My dear Readers:
The approach of winter this year has left me feeling more lazy and sleepy than usual. I'm eating more and have a genuine propensity for seeking out more comfortable locations. Perhaps I am preparing to hibernate for the winter — go to sleep in one millennium and wake up in another .
However, the editor insists that I write you an almanac installment before I doze off. I looked over my copious research notes and found none that I could quickly fashion into a column, so I decided to share some of my years of research with you. I looks forward to the work with an almost joyous feeling: a definite state of perhappiness.
Sometimes I think our world has lost some of its colour, in part due to "political correctness" and other oxymorons. Here are a few of the more colourful folk descriptions that would put the best of modern writers to shame:
- "I was so high I could hunt ducks with a rake."
- "If it wasn't for the dog, that family would have a negative IQ."
- "He flies around like a parched pea on a hot skillet."
- "He so slow he can't herd turtles."
- "I was so sick I was afraid I wouldn't die."
- "That rain was a gully-washer and a fence-lifter."
- "He doesn't known enough to pull his head in when he shuts the window."
- "It was mixed up worse than a dog's breakfast." (A favorite of a former boss.)
Then there are those great place names:
- Hot Coffee, Mississippi
- Cold Arse Island
- Miss Underhill's Chair
- Fanny B. Mine
Those delightful puns:
George Washington wore out so many pairs of boots, he told Thomas Paine: "These are the times that try men's soles."
King Arthur did not die a natural death. He was Mordred.
Perhaps we can hope politicians will someday be devoted.
The Washington Post hold a contest for readers to simply redefine words from the dictionary without adding or changing letters. Here are some:
- Willy-nilly - adj., impotent.
- Flabbergasted - adj., appalled over how much weight you have gained.
- Bustard - n., a very rude Metrobus driver.
- Lymph -v., to walk with a lisp.
- Coffee - n., a person who is coughed upon.
They also ask readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Giving us:
- Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
- Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.
- Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high...
- Tatyr: A lecherous Mr. Potato Head.
- Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn't get it.
- Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
- Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
Some oxymorons:
- Computer security
- Political science
- Tight slacks
- Pretty ugly
- Clearly misunderstood
- Peace force
- Extinct Life
- Plastic glasses
- Sanitary landfill
The wisdom of children:
- To keep milk from turning sour, keep it in the cow.
- A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.
- Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.
- A myth is a female moth.
- Miguel Cervantes wrote Donkey Hote.
- Abraham Lincoln ‘s mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands.
Life's Axioms
- Everyone has a photographic memory. Some don't have film.
- When the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.
- I wonder how much deeper would the ocean be without sponges.
- I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.
- A day without sunshine is like, well, night.
- 42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
- The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
Questions (and Answers) for Life's Mysteries
- Q: How do you get holy water? A: Boil the hell out of it.
- Q: What did the fish say when he hit a concrete wall? A: "Dam"
- Q: What do Eskimos get from sitting on the ice too long? A: Polaroids.
- Q: What do you get when you cross an elephant and a skin doctor? A: A pachydermatologist.
- Q: What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches? A: A nervous wreck.
There you have a taste of my file cabinet. I hope this satisfies the editor. (If I fall asleep for the winter, perhaps he will not awaken me until February 2nd when he will want to know my forecast for the onset of spring.) Well, zen was zen and tao is tao.
Your punished servant,
p. Keith, PbH