Archive for 1997
Apparently I liked the "biking Viking" one so much I needed to list it twice. Oops. Arthur contributed some more hinks: Alternate answers for "hink-pink: seafood spread": bream cream, or perhaps ship dip. Hink-pinks: Where to get your fix while you're on shore leave? Tar bar. [Or the related "smack shack." —JEH] A little cream […]
A hinky-pinky is a clue, definition, or riddle, the answer to which is a pair of rhyming words. For instance, the clue Hinky-pinky: a Norseman on wheels could be answered "biking Viking." The phrase "hinky-pinky" is part of the clue; it declares that the words of the answer are each two syllables. Other phrases are […]
Danny Fahs provides his family's answer to "What's the differerence between a duck?": "The higher, the fewer." He adds: "How man Zen Buddhists does it take to change a lightbulb? A golden tree in the forest." Which requires me to throw in another lightbulb joke: How many surrealists does it take to change a lightbulb? […]
Ulysses Simpson Grant and his wife (née Julia Boggs Dent) are both entombed in Grant's Tomb, but technically speaking nobody at all is buried there. Or so I hear. In something of the spirit of that old chestnut, here are some other trick-question riddles that, without resorting to Marxism, contain the seeds of their own […]
Besides introducing me to Ubbi Dubbi, Zoom (see also column u) provided a game called "Who is Fannee Doolee?" The cast members would say things like "Fannee Doolee. She likes doors but she hates windows." The idea was to find out why Fannee Doolee liked some things but hated other similar things. For instance, these […]
"Circumlocution" derives from Latin roots meaning "around" and "talk." "Euphemism" is from the Greek "euphemia," meaning "use of good words." Apparently we spend so much time trying to say unpleasant or socially unacceptable things pleasantly that we need two words to talk about the process. Everyone is familiar with certain euphemisms used to swear in […]
Danny Fahs writes to remind me of 1 Timothy 6:10: "For the love of money is the root of all evil..." So despite the common misquote, it's greed (formerly known as cupidity) that Paul rails against, not money itself. I stand corrected, but (as my syllogism wouldn't work with the correct quotation) unrepentant. Danny also […]
There are about twenty modern nations whose currency is called the "dollar." The word apparently derives from "taler," which in turn comes from "Joachimsthal," the name of a place in Bohemia where the taler (a silver coin) was created—with the "-thal" part presumably meaning "valley." (The modern German spelling, by the way, has been changed […]
Danny Fahs suggests not only some chain titles but descriptions of the results: How about that British programme about the naughty Time Lord, Carry On, Doctor Who? A Russian submarine fantasizes about being in the circus in Pixar's The Hunt for Red's October Dream. Arlo Guthrie is sentenced to be beheaded after he dumps the […]
(Note: see end of column for credits for otherwise uncredited items.) By mixing the title of one work (movie, TV show, book, song, whatever) with another, you can sometimes come up with some great combos: Clan of the Care Bears Nightmare on Sesame Street (Which reminds me of the Duck's Breath Mystery Theater piece called […]