Re: Some pics from the Woodside boink

Leslie Danks <Leslie.Danks@xxxxxx> writes:

I can't remember ever hearing the "Egg of Columbus" in English.

It appears to have been pretty common in the late nineteenth century:

One may prophesy fearlessly that hereafter wherever great span is
required this model will be adopted. It seems simple as the egg
of Columbus, when you see it and hear it explained, but it could
never have been thought out by any man who was not thoroughly
conversant with all the qualities of iron. [_NY Times_,
10/7/1873]

The idea is pretty much like the egg of Columbus. Every body will
see the point as soon as it has been done, but nobody seems ever
to have thought of it. [_NY Times_, 5/2/1874]

The innovation in that case is hotel rooms with their own bathrooms.

To the question at an examination, "Who was Columbus?" a little
girl replied: "Columbus was a large bird." The answer being
received, perhaps naturally, with somewhat vociferous laughter,
she explained that she had read in an older sister's book a piece
of poetry about the egg of Columbus, and she did not see how he
could have laid an egg unless he was a bird. [_NY Times_,
9/25/1886]

The first reference I see that actually implies details about the
story is

The ices were served in Columbus eggs, pretty pink-tinted ovals
slightly crushed at one end ... [_NY Times_, 1/15/1893]

By 1901:

Among the newest of the small toys is the Columbus egg. It is a
puzzle, one that can't be worked in a thousand years unless some
one [sic] explains how it should be done, but which is as easy as
rolling off a log after the needful instruction. [11/3/1901]

The last reference to it I see in that paper other than pointing it
out as a phrase in other languages is from Thomas Edison (b. 1847) in
a 1930 interview and a 1970 reference in a story of myths associated
with historical figures.

--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Never ascribe to malice that which
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |can adequately be explained by
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |stupidity.

kirshenbaum@xxxxxxxxxx
(650)857-7572

http://www.kirshenbaum.net/


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