The Van Dyke, the Van Winkle, the Maltese, the Wandering Jim and the Garibaldi Elongated.

May 8, 2009 7:39 AM

Poets Ranked by Beard Weight.Excerpted and abridged from The Language of the Beard, originally circulated by The Torchbearer Society, London, 1913. Commentary by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert.

UNDERWOOD POGONOMETRIC INDEX

6
10 Very very weak
14
18 Very weak
22
26 Fairly weak
30
34 Somewhat heavy
38
42 Heavy
46
50 Very heavy
54
58 Very very heavy
60

posted by Sailormom (9 comments total)

Spoiler: the heaviest beard belongs to Samuel Morse, with a gravity of 58.

Morse painted (and invented Morse code), but you don't hear much about his poetry.
posted by box at 8:37 AM on May 8

Morse painted (and invented Morse code), but you don't hear much about his poetry.

I wonder if there is some confusion going on between Samuel Finley Brown Morse (19th c. inventor) and Samuel French Morse (20th c. poet)?

Also, I am humming the title of "Samuel Morse: Inquisitive Boy‎" to the tune of "Excitable Boy"
posted by aught at 8:49 AM on May 8

This is hilarious. I admit that I have suspicions that it isn't real. I thought Journey Round My Skull was a fairly serious blog, so I don't know if I'm wildly off base or doing the equivalent of asking whether something in The Onion is a joke. I find it odd that an English text of 1913 describes a beard as "claus-esque" and that whole Samuel Finlay Brown Morse and Samuel French Morse thing seems weird. And I kind find any independent mentions of Upton Uxbridge Underwood or his Language of the Beard anywhere.
posted by Kattullus at 9:15 AM on May 8

Don't know the blog, but yeah, definitely leaning heavily toward not-real.
posted by box at 9:38 AM on May 8

Note--the image at the top of the article is the cover image from Reginald Reynolds' wonderful 1949 treatise on beards throughout history-- "Beards: Their Social Standing, Religious Involvements, Decorative Possibilities, and Value in Offence and Defence Through the Ages." Reynolds answers, sort of, in a roundabout way, that age-old question whether there exists "some necessary correlation between hippophagy, pogonotrophy and perhaps paganism." Highly recommended.
posted by bepe at 9:38 AM on May 8

Obviously a joke, but I too recommend the Reynolds book, which is a lot of fun.
posted by languagehat at 9:53 AM on May 8

Having read through old periodicals from that era it's not really all that far outside the bounds of what could've been written then. But yeah... after writing the comment I felt a bit silly for even entertaining the idea it might be real. I guess the seriousness I ascribed to Journey Round My Skull threw me.
posted by Kattullus at 11:17 AM on May 8

Interestingly enough, Reginald Reynolds also edited a collection of the works of various British pamphleteers from the French Revolution through the 1930s. I've ordered a copy (partly for the tiny chance that there actually is an Underwood pamphlet, and the reasoning that this volume, if any, would be sure to have it, but more for the other interesting things sure to be found there) and will report back my findings.
posted by bepe at 11:54 AM on May 8

No Underwood pamphlets included in the Reynolds edition, sadly and not surprisingly, but many other gems there which will no doubt provide much in the way of real-life oddities.
posted by bepe at 8:45 PM on May 18