Ships and Prisons

 Happening to look into The Anatomy of Melancholy, close to where it split into halves, I found

What is a ship but a prison?

Having recently noticed, quoted in The Hall of Uselessness, one of Samuel Johnson's comparisons of ships to jails, to the advantage of the latter,  this set me to wondering how far the comparison goes back? Hardly, I would think, to classical antiquity. The Greeks and Romans did not make long sea voyages. Certainly the Mediterranean had galleys that were prisons for the oarsmen; but Burton and Johnson seem to have a different kind of servitude in mind.

There is a story of one POW at the Hanoi Hilton consoling another with the reflection that it still beat sea duty. Johnson said that in a jail one commonly had better company: but in this case I believe that both of the POWs were naval aviators.

People Also Ask

 A moment ago, I went to Google to verify the title of A Confederacy of Dunces, being momentarily unsure about the article. The first item on the page is a link to Wikipedia, and a very brief description. Just below that is a heading, "People also ask", under which the first question is

What is the point of A Confederacy of Dunces?

I am reminded of a passage from Leave It to Psmith, when the librarian remarks to Psmith that the detective novel he is reading looks quite enjoyable, and Psmith, then masquerading as a Canadian poet, says, "Ah, but what does it teach?".

Ford and Forward

 The primary election in Washington, DC,  is about a month away, and many signs are up. Most or all have URLs on them. Those running for nomination to city-wide offices--mayor, attorney general, etc.--tend to have domain names of the form namefordc.org. Those running for nomination to the council seat for a ward have domain names of the form nameforwardn.org. So for example one has "bowserfordc.org" or "monashforward3.org".  I find that my eye tends to pick out the "ford" in "fordc" and the "forward" in "forward3"