further advises is used in the Iliad Book 9 line 560 and the Odyssey book 5 line 333. (picking an entry at reasonable random).

In the words of Thomas Hardy:

"Well, though it seems
Beyond our dreams,"
Said Liddell to Scott,
"We've really got
to the very end,
All inked and penned
Blotless and fair
Without turining a hair,
This sultry summer day, A.D.
Eighteen hundred and forty-three"

and Hardy goes on to list the imagined trials and tribulations in the years plodding to completion through the Greek alphabet

Michael Farthing wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 01, 2019 11:12 am

... In addition to being Dean he [Liddell] was part of the duo who completed the mammoth Greek English Lexicon (dictionary) still referred to by the pseudonym "Liddell and Scott" and which includes such vital and useful words as καλλισφυροϛ (kallisphuros) "beautifully-ankled" which it further advises is used in the Iliad Book 9 line 560 and the Odyssey book 5 line 333. (picking an entry at reasonable random).

In the words of Thomas Hardy:

"Well, though it seems
Beyond our dreams,"
Said Liddell to Scott,
"We've really got
to the very end,
All inked and penned
Blotless and fair
Without turining a hair,
This sultry summer day, A.D.
Eighteen hundred and forty-three"

and Hardy goes on to list the imagined trials and tribulations in the years plodding to completion through the Greek alphabet

I didn't know those Hardy lines, but long ago came across one of the Clerihews about the dictionary:

Two men wrote a dictionary, Liddell and Scott,
And one half was good, the other was not.
Now tell me the answer, boys, quick, to this riddle:
which was by Scott and which was by Liddell?

I am relying on Wikipedia (always dangerous!) for the answer:

Liddell and Scott, Liddell and Scott:
Some of it's riddle, and some of it's rot.
That which is riddle was written by Liddell,
That which is rot was written by Scott.

Perhaps it's also worth mentioning that the literary Dean was the younger brother of a patron of chess, Lord Ravensworth.
Henry Thomas Liddell (1797-1878), Baron Ravensworth (created earl in 1874): ref. Cokayne's Complete Peerage, iv, p.746.
In Chess Player's Quarterly Chronicle iv (Dec 1874) pp. 172-3 there is an unfinished game (possibly by correspondence. but it doesn't say so) where Lord Randolph Churchill is playing the Earl of Ravensworth.

"includes such vital and useful words as καλλισφυροϛ (kallisphuros) "beautifully-ankled""

Great stuff - I have previously regarded such information as a challenge to try and use the word in normal conversation, but sadly, in these PC days, you probably can't.

Gerard is right (or should that be "rite"?). It's lucky that quote (How To Be Topp p76) doesn't include any of dere nigel's karakteristic misspellings, or it would have been way too easy.

Which top player once said, "chess history was nothing but fiction. and was not of any practical utility."?