Anguished English

    Just a month ago English teachers across the country finished correcting final themes and many will sent additional examples to Richard Lederer to add to hiscollection of fractured language. His two books, Anguished English (Wyrick & Company, 1987) and The Bride of Anguished English (St. Martin's Press, 2000), are worth many laughs.

    I've been interested in these kinds of malapropisms, misspellings, misplaced modifiers and confused metaphors ever since one of my university students wrote that his idea should be "taken for granite."

    I offer a few of Lederer's collected examples that apply to natural history:

ASTRONOMY

• Comets...are thought to be ruminants from the beginning of the universe.
• Headline: Is There a Ring of Debris around Uranus?

BIRDS

• In 1957, Eugene O'Neill won a Pullet Surprise. Each Thanksgiving it is a tradition in our family to shoot peasants.
• News dispatch: The crime bill would reinstate the death penalty for certain violent crimes: assassinating the President; hijacking an airliner; and murdering a government poultry inspector.
• Can anybody explain why Kiwi International Airlines is named after a bird that cannot fly?

BOTANY

• The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.
• I don't want to cast asparagus at my opponent!
• Wanted: Unmarried girls to pick fresh fruit and produce.
• Seen in a Pennsylvania cemetery: Persons are prohibited from picking flowers from any but their own graves.
• Sign outside a gift shop: Live Artificial Trees.

DISEASE AND MEDICINE

• World War II ended on VD day.
• The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
• The patient has no past history of suicides.
• Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.
• The patient experienced mood swings because she suffered from PBS.
• A brand claim: Every rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip is personally tested.

FISH

• A squid has ten to twelve testicles that hang down from its body.
• Headline: Yellow Perch Decline to be Studied.

ARTHROPODS

• Get rid of aunts: Zap does the job in 24 hours.
• Seen in a Michigan restaurant: The early bird gets the worm; special shoppers' luncheon before 11 a.m.

GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY

• In the Olympic games the reward to the victor was a coral wreath.
• Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
• Headline: Experts Increase Probability of a Big Quake in California

MAMMALS

• Artificial insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow and not the bull.
• Queen Elizabeth's navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
• A skunk was found wandering among the phews of a local church.
• Lost: small apricot poodle; reward; neutered; like one of the family.
• Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children.
• Song line: Chipmunks roasting on an open fire.
• The Civil War was started by John Brown, a rabbit abolitionist.
• Headline: 4-H Girls Win Prizes for Fat Calves.

PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY

• Vacuums are nothings; we only mention them to let them know that we know they are there.
• Water is composed of two gins, oxygen and hydrogen; oxygen is pure gin, hydrogen is gin and water.

WEATHER

• Wind is like air, only pushier.
• Seen on a Tennessee highway: Take notice: when this sign is under water, this road is impassable.
• Headline: Typhoon Rips Cemetery, Hundreds Dead.

GENERAL

• Rural life is lived mostly in the country.
• Porter...lectured on "Destructive Pests;" a large number were present.
• Headline: Sterilization Solves Problems for Pets, Owners.
• Many dead animals in the past changed into fossils while others preferred to be oil.
• Genetics explains why you look like your father and if you don't, why you should.

    We had better be able to laugh at these examples for most of us have contributed to them.-- Gerry Rising