Questions

First published in Column Eight on the 2^nd February, 1994 

Two things make a trip to the University Bookshop’s upstairs permanent sale worthwhile. First, the array of books that appear to have no market. A book of dedications? A book of bits left out of other books?

Secondly, the way in which customers can discover minor gems, books in the Trivial Pursuit mode.

I came across just such a one in the holidays: Volume 2 of Notes and Queries, a collection of questions and answer from the Guardian’s column in which ‘readers seek enlightenment from each other on an astonishingly broad range of subjects.’

In this book the questions are as intriguing as the answers. And quite contradictory answers arise, as mathematicians and scientists and philosophers each take up their own (unproven) point of view.

A newspaper column probably isn’t the place ask, ‘what is the meaning of life?’ This question perhaps deserves some of the answers it got, including the one that says that asking such a question is about as meaninful as asking what is the meaning of lumbago.

The question ‘Is this a question?’ initiates various obscure answers, including ‘All these cunning answers are actually irrelevant because Shakespeare told us that ‘that is the question’ or ‘This sentence no vere. Who cares. The reader bored. Time to bring subject to a.’

The answer to such questions as ‘Why there are so many Coldharbour lanes,’ or ‘When was the first semi-detached house built, are rather more straightforward, even though the answers vary enormously.

Two answers to one question are in Latin, and three to a question on simplified spelling are in various versions of that spelling, including one that gets increasingly unreadable as the paragraph evolves.

Two novels which avoid the letter ‘e’ (one each in English and French) are discussed, and an unexpected dispute arises over the translation.

And there are answers that are just fun: ‘Is it true that goldfish have a memory span of only five seconds?’ The first answer is utterly complex; the second says, ‘For a fish with a good memory try a piranha. They have a megabyte.’

The inventors of items, or their descendants, answer question – only to  be contradicted by someone else’s descendant. One poet (Julius Lipton), after living in obscurity for 55 years, pops up to explain what has happened to him since his one and only book was published.

The joy of such a column isn’t the fact that you get real answers to real questions – although occasionally you do – but the way in which people’s minds take up the challenge of answering an intriguing question in an entertaining way. ‘How to measure the weight of your hand,’ for example. This may have been a genuine question, but it produces some very suspect answers.

Finally what do you notice about the following poem?

I know a little man both ept and ert,

An intro? Extra? No he’s just a vert.

Shevelled and couth and kempt, pecunious, ane,

His image trudes upon the captive brain.

When life turns sipid and the mind is traught

The spirit soars as I would sist it ought.

Chalantly then, like any gainly goof,

My digent self is sertive, choate, loof.

Or the following sentences? Jump, dogs! Why vex Frizt Blank, QC? or Mr Jock, TV quiz PhD, bags few lynx.

After all this, here’s my question. Has anybody seen volume one of Notes and Queries?

 

The word vere most commonly functions as a Latin adverb meaning "really," "truly," "actually," or "correctly", or as a historical name derived from Latin and Old French roots.

It’s interesting that in the last few months (of 2026) the famous (in Dunedin) University Book Shop announced its closure – various matters had evolved to bring it down. There was a great outcry from those who regarded it as a precious resource. And lo and behold, somebody bought it and has kept it open – someone who actually knows how to run a bookshop, as well.