Having fun with English

 

Have you ever stopped to think … and then forget to start again?

I hate it when that happens. Sometimes, however, you just need to pause and contemplate the mysteries of life.

How come we park on the driveway but drive on the parkway?

Why is childbirth called “delivery” and not “take-out”?

Why do round pizzas come in square boxes and get served in triangles?

What are male ladybugs called?

Do fish drink water?

If tomatoes are a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?

If you clean a vacuum cleaner does that make you a vacuum cleaner?

If you didn’t know me, would you think I’m a stranger?

How come chicken farmers aren’t called chicken tenders?

Why do they call a statue a bust when it stops at the part it’s named after?

What makes Teflon stick to the pan?

If sour cream goes bad, how can you tell?

What did René Descartes think about before he knew who he was?

Of course, not everything I contemplate is a mystery. Every day I like to put a little time aside and then forget about it. At the end of the year, I have a few days to myself.

Did you know that an anagram for Clint Eastwood is Old West Action? Likewise, anagrams for Neil Armstrong include “Strong Mr. Alien” and “Gremlin on star.”

Some other entertaining anagrams include:

Public relations: Crap built on lies;

Debit Card: Bad credit;

Mother-in-Law: Woman Hitler;

Dormitory: Dirty room;

Eleven plus two: Twelve plus one;

Astronomer: Moon starer; and

Listen: Silent.

Sometimes I like to contemplate palindromes, which are words or phrases that are spelled the same forward and backward. Some examples include words like racecar, civic, deed, kayak, madam, radar, and rotator. A favorite of mine is A Toyota.

Some popular palindromes include:

A man, a plan, a canal – Panama;

Sir, I demand, I am a maid named Iris;

Was it a car or a cat I saw; and

Go hang a salami, I’m a lasagna hog.

Some other entertaining palindromes include:

Step on no pets;

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo;

Rats live on no evil star;

Do geese see God;

Mr. Owl ate my metal worm;

Yo, banana boy; and

Murder for a jar of red rum.

Other words I like to have fun with are oxymorons, such as jumbo shrimp, small crowd, virtual reality, deafening silence, civil war, definite maybe, devout atheist, and bittersweet. You could probably add army intelligence to that list.

As long as we’re having fun with the English language, we can’t leave out homonyms, homographs, or homophones – words with more than one meaning or different words that sound alike. For example: I live for live music. I saw a fly fly by. He didn’t bat an eye when he saw a bat land on his bat. The bare bear blew blue smoke at the foul fowl. I rode down the road to see the sea. He stares at the stairs. The thief likes to steal steel but instead he stole a stole.

At this point I’m starting to give myself a headache. It’s time to stop thinking and start working again.