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Fun
with the English Language |
Here are some
fun things involving the English language. To the best of
my knowledge, none of this is copyrighted, unless annotated so. Thus,
use them anyway you
wish. Above all, enjoy them. Oh, and e-mail me with
any other cool and/or interesting English language stuff...I would be happy
to include it.
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Dearest creature in creation, Study English pronunciation. I will teach you in my verse Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse. I will keep you, Suzy, busy, Make your head with heat grow dizzy. Tear in eye, your dress will tear. So shall I! Oh hear my prayer. Just compare heart, beard, and heard, Dies and diet, lord and word, Sword and sward, retain and Britain. (Mind the latter, how it's written.) Now I surely will not plague you With such words as plaque and ague. But be careful how you speak: Say break and steak, but bleak and streak; Cloven, oven, how and low, Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe. Hear me say, devoid of trickery, Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore, Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles, Exiles, similes, and reviles; Scholar, vicar, and cigar, Solar, mica, war and far; One, anemone, Balmoral, Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel; Gertrude, German, wind and mind, Scene, Melpomene, mankind. Billet does not rhyme with ballet, Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet. Blood and flood are not like food, Nor is mould like should and would. Viscous, viscount, load and broad, Toward, to forward, to reward. And your pronunciation's OK When you correctly say croquet, Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve, Friend and fiend, alive and live. Ivy, privy, famous; clamour And enamour rhyme with hammer. River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb, Doll and roll and some and home. Stranger does not rhyme with anger, Neither does devour with clangour. Souls but foul, haunt but aunt, Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant, Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger, And then singer, ginger, linger, Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge, Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age. Query does not rhyme with very, Nor does fury sound like bury. Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth. Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath. Though the differences seem little, We say actual but victual. Refer does not rhyme with deafer. Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer. Mint, pint, senate and sedate; Dull, bull, and George ate late. Scenic, Arabic, Pacific, Science, conscience, scientific. Liberty, library, heave and heaven, Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven. We say hallowed, but allowed, People, leopard, towed, but vowed. Mark the differences, moreover, Between mover, cover, clover; Leeches, breeches, wise, precise, Chalice, but police and lice; Camel, constable, unstable, Principle, disciple, label. Petal, panel, and canal, Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal. Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair, Senator, spectator, mayor. Tour, but our and succour, four. Gas, alas, and Arkansas. Sea, idea, Korea, area, Psalm, Maria, but malaria. Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean. Doctrine, turpentine, marine. Compare alien with Italian, Dandelion and battalion. Sally with ally, yea, ye, Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key. Say aver, but ever, fever, Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver. Heron, granary, canary. Crevice and device and aerie. Face, but preface, not efface. Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass. Large, but target, gin, give, verging, Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging. Ear, but earn and wear and tear Do not rhyme with here but ere. Seven is right, but so is even, Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen, Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk, Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work. Pronunciation -- think of Psyche! Is a paling stout and spikey? Won't it make you lose your wits, Writing groats and saying grits? It's a dark abyss or tunnel: Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale, Islington and Isle of Wight, Housewife, verdict and indict. Finally, which rhymes with enough -- Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough? Hiccough has the sound of cup. My advice is to give up!!!
Denied Beef or Crispness
oar
Avis Affront Sent Nickel less bike Lemon Seymour
(Trains crypt shun vice Codfish Hur Indus tie Lovejoy says Yule Essays)
Trust denied beef or crispness, endow Trudy howls
Gnaw decree churl wisteria, naughty venom owls.
This talking sarong bide each amnion scare
Indeo thatch sent Nickel less Holmwood bidet err.
Ditch elder Norn assailed owls noggin dare bats
Whale fissions assure kerplunks tan stinter hats.
Enema inner cur chiffoned ion Mike apt
Adjust saddle daub rains Farralon went her snap.
Win autumn along Thera roe Sedgwick latter
Ice prang form abed Tuesday water the smatter.
A whey Tudor Wendy wife low Wycliff lash,
Tyropita shudder, Andrew opus ash.
Them Noonan depressed over Newfoundland's know
Gay baluster omit dative abject spell low
Windward tomb Ivan daring ice showed up here
Button manager slave, innate tine errand ear
Withal eidolon dry verse alive eel ink wick
Ainu anymore minted moose bison tick.
Murre wrap idem eglises corsairs ache aim,
Andy whiz seldom chowder dun cauldron Benet him:
"Gnawed ash around answer! Gnaw pram surround fix in!
Ankh omit! En queue paid! Undone her amble its in!
Fundy papaver Porsche strudel tapas AWOL,
Gnaw Dacia whey, Dacia whey, Dacia whey haul!"
Astride lees daub afford awhile derrick enough lie
Wednesday mead wither knob stickle, Mantua descry,
Sew Aptos dehors tapas corsairs Dave loo,
Wither slave aloft hoys, ensign Nickel less stew.
Undone inert winkle Ngaio Donner oaf
Dip rant singing poring a vetch lid aloof
Assayed ruin my hedonist yearning oar hound
Donna Jiminy sent Nickel Less gay myth abound.
Hugh as stressed Allen furtive he said Tuohy's put
Andy's close whir Altair nest wee thatches unsought.
Abound aloft hoys hee-hawed flowing onus pack
Andy hooked Lycra ped largess taupe ninny's back.
He sighs, outdate winkled! He Stempel some airy!
Hiss chicks warlike roe scissors know sly kitsch hairy!
He stroll it elm outwards Ranulf ply Cabo
Ann de Beer Dover's Genoa's wight asters know.
This tempo fur pie peahen titan is tea,
Thin desmo kitten sir cul-de-sac Laika wraith.
Hee-hawed abroad fay, Sinaloa rowan Bali
The Chuck fenny left likable fell agilely.
Ewoks chapati aplomb, pariah jelly hole Delft,
Andial Afton eyesore hemming spider mite shelf.
Owing covey sigh, inert wester fizz Ed
Sung Avery tuna Ahab knotting toot red.
Hiss poke gnaw toward, button stray towhee smirk,
Unfilled alder stalkings, interned with edge irk
Inlay ingot vinegar a sigh Dover snows
Ungiving unawed, hope itch enemy arrows.
Hiss prang Tuohy slay, Tuohy steam gay vibrissa
Andy wither elf lowlife can Donovan this ill.
Bowtie herd Emmick's claim, harried roe vow despite,
"Murray Crispness two wall, unto Allah goon height!"
BACK TO INDEX
by Frank L. Visco
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
1) Always avoid alliteration.
2) Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3) Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4) Employ the vernacular.
5) Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
6) Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7) It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
8) Contractions aren't necessary.
9) Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
10) One should never generalize.
11) Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:
"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
12) Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13) Don't be redundant; don't use more words than necessary;
it's highly superfluous.
14) Profanity sucks.
15) Be more or less specific.
16) Understatement is always best.
17) Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18) One-word sentences? Eliminate.
19) Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20) The passive voice is to be avoided.
21) Go around the barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22) Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed.
23) Who needs rhetorical questions?
BACK TO INDEX
1. Don't use no double negatives. 2. About them sentence fragments. 3. Try to not ever split infinitives. 4. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. 5. Between you and I, case is important. 6. Correct spelling is esential. 7. When dangling, watch your participles. 8. Use your apostrophes's correctly. 9. Avoid cliches like the plague. 10. Don't use commas, that aren't necessary. 11. Proofread you writing. BACK TO INDEX
4th Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances. (Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling) 3rd Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills) 2nd Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don't know the name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) 1st Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn. (Joseph Romm, Washington) And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign: His fountain pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat. (Jeffrey Carl, Richmond) Honorable Mentions: - - He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) - - The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring) - - The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.) - - He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph Romm, Washington) - - She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station) - - She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase) - - The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield) - - Having O.J. try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius unseen since the debut of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D".(John Kammer, Herndon) - - From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley, Washington) - - Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) - - Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. (Russell Beland, Springfield) - - Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills) - - Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. - - Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield) - - Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington) - - Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense of accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he successfully blows up another college professor. (Anonymous) - - They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.) - - John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield) - - His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge) - - After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.) - - You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton sheets washed for decades in cold water without bleach like no self-respecting woman who came of age in the 1940s would allow in her house, much less on one of her beds, but up with which she must put whenever she visits one of her own daughters, just as if they had never been brought up right. (DEV, Madison, Wis) BACK TO INDEX
Smith, where Jones had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had the examiner's approval. BACK TO INDEX
by Howard Chase Howard Chase is a former professor of romance languages at Miami University in Ohio. This story is a selection from his book, 'Anguish Languish'. He wrote it in the 1940's and it has been published at various times in various places. Wants pawn term dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disc ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, end fur disc raisin pimple caulder ladle rat rotten hut. Wan moaning rat rotten hut's murder colder inset: 'Ladle rat rotten hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disc ladle basking tudor cordage offer groin murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake, dun stopper laundry wrote, end yonder nor sorghum stenches dun stopper torque wet strainers.' 'Hoe-cake, murder,' resplendent ladle rat rotten hut, end tickle ladle basking an sturred oft. Honor wrote tudor cordage offer groin murder, ladle rat rotten hut mitten anomalous woof. 'Wail, wail, wail,' set disc wicket woof, 'evanescent ladle rat rotten hut! Wares or putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?' 'Armor goring tumor groin murder's,' reprisal ladle gull. 'Grammars seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter end shirker cockles.' 'O hoe! Heifer blessing woke,' setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, 'Oil tickle shirt court tudor cordage offer groin murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den - O bore!' Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, end whinney retched a cordage offer groin murder, picket inner window an dore debtor port oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh disc abdominal woof lipped honor betting adder rope. Zany pool dawn a groin murder's nut cup an gnat gun, any curdle dope inner bet. Inner ladle wile ladle rat rotten hut a raft attar cordage an ranker dough ball. 'Comb ink, sweat hard,' setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle rat rotten hut entity bet rum end stud buyer groin murder's bet. 'Oh grammar,' crater ladle gull, 'Wart bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!' 'Butter lucky chew whiff, doling,' whiskered disc ratchet woof, wetter wicket small. 'Oh grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomalous prognosis!' 'Buttered small your whiff,' inserter woof, ants mouse worse wadding. 'Oh grammar, water bag mousey gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!' Daze worry on forger nut gull's lest warts. Oil offer sodden throne offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disc curl an bloat thursday woof ceased pore ladle rat rotten hut an garbled erupt. Mural: Yonder not sorghum stenches shud ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers. -------- If you are interested in a much larger collection of these, please go to the very humorous Anguish Language. BACK TO INDEX
'Twas the nocturnal segment of the diurnal period preceding the annual Yuletide celebration, and throughout our place of residence, kinetic activity was not in evidence among the possessors of this potential, including that species of domestic rodent known as Mus musculus. Hosiery was meticulously suspended from the forward edge of the wood burning caloric apparatus, pursuant to our anticipatory pleasure regarding an imminent visitation from an eccentric philanthropist among whose folkloric appellations is the honorific title of St. Nicholas. The prepubescent siblings, comfortably ensconced in their respective accommodations of repose, were experiencing subconscious visual hallucinations of variegated fruit confections moving rhythmically through their cerebrums. My conjugal partner and I, attired in our nocturnal head coverings, were about to take slumberous advantage of the hibernal darkness when upon the avenaceous exterior portion of the grounds there ascended such a cacophony of dissonance that I felt compelled to arise with alacrity from my place of repose for the purpose of ascertaining the precise source thereof. Hastening to the casement, I forthwith opened the barriers sealing this fenestration, noting thereupon that the lunar brilliance without, reflected as it was on the surface of a recent crystalline precipitation, might be said to rival that of the solar meridian itself - thus permitting my incredulous optical sensory organs to behold a miniature airborne runnered conveyance drawn by eight diminutive specimens of the genus Rangifer, piloted by a minuscule, aged chauffeur so ebullient and nimble that it became instantly apparent to me that he was indeed our anticipated caller. With his ungulate motive power travelling at what may possibly have been more vertiginous velocity than patriotic alar predators, he vociferated loudly, expelled breath musically through contracted labia, and addressed each of the octet by his or her respective cognomen - "Now Dasher, now Dancer..." et al. - guiding them to the uppermost exterior level of our abode, through which structure I could readily distinguish the concatenations of each of the 32 cloven pedal extremities. As I retracted my cranium from its erstwhile location, and was performing a 180-degree pivot, our distinguished visitant achieved - with utmost celerity and via a downward leap - entry by way of the smoke passage. He was clad entirely in animal pelts soiled by the ebony residue from oxidations of carboniferous fuels which had accumulated on the walls thereof. His resemblance to a street vendor I attributed largely to the plethora of assorted playthings which he bore dorsally in a commodious cloth receptacle. His orbs were scintillant with reflected luminosity, while his submaxillary dermal indentations gave every evidence of engaging amiability. The capillaries of his malar regions and nasal appurtenance were engorged with blood which suffused the subcutaneous layers, the former approximating the coloration of Albion's floral emblem, the latter that of the Prunus avium, or sweet cherry. His amusing sub- and supralabials resembled nothing so much as a common loop knot, and their ambient hirsute facial adornment appeared like small, tabular and columnar crystals of frozen water. Clenched firmly between his incisors was a smoking piece whose grey fumes, forming a tenuous ellipse about his occiput, were suggestive of a decorative seasonal circlet of holly. His visage was wider than it was high, and when he waxed audibly mirthful, his corpulent abdominal region undulated in the manner of impectinated fruit syrup in a hemispherical container. He was, in short, neither more nor less than an obese, jocund, multigenarian gnome, the optical perception of whom rendered me visibly frolicsome despite every effort to refrain from so being. By rapidly lowering and then elevating one eyelid and rotating his head slightly to one side, he indicated that trepidation on my part was groundless. Without utterance and with dispatch, he commenced filling the aforementioned appended hosiery with various of the aforementioned articles of merchandise extracted from his aforementioned previously dorsally transported cloth receptacle. Upon completion of this task, he executed an abrupt about-face, placed a single manual digit in lateral juxtaposition to his olfactory organ, inclined his cranium forward in a gesture of leave-taking, and forthwith effected his egress by renegotiating (in reverse) the smoke passage. He then propelled himself in a short vector onto his conveyance, directed a musical expulsion of air through his contracted oral sphincter to the antlered quadrupeds of burden, and proceeded to soar aloft in a movement hitherto observable chiefly among the seed-bearing portions of a common weed. But I overheard his parting exclamation, audible immediately prior to his vehiculation beyond the limits of visibility: "Ecstatic Yuletide to the planetary constituency, and to that self same assemblage, my sincerest wishes for a salubriously beneficial and gratifyingly pleasurable period between sunset and dawn." BACK TO INDEX
This is an actual essay written by a college applicant. The author, Hugh Gallagher, now attends NYU. 3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON? I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I'm bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge. I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat .400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me. I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me. I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis. But I have not yet gone to college. BACK TO INDEX
Chip Talk is/was a nationally syndicated column broadcast on KNX-AM This piece circa 3/91 or slightly before... "Suppose Edgar Allan Poe had used a computer? This is Dave Ross with Chip Talk: Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary, System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor, Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets. Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer, I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store, Only this and nothing more. Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing, Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more. But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token. "Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!" One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more, Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion? These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before. Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises. The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more. Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more, From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending, Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored, Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key. But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore, Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard. I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore. Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations, Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before. Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before. Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted. Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor. And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night. A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core. The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore. Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go. What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored, Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes? But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, You will one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore, Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?" This is Dave Ross" BACK TO INDEX
He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool, shun him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a child, teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep, wake him.
And he who knows and knows that he knows is wise, follow him.
©1995 Gene Ziegler Bits Bytes Chips Clocks Bits in bytes on chips in box. Bytes with bits and chips with clocks. Chips in box on ether-docks. Chips with bits come. Chips with bytes come. Chips with bits and bytes and clocks come. Look, sir. Look, sir. Read the book, sir. Let's do tricks with bits and bytes, sir. Let's do tricks with chips and clocks, sir. First, I'll make a quick trick bit stack. Then I'll make a quick trick byte stack. You can make a quick trick chip stack. You can make a quick trick clock stack. And here's a new trick on the scene. Bits in bytes for your machine. Bytes in words to fill your screen. Now we come to ticks and tocks, sir. Try to say this by the clock, sir. Clocks on chips tick. Clocks on chips tock. Eight byte bits tick. Eight bit bytes tock. Clocks on chips with eight bit bytes tick. Chips with clocks and eight byte bits tock. Here's an easy game to play. Here's an easy thing to say.... If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port, and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort, and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort then the socket packet pocket has an error to report! If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash, and the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash, and your data is corrupted cause the index doesn't hash, then your situation's hopeless, and your system's gonna crash. You can't say this? What a shame, sir! We'll find you another game, sir. If the label on the cable on the table at your house says the network is connected to the button on your mouse, but your packets want to tunnel on another protocol, that's repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall, and your screen is all distorted by the side-effects of gauss, so your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse, then you may as well reboot and go out with a bang, cause as sure as I'm a poet, the sucker's gonna hang! When the copy of your floppy's getting sloppy on the disk, and the microcode instructions cause unnecessary RISC, then you have to flash your memory and you'll want to RAM your ROM. quickly turn of your computer and be sure to tell your mom! (God bless you Dr. Seuss wherever you are!) BACK TO INDEX
Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as Bonkistry. He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it past him to come up with something like this. Anyway, one year, there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes, midterms, and labs, such that going into the final thet had a solid A. These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even thought the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to UVirginia and party with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers, they overslept all day Sunday and didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning. Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Prof. Bonk after the final and explain to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVa for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but they had a flat tire on the way back and didn't have a spare and hence were late getting back to campus. Bonk thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day. The guys were elated and relieved. So, they studied that night and went in the next day to take the final. The Professor placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5 points. "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be easy". They did that problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page. It said: (95 points) Which Tire? BACK TO INDEX
[from the journal of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists] For those of you who were unable to attend the Awards Dinner during the Annual Meeting in San Diego, you missed a tall tale on complex forensics presented by AAFS President Don Harper Mills in his opening remarks. The following is a recount of Dr. Mills story... "On March 23 the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a gunshot wound of the head caused by a shotgun. Investigation to that point had revealed that the decedent had jumped from the top of a ten story building with the intent to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he passed the 9th floor on the way down, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, killing him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the decedent was aware that a safety net had been erected at the 8th floor to protect some window washers and that the decedent would not have been able to complete his intent to commit suicide because of this. Ordinarily, a person who starts into motion the events with a suicide intent, ultimately commits suicide even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That he was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not change his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the circumstance caused the medical examiner to feel that he had homicide on his hands. Further investigation led to the discovery that the room on the 9th floor from whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. He was threatening her with the shotgun because of an interspousal spat and became so upset he could not hold the shotgun straight. Therefore when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the window striking the decedent. When one intends to kill subject A, but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of murder of subject B. The old man was confronted with this conclusion, but both he and his wife were adamant in stating that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. It was a longtime habit of the old man to threaten his wife with an unloaded shotgun. He had no intent to murder her, therefore the killing of the decedent appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded. But *further* investigation turned up a witness that their son was seen loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior tp the fatal accident. That investigation showed that the mother (the old lady) had cut off her son's financial support and her son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that the father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus. Further investigation revealed that the son became increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to get his mother murdered. This led him to jump off a ten-story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a 9th story window." Now, is it Suicide, Homicide, or an Accident? The son had actually murdered himself so the medical examiner closed the case as a suicide. BACK TO INDEX
A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe, percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again (or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats, a peon, a canal, Panama! Pray tell, William dear, is that child your target? You, as father, cry. But despair will not do. Do not, Will, despair! But cry, "Father!" as you target your child. That is, dear William Tell, pray! BACK TO INDEX
Richard Lederer
St. Paul's School
One of the fringe benefits
of being an English or History teacher is receiving
the occasional jewel of a student blooper in an essay. I have pasted together
the following "history"
of the world from certifiably genuine student bloopers
collected by teachers throughout the United States, from eight grade through
college level. Read carefully, and you will learn a lot.
The inhabitants of Egypt
were called mummies. They lived in the Sarah Dessert
and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants
have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the dessert are cul- tivated by
irritation.
The Egyptians built the Pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube. The
Pramids
are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Bible is full of interesting
caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guinesses,
Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked
"Am I my brother's son?" God asked Abraham to sacrifice Issac on Mount
Montezuma.
Jacob, son of Issac, stole his brother's birthmark. Jacob was a partiarch who
brought
up his twelve sons to be partiarchs, but they did not take to it. One of Jacob's
sons,
Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Pharaoh forced the Hebrew
slaves to make bread without straw. Moses led them to
the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any
ingredients. Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments.
David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar. He fougth with the Philatelists,
a race of people who lived in Biblical times. Solomon, one of David's sons,
had 500
wives and 500 porcupines.
Without the Greeks, we wouldn't
have history. The Greeks invented three kinds of
columns - Corinthian, Doric and Ironic. They also had myths. A myth is a female
moth.
One myth says that the mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Stynx until
he
became intolerable. Achilles appears in "The Illiad", by Homer. Homer
also wrote
the "Oddity", in which Penelope was the last hardship that Ulysses
endured on his
journey. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that
name.
Socrates was a famous Greek
teacher who went around giving people advice. They
killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks
ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the
java. The reward to the victor was a coral wreath. The government of Athen was
democratic because the people took the law into their own hands. There were
no
wars in Greece, as the mountains were so high that they couldn't climb over
to see
what their neighbors were doing. When they fought the Parisians, the Greeks
were
outnumbered because the Persians had more men.
Eventually, the Ramons conquered
the Geeks. History call people Romans because
they never stayed in one place for very long. At Roman banquets, the guests
wore
garlic in their hair. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields
of Gaul.
The Ides of March killed him because they thought he was going to be made king.
Nero was a cruel tyrany who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle
to them.
Then came the Middle Ages.
King Alfred conquered the Dames, King Arthur lived
in the Age of Shivery, King Harlod mustarded his troops before the Battle of
Hastings,
Joan of Arc was cannonized by George Bernard Shaw, and the victims of the Black
Death grew boobs on their necks. Finally, the Magna Carta provided that no free
man
should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In midevil times most of
the people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the time was
Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verse and also wrote literature. Another tale
tells
of William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's
head.
The Renaissance was an age
in which more individuals felt the value of their human
being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling
papal
indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was
the
painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of
the Renaissance.
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented the Bible.
Sir
Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes. Another
important
invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world
with a
100-foot clipper.
The government of England
was a limited mockery. Henry VIII found walking difficult
because he had an abbess on his knee. Queen Elizabeth was the "Vir- gin
Queen." As
a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself be- fore her troops,
they
all shouted "hurrah." Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish
Armadillo.
The greatest writer of the
Renaissance was William Shakespear. Shakespear never made
much money and is famous only because of his plays. He lived in Windsor with
his merry
wives, writing tragedies, comedies and errors. In one of Shakespear's famous
plays,
Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. In
another, Lady
Macbeth tries to convince Mac- beth to kill the King by attacking his manhood.
Romeo
and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Writing at the same time as Shakespear
was
Miquel Cervantes. He wrote "Donkey Hote". The next great author was
John Milton. Milton
wrote "Paradise Lost." Then his wife dies and he wrote "Paradise
Regained."
During the Renaissance America
began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator
who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called
the
Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe. Later the Pilgrims crossed the Ocean, and
the was
called the Pilgrim's Progress. When they landed at Plymouth Rock, they were
greeted
by Indians, who came down the hill rolling their was hoops before them. The
Indian squabs
carried porposies on their back. Many of the Indian heroes were killed, along
with their
cabooses, which proved very fatal to them. The winter of 1620 was a hard one
for the
settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was
responsible for all this.
One of the causes of the
Revolutionary Wars was the English put tacks in their tea.
Also, the colonists would send their pacels through the post with- out stamps.
During
the War, Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The
dogs were
barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no
longer
had to pay for taxis.
Delegates from the original
thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas
Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration
of
Independence. Franklin had gone to Boston carrying all his clothes in his pocket
and
a loaf of bread under each arm. He invented elec- tricity by rubbing cats backwards
and declared "a horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin
died in 1790 and
is still dead.
George Washington married
Matha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our
Country. Them the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic
hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare
arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's
greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in
infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. When
Lincoln was President, he wore only a tall silk hat. He said, "In onion
there is strength."
Abraham Lincoln write the Gettysburg address while traveling from Washington
to
Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also signed the Emasculation Proclamation,
and the Fourteenth Amendment gave the ex-Negroes citizenship. But the Clue Clux
Clan would torcher and lynch the ex-Negroes and other innocent victims. On the
night
of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theater and got shot in his seat by one
of the
actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth,
a
supposed insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the
enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltare invented
electricity and also wrote a book called "Candy". Gravity was invented
by Issac
Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the Autumn, when the apples are flaling
off the trees.
Bach was the most famous
composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was
half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Bach died from
1750 to
the present. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he
wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling
for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
France was in a very serious
state. The French Revolution was accomplished before
it happened. The Marseillaise was the theme song of the French Revolu- tion,
and it
catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe
were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorrilas came down from the
hills and
nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon became ill with bladder problems and was
very
tense and unrestrained. He wanted an heir to inheret his power, but since Josephine
was a baroness, she couldn't bear him any children.
The sun never set on the
British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and
the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a
thorn for
63 years. He reclining years and finally the end of her life were exemplatory
of a great
personality. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was
a time of many great inventions and thoughts. The invention
of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented
the McCormick Raper, which did the work of a hundred men. Samuel Morse invented
a
code for telepathy. Louis Pastuer discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin
was a
naturailst who wrote the "Organ of the Species". Madman Curie discovered
radium.
And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.
The First World War, cause
by the assignation of the Arch-Duck by a surf, ushered in a
new error in the anals of human history.
LOU: I love baseball. When
we get to St. Louis, will you tell me the guys' name on the
team so when I go to see them in that St. Louis ball park I'll be able to know
those fellows?
BUD: All right. but you know,
strange as it may seems, they give ball players nowadays
very peculiar names, nick names, like "Dizzy Dean." Now on the St.
Louis team we have
Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third --
LOU: That's what I want to
find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows
on the St. Louis team.
BUD: I'm telling you. Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know is on third --
LOU: You know the fellows' names?
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Well, then who's playin' first.
BUD: Yes
LOU: I mean the fellow's name on first base.
BUD: Who.
LOU: The fellow playin' first base for St. Louis.
BUD: Who.
LOU: The guy on first base.
BUD: Who is on first.
LOU: Well, what are you askin' me for?
BUD: I'm not asking you -- I'm telling you. WHO IS ON FIRST.
LOU: I'm asking you -- who's on first?
BUD: That's the man's name!
LOU: That's who's name?
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Well, go ahead and tell me.
BUD: Who.
LOU: The guy on first.
BUD: Who.
LOU: The first baseman.
BUD: Who is on first.
LOU: Have you got a first baseman on first?
BUD: Certainly.
LOU: Then who's playing first?
BUD: Absolutely.
LOU: (pause) When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?
BUD: Every dollar of it. And why not, the man's entitled to it.
LOU: Who is?
BUD: Yes.
LOU: So who gets it?
BUD: Why shouldn't he? Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it.
LOU: Who's wife?
BUD: Yes. After all the man earns it.
LOU: Who does?
BUD: Absolutely.
LOU: Well all I'm trying to find out is what's the guys name on first base.
BUD: Oh, no, no, What is on second base.
LOU: I'm not asking you who's on second.
BUD: Who's on first.
LOU: That's what I'm trying to find out.
BUD: Well, don't change the players around.
LOU: I'm not changing nobody.
BUD: Now, take it easy.
LOU: What's the guy's name on first base?
BUD: What's the guy's name on second base.
LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second.
BUD: Who's on first.
LOU: I don't know.
BUD: He's on third. We're not talking about him.
LOU: How could I get on third base?
BUD: You mentioned his name.
LOU: If I mentioned the third baseman's name, who did I say is playing third?
BUD: No, Who's playing first.
LOU: Stay offa first, will ya?
BUD: Well what do you want me to do?
LOU: Now what's the guy's name on first base?
BUD: What's on second.
LOU: I'm not asking ya who's on second.
BUD: Who's on first.
LOU: I don't know.
BUD: He's on third.
LOU: There I go back on third again.
BUD: Well, I can't change their names.
LOU: Say, will you please stay on third base.
BUD: Please. Now what is it you want to know.
LOU: What is the fellow's name on third base.
BUD: What is the fellow's name on second base.
LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second.
BUD: Who's on first.
LOU: I don't know.
BUD: THIRD BASE!
LOU: You got an outfield?
BUD: Oh, sure.
LOU: St. Louis has got a good outfield?
BUD: Oh, absolutely.
LOU: The left fielder's name?
BUD: Why.
LOU: I don't know, I just thought I'd ask.
BUD: Well, I just thought I'd tell you.
LOU: Them tell me who's playing left field.
BUD: Who's playing first.
LOU: Stay out of the infield!
BUD: Don't Don't mention any names out here.
LOU: I want to know what's the fellow's name on left field?
BUD: What is on second.
LOU: I'm not askin' ya who's on second.
BUD: Who is on first.
LOU: I don't know.
BUD and LOU: (together and calmly) Third base.
LOU: And the left fielder's name?
BUD: Why.
LOU: Because.
BUD: Oh he's Center Field.
LOU: (whimpers) Center field.
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Wait a minute. You got a pitcher on this team.
BUD: Wouldn't this be a fine team without a pitcher.
LOU: I don't know. Tell me the pitcher's name.
BUD: Tomorrow.
LOU: You don't want to tell me today?
BUD: I'm telling you, man.
LOU: Then go ahead.
BUD: Tomorrow.
LOU: What time?
BUD: What time what?
LOU: What time tomorrow are you gonna tell me who's pitching?
BUD: Now listen, Who is not pitching. Who is on --
LOU: I'LL BREAK YOUR ARM IF YOU SAY "WHO'S ON FIRST!"
BUD: Then why come up here and ask?
LOU: I want to know what's the pitcher's name.
BUD: What's on second.
LOU: I don't know.
BUD and LOU: (VERY QUICKLY) THIRD BASE!!
LOU: You gotta Catcher?
BUD: Yes.
LOU: The Catcher's name?
BUD: Today.
LOU: Today. And Tomorrow's pitching.
BUD: Now you've got it.
LOU: That's all. St. Louis has a couple of days on their team.
BUD: Well I can't help that.
LOU: You know I'm a good catcher too.
BUD: I know that.
LOU: I would like to play for the St. Louis team.
BUD: Well I might arrange that.
LOU: I would like to catch.
Now I'm being a good Catcher, tomorrow's pitching
on the team, and I'm catching.
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Tomorrow throws the ball and the guy up bunts the ball.
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Now when he bunts the
ball -- me being a good catcher -- I want to throw
the guy out a first base, so I pick up the ball and throw it to who?
BUD: Now that's the first thing you've said right.
LOU: I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!!!!!
BUD: Well, that's all you have to do.
LOU: Is to throw it to first base.
BUD: Yes.
LOU: Now who's got it?
BUD: Naturally.
LOU: Who has it?
BUD: Naturally.
LOU: Naturally.
BUD: Naturally.
LOU: O.K.
BUD: Now you've got it.
LOU: I pick up the ball and I throw it to Naturally.
BUD: No you don't, you throw the ball to first base.
LOU: Then who gets it?
BUD: Naturally.
LOU: O.K.
BUD: All right.
LOU: I throw the ball to Naturally.
BUD: You don't you throw it to Naturally.
LOU: Naturally.
BUD: Well, naturally. Say it that way.
LOU: That's what I said.
BUD: You did not.
LOU: I said I'd throw the ball to Naturally.
BUD: You don't. You throw it to Who.
LOU: Naturally.
BUD: Yes.
LOU: So I throw the ball to first base and Naturally gets it.
BUD: No. You throw the ball to first base--
LOU: Then who gets it?
BUD: Naturally.
LOU: That's what I'm saying.
BUD: You're not saying that.
LOU: I throw the ball to Naturally.
BUD: You throw it to Who!
LOU: Naturally.
BUD: Naturally. Well say it that way.
LOU: THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING!
BUD: Now don't get excited.
LOU: Whose gettin excited!! I throw the ball to first base--
BUD: Then Who gets it.
LOU: (annoyed) HE BETTER GET IT!
BUD: That's it. All right now Take it easy.
LOU: Hrmmph.
BUD: Hrmmph.
LOU: Now I throw the ball
to first base, whoever it is grabs the ball, so the
guy runs to second.
BUD: Uh-huh.
LOU: Who picks up the ball
and throws it to what. What throws it to I don't
know. I don't know throws it back to tomorrow -- a triple play.
BUD: Yeah. It could be.
LOU: Another guy gets up
and it's a long fly ball to center. Why? I don't know,
he's on third, and I don't give a darn.
BUD: What did you say?
LOU: I said "I don't give a darn."
BUD: Oh, that's our shortstop!
LOU: ABBOTT! ----------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Keith, a most talented
writer and mathematician, has come up with an
intriguing version of Edgar Allan Poe's immortal poem, The Raven. It is an
example of constrained writing, prose or poetry subject to a particular artificially
imposed restriction. The most famous of these are the two published novels
written without the luxury of a single letter E present in the entire work.
Keith's
work is constrained by a most curious restriction; let me show you the work...
see if you can deduce the artifice. (The answer is given at the end.)
Poe, E.
Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".
Perfectly, the intellect remembers: the ghostly fires, a glittering ember.
Inflamed by lightning's outbursts, windows cast penumbras upon this floor.
Sorrowful, as one mistreated, unhappy thoughts I heeded:
That inimitable lesson in elegance - Lenore -
Is delighting, exciting...nevermore.
Ominously, curtains parted (my serenity outsmarted),
And fear overcame my being - the fear of "forevermore".
Fearful foreboding abided, selfish sentiment confided,
As I said, "Methinks mysterious traveler knocks afore.
A man is visiting, of age threescore."
Taking little time, briskly addressing something: "Sir," (robustly)
"Tell what source originates clamorous noise afore?
Disturbing sleep unkindly, is it you a-tapping, so slyly?
Why, devil incarnate!--" Here completely unveiled I my antedoor--
Just darkness, I ascertained - nothing more.
While surrounded by darkness then, I persevered to clearly comprehend.
I perceived the weirdest dream...of everlasting "nevermores".
Quite, quite, quick nocturnal doubts fled - such relief! - as my intellect said,
(Desiring, imagining still) that perchance the apparition was uttering a whispered
"Lenore".
This only, as evermore.
Silently, I reinforced, remaining anxious, quite scared, afraid,
While intrusive tap did then come thrice - O, so stronger than sounded afore.
"Surely" (said silently) "it was the banging, clanging window lattice."
Glancing out, I quaked, upset by horrors hereinbefore,
Perceiving: a "nevermore".
Completely disturbed, I said, "Utter, please, what prevails ahead.
Repose, relief, cessation, or but more dreary 'nevermores'?"
The bird intruded thence - O, irritation ever since! -
Then sat on Pallas' pallid bust, watching me (I sat not, therefore),
And stated "nevermores".
Bemused by raven's dissonance, my soul exclaimed, "I seek intelligence;
Explain thy purpose, or soon cease intoning forlorn 'nevermores'!"
"Nevermores", winged corvus proclaimed - thusly was a raven named?
Actually maintain a surname, upon Pluvious seashore?
I heard an oppressive "nevermore".
My sentiments extremely pained, to perceive an utterance so plain,
Most interested, mystified, a meaning I hoped for.
"Surely," said the raven's watcher, "separate discourse is wiser.
Therefore, liberation I'll obtain, retreating heretofore -
Eliminating all the 'nevermores' ".
Still, the detestable raven just remained, unmoving, on sculptured bust.
Always saying "never" (by a red chamber's door).
A poor, tender heartache maven - a sorrowful bird - a raven!
O, I wished thoroughly, forthwith, that he'd fly heretofore.
Still sitting, he recited "nevermores".
The raven's dirge induced alarm - "nevermore" quite wearisome.
I meditated: "Might its utterances summarize of a calamity before?"
O, a sadness was manifest - a sorrowful cry of unrest;
"O," I thought sincerely, "it's a melancholy great - furthermore,
Removing doubt, this explains 'nevermores' ".
Seizing just that moment to sit - closely, carefully, advancing beside it,
Sinking down, intrigued, where velvet cushion lay afore.
A creature, midnight-black, watched there - it studied my soul, unawares.
Wherefore, explanations my insight entreated for.
Silently, I pondered the "nevermores".
"Disentangle, nefarious bird! Disengage - I am disturbed!"
Intently its eye burned, raising the cry within my core.
"That delectable Lenore - whose velvet pillow this was, heretofore,
Departed thence, unsettling my consciousness therefore.
She's returning - that maiden - aye, nevermore."
Since, to me, that thought was madness, I renounced continuing sadness.
Continuing on, I soundly, adamantly forswore:
"Wretch," (addressing blackbird only) "fly swiftly - emancipate me!"
"Respite, respite, detestable raven - and discharge me, I implore!"
A ghostly answer of: "nevermore".
" 'Tis a prophet? Wraith? Strange devil? Or the ultimate evil?"
"Answer, tempter-sent creature!", I inquired, like before.
"Forlorn, though firmly undaunted, with 'nevermores' quite indoctrinated,
Is everything depressing, generating great sorrow evermore?
I am subdued!", I then swore.
In answer, the raven turned - relentless distress it spurned.
"Comfort, surcease, quiet, silence!" - pleaded I for.
"Will my (abusive raven!) sorrows persist unabated?
Nevermore Lenore respondeth?", adamantly I encored.
The appeal was ignored.
"O, satanic inferno's denizen -- go!", I said boldly, standing then.
"Take henceforth loathsome "nevermores" - O, to an ugly Plutonian shore!
Let nary one expression, O bird, remain still here, replacing mirth.
Promptly leave and retreat!", I resolutely swore.
Blackbird's riposte: "nevermore".
So he sitteth, observing always, perching ominously on these doorways.
Squatting on the stony bust so untroubled, O therefore.
Suffering stark raven's conversings, so I am condemned, subserving,
To a nightmare cursed, containing miseries galore.
Thus henceforth, I'll rise (from a darkness, a grave) -- nevermore!
-- Original: E. Poe
-- Redone by measuring circles.
Well, now that you have read
the entire text, any ideas? The more
mathematically-minded of the readers will observe that they might have
enjoyed this poetry with a nice piece of pi...especially since each of the words
in this poem has the precise number of letters described in the value of
pi: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795... and so on!
Have you ever wondered what
made someone an expert? Was it a degree? Was
it experience? Well, I sure don't have the answer...especially in light of some
of
these famous (and not-so-famous) experts' claims, comments, and predictions:
"Everything that can
be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Office of
Patents, 1899.
"There will never be
a bigger plane built." --A Boeing engineer, after the first flight
of the 247, a twin engine plane that carried ten people.
"Ours has been the first,
and doubtless to be the last, to visit this profitless locality."
-- Lt. Joseph Ives after visiting the Grand Canyon in 1861.
"There is not the slightest
indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable.
It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert
Einstein, 1932.
"We don't like their
sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out." --Decca executive,
1962, after turning down the Beatles.
"It will be years--not
in my time--before a woman will become Prime Minister."
--Margaret Thatcher, 1974.
"With over 50 foreign
cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn't
likely to carve out a big slice of the US market." --Business Week, August
2, 1968.
"Computers may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, 1949.
"There is no reason
anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson,
president of Digital Equipment Corp. 1977.
"This telephone has
too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a
means of communication." --Western Union memo, 1876.
"No imaginable commercial
value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody
in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urging
investment in
the radio in the 1920's.
"Who wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.
"I'm just glad it'll
be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper."
--Gary Cooper, after turning down the lead role in Gone With The Wind.
"Market research reports
say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy
cookies like you make." --Response to Debbi Fields' idea of Mrs. Fields'
Cookies.
"We don't need you.
You haven't got through college yet." --Hewlett Packard excuse
to Steve Jobs, who founded Apple Computers instead.
"I think there's a world
market for about five computers." --Thomas J. Watson,
chairman of the board of IBM.
"The bomb will never
go off. I speak as an expert in explosives." --Admiral William
Leahy, U.S. Atomic Bomb Project.
"Airplanes are interesting
toys, but they are of no military value whatsoever."
--Marechal Ferdinand Fock, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.
"Stocks have reached
a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, Professor of
Economics, Yale University, 1929.
"No matter what happens,
the U.S. Navy is not going to be caught napping."
--U.S. Secretary of Navy, December 4, 1941.
"While theoretically
and technically television may be feasible, commercially and
financially it is an impossibility." --Lee DeForest, inventor.
"Radio has no future.
Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will
prove to be a hoax." --William Thomson, Lord Kelvin English scientist,
1899.
An anagram, as you all know,
is a word or phrase made by transposing or rearranging
the letters of another word or phrase. The following are quite clever and I
hope you
enjoy them. Thanks to Maura for sending them to me.
Someone out there either has way too much time to waste or is deadly at Scrabble.
| Dormitory | Dirty Room | Snooze Alarms | Alas! No More Z's | |
| Evangelist | Evil's Agent | Alec Guinness | Genuine Class | |
| Desperation | A Rope Ends It | Semolina | Is No Meal | |
| The Morse Code | Here Come Dots | The Public Art Galleries | Large Picture Halls, I Bet | |
| Slot Machines | Cash Lost in 'em | A Decimal Point | I'm a Dot in Place | |
| Animosity | Is No Amity | Eleven plus two | Twelve plus one | |
| Contradiction | Accord not in it | George Bush | He Bugs Gore |
One more encore, while we are on the subject of presidents:
RONALD WILSON REAGAN
becomes
INSANE ANGLO WARLORD
36. Jumbo Shrimp
35. State worker
34. Legally drunk
33. Exact estimate
32. Act naturally
31. Found missing
30. Resident alien
29. Genuine imitation
28. Airline food
27. Good grief
26. Government organization
25. Sanitary landfill
24. Alone together
23. Small crowd
22. Business ethics
21. Soft rock
20. Butt head
19. Military intelligence
18. Sweet sorrow
17. Rural metro (ambulance service)
16. "Now, then . . ."
15. Passive aggression
14. Clearly misunderstood
13. Peace force
12. Extinct life
11. Plastic glasses
10. Terribly pleased
9. Computer security
8. Political science
7. Tight slacks
6. Definite maybe
5. Pretty ugly
4. Rap music
3. Working vacation
2. Religious tolerance
1. Quiet riot
If you like oxymorons (and
who doesn't?), there is a great page of hundreds
of them ==> Here!
We'll begin with box, and the plural is boxes;
But the plural of ox should be oxen, not oxes.
Then one fowl is goose, but two are called geese ...
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a whole lot of mice,
But the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
When couldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
The cow in the plural may be cows or kine,
But the plural of vow is vows, not vine.
And I speak of a foot, and you show me your feet,
But I give a boot ... would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
If the singular is this and plural is these,
Why shouldn't the plural of kiss be nicknamed kese?
Then one may be that, and three may be those,
Yet the plural of hat would never be hose;
We speak of a brother, and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
The masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine she, shis, and shim!
So our English, I think you will all agree,
Is the trickiest language you ever did see.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
Well, done! And now you wish, perhaps
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead;
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
(they rhyme with suite and straight and debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother.
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there.
And dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose -- Just look them up -- and
goose and choose. And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd learned to speak it when I was five, And yet to write it,
the more I sigh ...
This Wonderful Language of Ours
We polish the Polish furniture.
He could lead if he would get the lead out.
A farm can produce produce.
The dump was so full it had to refuse refuse.
The soldier decided to desert in the desert.
The present is a good time to present the present.
At the Army base, a bass was painted on the head of a bass drum.
The dove dove into the bushes.
I did not object to the object.
The insurance for the invalid was invalid.
The bandage was wound around the wound.
There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
They were too close to the door to close it.
The buck does funny things when does are present.
They sent a sewer down to stitch the tear in the sewer worker's seam.
To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
After a number of Novocain injections, my jaw got number.
I shed a tear when I saw the tear in my clothes.
I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
I spent last evening evening out piles of books.
'Twas
the Night Before Finals
T'was the night before finals,
And all through the college,
The students were praying
For last minute knowledge.
Most were quite sleepy,
But none touched their beds,
While visions of essays
Danced in their heads.
Out in the taverns,
A few were still drinking,
And hoping that liquor
Would get their brains thinking.
In my own apartment,
I had been pacing,
Dreading all those exams
I soon would be facing.
My roommate was speechless,
His nose in his books,
And my comments to him
Drew unfriendly looks.
I drained all the coffee,
And brewed a new pot,
No longer caring
That my nerves were shot.
I stared at my notes,
But my thoughts were all muddy,
My eyes went a'blur,
I just couldn't study.
"Some pizza might help,"
I said with a shiver,
But each place I called
Refused to deliver.
I'd pretty much concluded
Life is unfair and cruel,
Since our futures all depend
On grades made in school.
When all of a sudden,
Our door opened wide,
And Patron Saint Put-It-Off
Ambled inside.