PARAPROSDOKIANS
PARAPROSDOKIANS are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected; frequently humorous.
1. Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.
3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hearr them speak.
4. If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8.They begin the evening news with ‘Good Evening,’ then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
10. Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my desk is a work station.
11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
12. In filling out an application, where it says, ‘In case
of emergency, notify:’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’
13. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
15. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
16. You do not need a parachute to skydive.
You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
17. Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery
easier to live with.
18. There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.
19. I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
20. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
21. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and
call whatever you hit the target.(Sounds like a work strategy)
22. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
23. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
24. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian
any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
25. Where there’s a will, there are relatives.
And my favorite that I’m “resembling” more & more……
I’m supposed to respect my elders, but its getting
harder and harder for me to find one now.
Pretty Face a Passport
This is from today’s A-Word-A-Day (the word for today is ‘machinate’) and you can subscribe by clicking on the blue type, above, which will take you to the website.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it’s not, it’s a visa, and it runs out fast. -Julie Burchill, writer and journalist (b. 1959)
Martin Luther King Day
From A Word a Day, in honor of Martin Luther King Day:
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. -Frederick Douglass, Former slave, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)
Flying Out of Pensacola International Airport
No. No, there are not any flights to any cities outside the United States. I thought there was a rule! I remember other small airports that called themselves “international” but they always had at least one flight like to Mexico, or some Caribbean island . . . I didn’t know you could name an airport Pensacola INTERNATIONAL Airport just because you thought it sounded cool. Guess the joke is on me.
(Have you noticed how much more dominant blue bulbs are now? They used to just fade into obscurity, but now they are brilliant. These trees decorate Pensacola International Airport.)
So as I check in – at the curbside, YES! I am appreciating how much easier flying is when you are not flying to Kuwait or Qatar, or even Germany. You can drop your luggage right at the curb, you already have your boarding passes; you checked in and printed them at home (none of this is possible if you are flying to the Middle East) so you can go straight to your gate . . . oh yeh, forgot, you still have to go through security.
There is a LONG line and I overhear one of the security guards say to a Pensacola friend “Yeh, you can’t just get here an hour before your flight any more and expect to catch your flight . . . ” and I am thinking “Holy Smokes! I thought getting there an hour before your flight was overkill in Pensacola!”
As soon as I get through security (no more ‘special’ treatment, now that I am not flying to Kuwait or Qatar, no more pat downs, no more extra questions) I get to my flight, which is already boarding, and both my flights, early early on a Sunday morning are PACKED, every seat is booked. I cannot imagine.
The good news is that every flight leaves on time, lands on time, and the flights are uneventful. I love ‘uneventful.’
I find that I don’t get as much reading done as I used to when I was flying two, three, four times a year from the Middle East to Seattle. I used to be able to read three or four books in each direction, now I am down to one book and maybe a little Sudoku.
Beautiful flight:
When we get near Seattle, you can see five mountains in a row, from Mount Rainier looking south, including the remains of Mount Saint Helens. The weather in Seattle is cool and brisk, my car is waiting and the roads out Edmonds are clear and dry, Wooo HOOOOO!
More From the Word Nerd: Tabby
This is from today’s A Word A Day, and I love it because it describes both cat, plain weave cloth and silk – and it stems from Arabic.
A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
tabby
PRONUNCIATION:
(TAB-ee)
MEANING:
noun:
1. A domestic cat with a striped or brindled coat.
2. A domestic cat, especially a female one.
3. A spinster.
4. A spiteful or gossipy woman.
5. A fabric of plain weave.
6. A watered silk fabric.
7. A building material made of lime, oyster shells, and gravel.
ETYMOLOGY:
For 1-6: From French tabis, from Medieval Latin attabi, from Arabic attabi, from al-Attabiya, a suburb of Baghdad, Iraq, where silk was made, from the name of Prince Attab. Cats got the name tabby after similarity of their coats to the cloth; the derivations of words for females are probably from shortening of the name Tabitha.
For 7: From Gullah tabi, ultimately from Spanish tapia (wall).
USAGE:
“I was playing whist with the tabbies when it occurred, and saw nothing of the whole matter.”
Charles James Lever; Jack Hinton, the Guardsman; 1857.
“Kay Sekimachi uses tabby and twill weaving to contrast black and beige linens.”
Stunning 30-year Retrospective at San Jose Museum of Quilts Textiles; Independent Coast Observer (California); Jan 4, 2008.
“Mayor Carl Smith suggested that tabby fence posts be used around the cemetery’s perimeter because the oyster-based concrete would better fit the island’s character.”
Jessica Johnson; Group Restoring Cemetery; The Post and Courier (South Carolina); Jan 21, 2010.
You can subscribe to A Word A Day by going to their website (you can click on it in my list of Links to the right of these blog entries). It is free, and it is amazing.
Deb Roy: The Birth of a Word
Come back when you have some time – you’ll need about twenty minutes to watch this TED video about communication. I love this – but then you know I am a word nerd, and I love the way concepts are born and grow.
Computers have aided language analysis and taken it to lengths that were previously inconceivable. First, Deb Roy shows – with videos, graphs and cloud analysis – how his son learned to speak his first word.
He goes from there to what I would call “buzz analysis”, taking program content from cable television and correlating it to comments on public media – blogs, FaceBook, all kinds of public forums. The results are astonishing, and a great tool to understand the national psyche and how we think and process. This is amazing stuff.
Thought for the Day from A.W.A.D.
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
It is my belief that the writer, the free-lance author, should be and must be a critic of the society in which he lives. It is easy enough, and always profitable, to rail away at national enemies beyond the sea, at foreign powers beyond our borders who question the prevailing order. But the moral duty of the free writer is to begin his work at home; to be a critic of his own community, his own country, his own culture. If the writer is unwilling to fill this part, then the writer should abandon pretense and find another line of work: become a shoe repairman, a brain surgeon, a janitor, a cowboy, a nuclear physicist, a bus driver. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
Getting Scripture Wrong
As you know, many Christians do readings daily; there are readings recommended for each day from the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Gospels. Technology makes life easier and easier, you can just go online to The Lectionary and it is all right there for you. They have all the readings, every day, and even have write-ups about the Saints days.
This scripture makes me nervous. I attend a bible study where they tell us exactly what to think. They are very clear in their doctrine. Because I need the self-discipline in my studies, and because I believe that they are mostly women like me, trying to serve God to the best of their abilities, I don’t argue a lot, I don’t say “no! that’s not what it says!” or cause a disturbance. I trust God lives in each of us, as the Holy Spirit, and figure the Holy Spirit will guide me through our studies.
In this scripture, the disciples who know Jesus the very best, the ones who travel with him and who listen to him every day are talking about bread when Jesus is talking about hypocrisy. It worries me. What else to we fail to see? What else do we mis-interpret?
Matthew 16:1-12
16:1 The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Jesus they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 He answered them, ‘When it is evening, you say, “It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.” 3 And in the morning, “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.” You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.’ Then he left them and went away.
5 When the disciples reached the other side, they had forgotten to bring any bread. 6 Jesus said to them, ‘Watch out, and beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees.’ 7 They said to one another, ‘It is because we have brought no bread.’ 8 And becoming aware of it, Jesus said, ‘You of little faith, why are you talking about having no bread? 9 Do you still not perceive? Do you not remember the five loaves for the five thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 10 Or the seven loaves for the four thousand, and how many baskets you gathered? 11 How could you fail to perceive that I was not speaking about bread? Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees!’ 12 Then they understood that he had not told them to beware of the yeast of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Speak Kuwaiti
Thanks to commenter Zak who recommends a new book available in Kuwait. Wish it had been available when I was there. I had to learn by asking friends. I’m still tempted to answer the phone “Weynich?? Weynich?” (Where are you – to a female)
“SPEAK KUWAITI”
I liked the idea of this new book “Speak Kuwaiti”, unlike any other book, this book has been compiled and designed to focus on the spoken Kuwaiti dialect in the easiest and most interactive way possible. I have many expatriate friends who often ask me “How can I speak Kuwaiti ?” or “How to say I’m hungry, tired, happy in Kuwait?” Well this book is the answer
The price is 3.600 K.D and can be found at Virgin, That Al Salasil, and Jarir bookshop, Kuwait Bookshop.
Zak
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