Inspirational tale for bubonic plagiarists

Here’s a slightly paraphrased anecdote from Ramon Miquel i Planas’ El llibreter assassí de Barcelona (1928), which his footnote seems to imply was taken from Le livre, vi, 131 (Paris, 1885): Emile Girardin and Charles Latour-Mézeray are two young literary bohemians running round 1820s Paris. Girardin has just published a novel and is feeling fairly…

More tongues

Crocodiles have no tongue; frogs have half, because it’s backwards, attached at the front and free at the back; men have one, the best of all, because with it they speak all languages and imitate every animal, as the philosopher Archidamos said; sea foxes [raposas marinas] have two, as I have said; women have three, because they talk with their mouth and with their fingers and heart, and their tongues are rough and sharp, like those of cats and leopards.

Academies

“The first Project was to shorten Discourse by cutting Polysyllables into one, and leaving out Verbs and Participles, because in reality all things imaginable are but Nouns.”