by Peter Johnson
(‘Upper’ Oxford Mills)
We are so lucky to be dealing with a language as varied and voracious as English. It does not try to freeze out other languages (you hear me French?), but rather it is happy to borrow and take from most others… like ‘kimono’, for example. So here we go, and just so I can defer all criticisms beforehand… these examples are not mine; they have been mined/mind from a wondrously tiny publication titled, ‘The Consolidated Wagster’s Unexpurgated Dictionary of Humor and Wit’. Let us begin at the beginning – always a sound idea… like trumpeting.
- Age of Metal, (n), silver in hair, gold in teeth, iron in veins, and lead in the pants
- Artificial, (adj), the judge at an art show
- Banana Peel, (n), a slipping beauty
- Bigot, (n), a person with an exceptionally large mouth for such a small mind
Each of these first four are typical in that they make you think. Just when your brain is ticking off the thought of, “Hey I know where this is going”, the content takes a different, yet clever left turn. Consider this… (to quote an REM song):
- Church, (n), a building of prayer-conditioned comfort
- Circular Saw, (n), a rose is a rose is a rose
- Compulsive Gambling, (n), you bet your life
- Denounce, (v), what precedes de verbs
- Dentists, (n), someone who bores you to tears
- Duffer, (n), a golfer so incompetent he can lose his ball in the washer
- Ecstasy, (n), “the feeling you feel when you feel you are going to feel a feeling you never felt before.” (Larry Wilde)
- Egg White, (n) Snow White’s brother… (get the yolk?)
- Easy as Pie, (n), a piece of cake
- Faddish, (adj), in one era and out the other
- Father’s Day, (n), identical to Mother’s Day but all calls home are collect, not as many restaurant reservations are made, fewer flowers, and less is paid on the present
- Fowl Language, (n), cheep talk (the sad turn that comedy has taken)
- Gentleman, (n), a man who holds the door open for his wife as she carries in the groceries
- Gargling, (v), a method used to see if your neck leaks
- Government Spending, (n), why all laws are called bills
- Home, (n), a place where, no matter where you’re sitting, you are looking at something that needs to be done
- Homer, (n), Babe Ruth’s Greek agent
- Hors d’oeuvres, “a ham sandwich cut into forty pieces” (Jack Benny)
- Infant Prodigy, (n), a baby with highly-imaginative parents
- Insulate, (v), what teenagers get
- Island, (n), where the bottom of the ocean sticks up through the water
- Joan of Arc, (n), Noah’s wife
- Judge, (n), a man of many convictions
- Juror, (n), a person who can’t make up a good excuse
If you’d like to try your hand at some of these ‘Daffynitions’, please send your entries to the editor of this fine and only/lonely local publication. First prize will be ‘All You Can Eat Cucumber Salad’ at ROSEWOOD’S next appearance at The Hyde Smokehouse… a celebration of The Hydes’ Second Anniversary on Nov. 18th. I hope to see you there, then.
p.s. The prize is courtesy of Jammin’ Around Man Productions… “jamming” as in, sweet.
