{"id":2725,"date":"1997-11-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1997-11-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1997\/11\/09\/swifty\/"},"modified":"2018-01-14T18:06:02","modified_gmt":"2018-01-15T02:06:02","slug":"swifty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1997\/11\/09\/swifty\/","title":{"rendered":"S: Tom Said"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Willard Espy didn't bother to define Tom Swifties in his <cite>Almanac(s) of Words at Play<\/cite>; 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:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\"<em>I<\/em> never get blisters; why should I care if you do?\" Tom said callously.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>The idea being that the adverb modifying \"said\" is a pun that has something to do with what Tom said. The form is supposedly named after the character of Tom Swift, from four long-running series of boys'-adventure\/science-fiction <a href=\"http:\/\/www.web-span.com\/raven43\/hist.htm\">novels<\/a> by \"Victor Appleton\" (a pen name used by several writers of the Stratemeyer Syndicate), but I've seen no evidence that this sort of pun had anything to do with the character.<\/p>\r\n<p>Espy does define a \"croaker\"; it's a Tom Swifty in which the punning word is a speaking verb, rather than an adverb with \"said.\" He credits the name and the concept to Roy Bongartz and friends. The name derives from an archetypal croaker:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\"I'm dying,\" he croaked.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>I'll grant the name, but the concept seems to me an obvious extension of the Tom Swifty concept, and I don't know anyone who differentiates between the two; most people consider both kinds of items, along with several variant forms, to be Tom Swifties.<\/p>\r\n<p>Jim Moskowitz, Ruth Alfasso, and Gavin Schnitzler came up with these:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>\"Not wild bird again!\" Tom groused.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"No thanks to that Frenchman,\" said Tom mercilessly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"There's one right outside that window,\" Tom alleged.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I'm docking the boat again,\" Tom reported.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Go ahead, it's perfectly safe to drink,\" Tom lied.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I'm an umpire,\" Tom called out. (Aaron Hertzmann suggests adding \"self-referentially\")<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Are you ready for your exam?!\" Tom quizzed testily.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"What's that big orange fish?\" asked Tom coyly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I'm taking you to court,\" Tom said plaintively.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>These ones are entirely Jim's fault:<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>\"It's a garbage disposal,\" he said succinctly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"You're not a real magician at all,\" Tom said, disillusioned.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Someone's killed Polly,\" he said, disparately.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"That's the fifth day you've been out this month,\" Mrs. Jenkins remarked absently.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"You can go in now,\" Tom admitted.<\/li>\r\n  <li>It was a nice fabric, Tom felt.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"And then another five makes nine!\" Tom added.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"The male bees do no work,\" Tom droned.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Well, you don't actually have to pay that penalty,\" Tom defined.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>One from Bhadrika:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\"I'm human again,\" he said disenchantedly.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>One from Mykle Hansen:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\"I guess I'll have to have an operation,\" said Tom half-heartedly.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>One from Michael Bernstein:<\/p>\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>\"I don't know where this train is going!\" Tom railed.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n<p>Here are a bunch more, mostly created by Jonathan Wald, with a few by me.<\/p>\r\n<ul>\r\n  <li>\"I hate flying,\" Tom complained.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Are you <em>sure<\/em> we can break in?\" Tom asked guardedly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I'm drunk,\" Tom whined.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"The drink here isn't so good,\" Tom said groggily.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"We <em>were<\/em> being followed,\" Tom said evasively.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"There isn't enough food to go around,\" Tom rationalized.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This is a dogwood tree!\" Tom barked.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"She's old and ugly,\" Tom crooned.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This hypnotist isn't so great,\" Tom suggested.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"We need more ice cubes,\" Tom chattered coldly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This will get the stain out!\" Tom shouted boldly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I memorized that,\" Tom wrote.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Ouch!\" Tom interjected.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Those trees\u2014they must be saved!\" Tom cut in choppily.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"These aren't grade A,\" Tom berated.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Ah'm an artist,\" Tom drawled sketchily.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This pencil needs sharpening,\" Tom pointed out, pointlessly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"<cite>The New Yorker<\/cite> comes out every week,\" Tom stated periodically.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Those lines have to stay together,\" Tom growled with pride.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This foreign red wine is for dignitaries only,\" Tom said importantly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Are you a doctor?\" Tom probed.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Are you an archaeologist?\" Tom delved.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I'll make those pastries again,\" Tom retorted tartly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Have you read <cite>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead<\/cite>?\" Tom questioned.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Aren't you Allen Funt?\" Tom asked candidly.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"You should cover up that cut,\" Tom bandied.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"How about some venison?\" Tom shot gamely.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Open this door,\" Tom pried.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Still in the U.S.S.R.,\" Tom read, sickly rushing through the letter.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"In the tomb,\" Tom said cryptically.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Of a French pastry,\" Tom d'eclaired.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"You won't live long if you don't believe in God,\" Tom preached diagnostically.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"That's a hard line,\" Tom said stonily.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I wonder if this is big enough to be a lake,\" Tom pondered.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Pick another flower or two,\" Tom said morosely.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I wonder if it's all right to leave a crook with my kids,\" Tom considered.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"Next to the sand trap?\" Tom hazarded.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I bet they're playing in the grass,\" Tom gambled.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"I want to stop playing these card games,\" Tom said wistfully.<\/li>\r\n  <li>\"This sausage is made from only the finest meat, Effendi,\" Tom salaamed.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<p>...And just in case you haven't had enough yet, there's a huge <a href=\"http:\/\/thinks.com\/words\/tomswift.htm\">Web site<\/a> (by Michael Curl) full of lots and lots more.<\/p>\r\n<hr \/>\r\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/1997\/11\/10\/swifty-comments\/\">Reader comments and addenda page<\/a><\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-uppercase-1"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2725"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3310,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2725\/revisions\/3310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}