Talk:Clement Wood

Latest comment: 1 year ago by Quuxplusone in topic Pangrammatist?

Pangrammatist? edit

John Reed reviews Clement Wood's Glad of Earth in the May 1917 issue of The Masses: https://modjourn.org/issue/bdr528570/

In Word Ways 12:4 (November 1979), Philip M. Cohen writes:

Clement Wood, author of the most popular rhyming dictionary, is 91 and still active. Recently he turned to pangrams and produced these:

  • Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D., bags few lynx
  • Few mock quartz glyphs' BVD jinx
  • TV quiz drag nymphs blew Cox, JFK

He claims that all are 'in plain English (all words unitalicized in my 1968 Random House College Edition)'.

Willard Espy, who relayed these results, comments, "...the first of these pangrams is the only one I have ever seen that is absolutely clear without the use of any specialized vocabulary at all; the second requires only familiarity with one reasonably well known word, glyph; and the third is both topical and hilarious'.

Unfortunately for Cohen and/or Espy and/or Wood, Clement Wood really did die in 1950. Even if Espy had sat on these pangrams for 29 years, Wood wouldn't have referred to JFK nor Archibald Cox in 1950. So my question is, if it wasn't Clement Wood, who did come up with the famous "Mr. Jock, TV quiz Ph.D." pangram? --Quuxplusone (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2023 (UTC)Reply