Q. What do frogs eat their dinner off?
A. Croakery!
Q. What do frogs eat their dinner off?
A. Croakery!
My girlfriend stood me up. Mind you, I'd fallen over first.
Down the pub with some crockery experts. WELL we got smashed!
Down the pub with some builders. WELL we got plastered!
Down the pub with some blacksmiths. WELL we got hammered!
You get the idea.
I found these small flints on country walks and I think they have been worked into 'thumbnail scrapers'. The name is from their size; to give you an idea, the red arrow is 1 centimetre. I don't think any one really knows what they were used for, but they are very interesting objects.
Everyone at the reception was sipping sherry. Except Oona.
She was knocking it back by the schooner.
Everyone at the wedding was sipping champagne. Except Dale.
He was drinking it out of the pail.
Everyone at the salon was delicately sipping pink gin. Except Rose.
She was snorting it up her nose.
Everyone at the tasting was sipping Sauternes. Except Wayne.
He was puking in the lane.
A friend told me about her whirlwind romance. It had a bad ending, because he turned out to be a twister.
In my day all schools had a whistle blowing policy, although it applied mainly on the playing field.
Apparently some drivers without GPS use a compass instead. Don't try it, if you're caught using a compass behind the wheel that's four points on your licence.
Many animals think about solving problems, but only humans think about problem solving.
The number of times I've heard people say history repeats itself.
The Neanderthals fascinate us; they were close enough to interbreed, but we know so little of them. Could they talk, for example? No-one can say.
The name is from the Neanderthal, a German valley (thal, tal in modern German, the same word as English dale or dell). I always imagined it was named for a river: 'the valley of the Neander'.
But not so; the valley is called after a local 17c pastor. His family name was Neumann, but being a scholar he translated it into Greek, Neander.
So in a wry twist, the valley where the bones of our old relatives were first found is literally 'New man's dale'.
A prince can always raise some readies from the crown jewels. But what can frogs pawn?
I'm reading The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher and he quotes this German proverb
"Keeping order is a crutch for those who are too lazy to search for things …" ("Wer Ordnung hält ist nur zu faul zu suchen").
I couldn't help feeling a lot better about my desktop when I read this (similar to the feeling I get when I see a photograph of Francis Bacon's studio).
You had a white dress on
When we met for a second,
Forty years ago.
Relationship guidance. Stick to Sudoku. That way you'll have fewer cross words.
If you had asked me just a couple of days back what word in English has the most zs in it, then I would have instantly replied 'pizzazz'. It's the obvious answer (and has a lot of pizzazz).
But I have learned better. The correct answer is 'zenzizenzizenzic', referring to numbers which are "squares of squares squared".
So (if I have it right) 3 squared is 3 x 3 = 9; square that is 81; square 81 and we get 6561. There you go. 6561 is a zenzizenzizenzic number.
The word erupted briefly in the 16c, like a sort of linguistic supernova, but sadly soon faded in favor of 8, more compact but less zedful.
Swans bittern twite shrike
One thing in Spring I wisheses,
Can someone tell me why,
There's some folks sez Narcissuses,
But others, Narcissi?
Doctor Blunder went down under
On a tourist plane;
He died in combat,
With a hairy-nosed wombat,
And never returned home again.
This is not a Monday grin.
Here's another mondegreen, one I'd forgotten about. It's absolutely genuine, not made up, and was told me by a friend.
Spoken: "A Graham Greene novel".
Heard: "A gray and green nozzle."
Nikos Katzantzakis was a controversial Cretan writer, most famous for the book and film "Zorba the Greek'. His epitaph is famous.
It's often translated in a literal way, but how the capture the spirit? Here's my attempt.
Photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kazantzakis_Grab.jpg
This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.