Don't cry over spilt milk

You may have noticed my fascination with language, in particular the origins of strange childhood aphorisms. "Don't cry over spilt milk" was not invented by my mother, or yours. No. it's down to James Howell in his Paramoigraphy of 1659.

I'm not even sure that paramoigraphy is a real word. But Howell used it to describe his book of proverbs, so that's good enough for me. There's a suggestion that the original (which sadly I couldn't find) read "no weeping for shed milk".

Also in 1659, Henry Purcell was born. He died in 1695, which is a numerical anagram of his birth year.

My birthday, in DDMM format, which is 1601, is a numerical anagram of 0611, which was the DDMM birthday of Suleiman The Magnificent in 1494.

Suleiman, as the Ottoman Sultan, conquered the island of Rhodes in 1523. Cecil Rhodes, former Prime Minister of the Cape Colony and after whom Rhodesia was named, founded the Rhodes Scholarship scheme in his will. The most recent Rhodes Scholar is Madison Tung, first female wrestler and wrestling national champion at the U.S. Air Force Academy.

Another USAF Academy graduate Heather Wilson was a Rhodes Scholar at Jesus College, Oxford in 1982. Which was where James Howell was elected to a Fellowship in 1623, 36 years before he wrote his Paramoigraphy.

It's a small world.