Happy Saturday from Naperville where we’re awash after several days of rain. I imagine I might have a difficult time getting into the park where I took this photo last year as the river is flooding, but hopefully we’ll have a few days off from the wet stuff before more rain moves in next week. May your weekend be beautiful and dry…unless you need the rain and then have I got a deal for you! 🙂
Today I’m introducing you to another book, Cruel and Unusual Puns, by Don Hauptman, a book about transitional puns. Not sure what those are? You’ll catch on quickly. However, my favorite wordmeister, Richard Lederer, chimes in at the beginning of the book to tell us, “…Many of Hauptman’s clever reversals might be called forkerisms–spoonerisms with a point…” So grab your fork and spoon and dig in for some fun.
I’m going to quote from Chapter 5: Nothing to Choose but your Lanes, Improbable Definitions and Unlikely Quotes. “Nothing to Choose but your Lanes” should give you a hint as to the direction we’re headed. Just switch the L and C if you’re confused.
Alimony: (1) The ties of exes are upon you. (2) The bounty of mutiny
~(1) Howard Gossage; (2) Source Unknown
Research psychologists: Pulling habits out of rats
~George P. Schmidt, quoted in Saturday Review
Counterfeiters: They earn money the hard way–they make it.
~Elizabeth Critas, Cincinnati, Ohio, in The New York Magazine Competition
Champagne: Sips that passion the night.
~Source Unknown
Children sharing toys: The din of inequity
~The Complete Pun Book by Art. Moger
Race tracks: Where windows clean people.
~Mad Magazine (Try as I may, this will NOT indent!)
And now some from our author:
Unpopular baseball team: Mitts and Hisses
How trolley enthusiasts describe their passion: A Desire Named Streetcar
Euclid’s lost principle of squaring the circle: First sum, first curved
Postpartum depression: The Blues of the Birth
Country bumpkin who falls for TV pitches selling cheap Zirconium jewelry:Cubic’s rube
And a few transitional quotes: (You determine whether they’re real.) 🙂
Marcel Marceau, with characteristic humility: “It’s only a tatter of mime”
Henry Luce on the eve of the Chicago fire: “There’ll be a hot town in the old Time tonight.” (The Chicago Times was a newspaper.)
Madonna might be a material girl, but what kind of material? They’re not all the same. Daily Writing Tips sent this interesting material to my inbox a few days ago and I thought you might appreciate it, too. Sew, onward and don’t allow yourself to be worsted by any of these you don’t know. Have you cottoned onto the appeal of apparel? Oddly enough, (see #22) in the mid-seventies, I was actually in Osnabrück, Germany. I’m not making that up out of whole cloth and far as I know, none of these have been fabricated. Okay, I’ll stop now, although I think they forgot cotton, “the fabric of our lives.”
25 Names of Fabrics, Wools, and Leathers Derived from Place Names
This post lists and defines terms for apparel materials that have in common that the terms are derived from place names
1. angora: a type of wool from Angora rabbits, which originated near Ankara (previously Angora), Turkey
2. Bedford cord: a corduroy-like fabric, named after Bedford, England, or New Bedford, Massachusetts
3. calico: a type of cloth originally from Calicut, India
4. cambric: a type of cloth originally from Cambrai, France
5. cashmere: a type of wool and a woolen fabric from Kashmir goats, which come from the Kashmir region of India
6. chino cloth: a cloth originating in China (the name is Spanish for “Chinese”)
7. Cordovan leather: a type of shoe leather first produced in Cordoba, Spain
8. damask: a type of fabric named after Damascus, Syria
9. denim: a type of fabric originally called serge de Nîmes, or “serge of Nîmes,” after Nîmes, a town in France
10. dungaree: a type of denim cloth originating in Dongrī, India; pants or overalls made from this fabric are called dungarees
11. duffel: a cloth first made in Duffel, Belgium
12. Harris tweed: a type of handwoven tweed cloth originating on the island of Lewis and Harris and adjacent islands in Scotland (the name of the cloth type tweed is coincidental with the name of the river Tweed)
13. Holland (or Holland cloth): a type of linen originally made in various parts of Europe, including the province of Holland in the Netherlands
14. jaconet: a fabric originally from Puri, India (the word is derived from the name of the city’s Jagannath Temple)
15. jean: a type of fabric originating in Genoa, Italy
16. jersey: a type of knit fabric originating on the island of Jersey, next to France (but a dependency of the United Kingdom)
17. Mackinaw cloth: a woolen cloth used for thick, warm jackets (called Mackinaws or Macs) originally favored by lumberjacks and then hunters and fishermen in the Mackinac (or Mackinaw) region of Michigan
18. madras: a lightweight cloth originally from Madras, India (now called Chennai)
19. muslin: a lightweight fabric originally from Mosul, Iraq
20. Morocco leather: a type of leather originally from Moroccan goats
21. nankeen: a type of fabric originating in Nanjing, China (previously called Nanking or Nankin); also refers to pants made of this material, as well as the pale buff or yellow color of the fabric, a type of porcelain originating in the city, and a type of lace (often called nankins) and part of the name of numerous animals and plants featuring this color
22. osnaburg: a coarse cloth originally made in Osnabrück, Germany
23. suede: a type of leather made from the underside of animal skins, originally referenced in the French phrase gants de Suède (“gloves from Sweden”); similar-looking fabrics are referred to as “sueded silk” and so on
24. tulle: a type of fabric originating in Tulle, France
25. worsted: a type of wool whose name is derived from that of Worstead, one of the villages from which it originated; also, the name of a type of yarn and a category of yarn weight
https://www.dailywritingtips.com/25-names-of-fabrics-wools-and-leathers-derived-from-place-names/
Believe it or not, there are still doors in Plombieres that I haven’t photographed or shared. 🙂 So today I’m taking a three-door bite out of that batch and sharing a trio of doors-heretofore-never-featured-on-Thursday-Doors doors. Doorn-it! How did that happen? But as Dan loves to hear, no worries, mate! They are now no longer door-mant, but join the ranks of featured-on-Thursday-Doors doors.
But you can find even more splen-doors over at the home of our a-door-able leader from Montreal, Norm. Click on the blue link critter to get your door en-door-phins raging. Don’t be a door-k! Put on your fe-door-a and come visit the corri-doors of the world with us.
If Google Translate is to be trusted, that title means “Unusual French Doors” and that’s just what these splen-door-ous beauties are. Why doors? When some of us see doors, our en-door-phins start raging, making us all ambassa-doors for Norm’s Thursday Doors challenge. It may seem door-ky to you, but it’s a very real phenomenon. Does that make us door-hawks? Maybe, but we’re proud of it. Feel free to en-doors us by stopping by Norm’s and seeing what we found. Or join us. Just picka-door. 🙂
Or (what my mind thought): trunk-ated. 🙂
I thought I’d go with a reprise of something seasonal for this week. I hope you enjoy it because if you don’t, it will cheese me off. This one was from December 2012.
********************
My first thought was someone at the end of life thinking of all the choices made, one inside each door. However, something ran amok inside my head and what emerged was a riff on that idea. Or maybe just riff-raff. Who can say?
The Big Cheese
Or
The Gjetost of Christmas Past
His mind wandered. So many choices throughout his life. Not all perfect, but he was satisfied. Head of Dewey, Cheatum and Howe, Attorneys-at-Law, (plural intentional but deceptive—no other power here), people averted their gazes when he passed, feared him. Life was good!
A knock.
“Enter.”
“A Mr. Gjetost to see you.” Fat Tim, AKA“Tiny”, handed him a card, departing silently but for his limp.
What the dickens? This guy’s a Norwegian cheese? Ebenezeer scrutinized the card. Mr. G. H. Ost. Tim and names! Wonder what this guy wants?
“Mr. Ost, how may I help you?”
“Au contraire, Mr. Skruge…”
He was going, but not too fast.
On my way home today after a grand trip, albeit one with some experiences we hope never to repeat. But as the saying goes: All’s well that ends well. And this trip did, for which I’m very thankful.
I’ve been absent from Friday Fictioneers for a few weeks now, enjoying Christmas and New Years with family and friends and making another epic drive Sunday through Tuesday. On the 9th, I head to Arizona to visit my parents and my brother and his family. My parents don’t have internet (don’t need it if you don’t have a computer) and since all their connected neighbors are so crass as to have protected wi-fi, my access is limited to the time I spend at the library or a Starbucks. It’s a mixed blessing–I miss being online and it’s a struggle to get through email, blog posts, etc. when I am online, but it’s an amazingly freeing experience as well.
As for this week, if the pun is truly the lowest form of humor, I’m well below the limbo level with my offering. I could plead insanity, but why bother? It will be all to clear to any of you reading beyond my intro! And I cheerfully admit I enjoyed every minute of it. I hope you find it a tree-t.
May 2014 be a blessed year for each of you, filled with joy, health and wonder.
Photo courtesy of Rochelle’s daughter-in-law
Genre: Humor (I hope.)
Not Just Another Old Chestnut
“What the devil, Sherlock? Why do yew have a wooden replica of the Hound up there?”
“ Acorny story, Watson. He started to bark at trees, then branched out to climbing them; just pined for them, couldn’t leaf them alone. I wood quake like an aspen at first, but everything seemed oak-ay until he ran up this one.. He was rooted in place, his fir stood up and he turned into the wooden statue you see here. A shame, but he looks very spruce up there. I guess olive with it.
“But how…?”
“Elmementary, my dear Watson. It’s a dog-wood.”
…………………………………………………………..
I have to say that when choosing the right link-y thing code, I find it rather annoying to have to use the “non-dynamic” code. Really! Couldn’t they call it something less common-sounding? Be that as it may, if you wish to read more stories, click on the blue guy.
This, that and the other thing 