There are letters on my telephone dial. This fact does not surprise you. "Of course there are letters on your telephone dial," you say. "How else could you dial 1-800-CORRECT? How else could you dial 1-900-HOT-SEX? How else could you say 'My phone number spells out PIGEONZ'?" (Ever notice how in movies they use "555-" […]
There's an old riddle which goes: Q: What word is always pronounced wrong? A: The word "wrong." I recently encountered another version of that riddle in a book: Q: What word is never pronounced right? A: "Wrong." Whoever wrote up this latter item may have not understood the original joke (the second version borders on […]
Q: What has four wheels and flies? A: A garbage truck. ...No, wait. I got the punch line right but the wrong question. Let's back up and try that again. Q: Johnny, name a collective noun. A: A garbage truck! I read that joke in I don't know how many riddle books as a kid, […]
I recently encountered the term "TWAIN," referring to scanner-related software. I vaguely wondered what it stood for, but assumed it was just some boring computer acronym. So I was delighted when Don Monson coincidentally dropped me a note a couple weeks later to tell me what "TWAIN" really stands for: Technology Without An Interesting Name. […]
"Many thanks to old Cadmus, who made us his debtors, by inventing one day the capital letters." —from an old rhyme, according to Oscar Ogg When I decided to write about acronyms, it occurred to me to wonder where capital letters came from—or more precisely, where and when the idea was formed of having two […]
(Notes: my information here is based largely on research I did in 1990; much of it comes from linguistics papers from the '60s and '70s. My information may therefore be somewhat outdated, but it's the most recent information I have available. On an unrelated note, you'll need a browser that can display tables to get […]
Jim had sent me some more of his Swifties that I forgot to include in the column: "I've changed my mind; I'm not on either team," Tom decided. "I got the lead in a Shakespeare play," Tom said lyrically. "You'll be staying with us?" Tom guessed. "Dorothy's aunt sure has put on weight," Tom said […]
Willard Espy didn't bother to define Tom Swifties in his Almanac(s) of Words at Play; perhaps he felt everyone knew what they were. I'm sure that there are some people who haven't encountered them, though, so I'll start with a quick definition. A Tom Swifty is a pun of this form: "I never get blisters; […]
Pierre Abbat was the first to catch my mistaken identification of "pork" as a rhymeless word; he provided this fine set of culinary guidelines: One never eats pork With spoon or with fork Or camel or stork Or eagle or bat Or coney or cat Or rabbit or rat. One may eat cricket But not […]
"Slovenly rhyming is one of the sure signs of mediocrity in versification." —Clement Wood, The Complete Rhyming Dictionary There seems to be a bit of confusion out there over what exactly constitutes rhyme in English. But before I can talk about rhyme, I have to talk about syllable stress. [Momentary pause for obligatory stress jokes […]