MumblingNerd

Dweller epithet for Nottingham

There isn’t a name for people who live in Nottingham.

Many other cities and areas have a demonym or gentilic (a term for the residents of a locality); Liverpudlians, Brummies, Mancunians, Geordies, Londoners etc, but not Nottingham.

I hadn’t thought about this before, but Oonagh Robinson has just written a piece in the Nottingham Evening Post on the subject that made me realise what we’re missing out on.

Nottingham doesn’t lend itself to happy abbreviations. Whichever part of the name you extract it doesn’t work in isolation; Notts is the County abbreviation and Notters is too close to Nutters. Tings or Tingers, Hams or Hammers are all too similar to other names and don’t link to Nottingham without the ‘Nott’ bit.

Nottinghamian or Nottinghammers are too clumsy; Nottimers or Nottamers are slightly better, but awkward.

I’m digressing slightly here, but isn’t awkward an awkward word? I must have used it before, but when I put the ‘wkw’ bit down the more I looked at it the less it seemed to be right. I had to use the spell checker and thesaurus twice before I believed it.

Anyway.

Notties is a bit twee and too close to Nottinghamshire, or to Ken Dodd’s Knottyash.

Nottingham’s original name of Snotengaham (meaning ‘home of Snot’) works better in abbreviation; Snots or Snotties have a contemporary but tenuous and icky link to green issues, but perhaps it snot practical, who nose?

The standard abbreviations for Nottingham (Nottm) and for Nottinghamshire (Notts) are very often confused and incorrectly transposed, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen correspondence addressed to Notts City Council and Nottm County Council, or references to the city of Notts.

Sherwood is too broad an area to refer just to Nottingham, but what about Hooders (obviously not Hoodies), Robins, Outlaws, Merries? No, it’s just not working is it?

Nottnum seems to be an extensively used pronunciation of Nottingham; is that from the spread of Estuary English to the Midlands? So how about Nottnumers?

Actually, looking back over that, Nottimers, Nottamers or Nottnumers are probably about the best of the bunch.

Somebody must have a better idea however; it would be good for the city to have a widely accepted dweller epithet.

If anyone happens to read this, any ideas will be greatly appreciated. I shall be deeply offended, but probably entertained, if they disrespect this great city though.

For other information about Nottingham click here

The surface area of a pie

Humour

Calculate the surface area of a pie by multiplying Pi times the pie radius-squared, where Pi is 3.14 and the pie radius is a given number represented by “Pie-R”. In other words, Area = Pi * Pie-R-squared.

If you were asked to find the area of a pie whose radius was 9cm, the formula would be Pi * Pie-R-squared, or 3.14 * 9cm-squared = 254.34cm-squared.

Also, if you have a pizza with radius z and thickness a, its volume is pizza [or pi*z*z*a].

Sir Cumference was the roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table. He acquired his size from too much Pi.

If you divide the diameter of a jack-o’-lantern by its circumference, you get pumpkin Pi.

Palindrome; “I prefer pi”, or Nottingham and Northern England version; “E, I prefer pie”.

For other stuff in this blog, click on these links:

Humour

Puns and word-play

Quotations

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Transience

MumblingNerd

Thoughts and cultural references are transient

I was thinking about so many things being transient, but actually everything is.

Thoughts are remarkably transient; they come and then they’re gone in the twinkling of an eye, never to be remembered. Well, not without a pen or a stylus to hand.

And my eye doesn’t twinkle as much these days; is that age related?

Given the chance, I write thoughts down in a quick jumble before I forget them, then sort them out and make them legible later. Trouble is, sometimes I can’t read them or work out what I might have been thinking. Probably nothing of historical significance anyway.

I’ve realised of late the transient nature of cultural references and the huge percentage that are completely irrelevant to younger people, and also noticed that it becomes more pronounced as you get older.

It’s part of my, undoubtedly annoying, nature to make asinine remarks during conversations, in relation to comments that people make and about events, probably linked to my problem with word finding. However, as I get older, many of the references that I might link to these events or comments are also ageing, and therefore mean absolutely nothing to the reluctant, and frequently younger, addressees.

If I’m making reference to something that happened thirty or forty years ago, and the recipients of my remarks are under the age of thirty or forty, it’s likely that my comment will mean absolutely nothing to them. There will be no corresponding cultural reference point and my pithy and pertinent remark will be irrelevant and immaterial.

Damn, now I’m even less relevant than I used to be, and that was starting from a low base.

Everything is transient. Transience makes a change, and change is good for you.

Deadly euphemisms

MumblingNerd

Having used the term ‘popped my clogs’ in a Tweet recently, it made me think about the amazing range of euphemisms there are for death and dying. So it’s given me an excuse to start making lists.

It seems that people have an aversion to using words like ‘death’ or ‘dying’ either in conversation or in written communication. Why is that? Does it make us think too honestly about our own mortality?

I would prefer to be dead later, rather than sooner, but whenever death comes it is inevitable.

What’s that quotation by Benjamin Franklin? “Of two things you can be certain; death and taxes”. There is no escape from death. Some people can cheat their way out of taxes, but no one, with or without faith, or with a cryonics plan, can avoid death.

I suppose that’s the reason behind the euphemisms; you can’t evade death, but you can avoid talking about it. Postpone acceptance of the inescapable.

Anyway, back to the list I was proposing to draw up:

Bitten the dust

Bought the farm

Breathed one’s last

Burned

Cashed in their chips

Croaked

Fallen off their perch

Given up the ghost

Gone off-line

Gone west

Kicked the bucket

Left for the rats

Met their maker

Passed away

Pegged it

Permanently out of print

Pining for the fjords (Monty Python!)

Popped their clogs

Pushing up daisies

Put out of their misery

Roasted

Seeing the reaper

Shuffled off this mortal coil

Six feet under

Sleeping the big sleep

Tits up

Toasted

Turned their toes up

TWEPed (‘terminated with extreme prejudice’; probably more of a youthemism)

That’s about the best I can do; I wonder how they compare to euphemisms for death in other languages? They must be as common; use of the euphemism seems to be a very human inclination.

It’s no good; I’m going to have to do a quick Google. Here you go, some from China:

Topple or overturn the chariot

Ride the crane and return to the West

Breathe ones last

Cut or sever breath

Throw or hurl oneself into a well

Right, I’m going off-line now, but I’m dead hopeful of returning to bring back to life another list.

Word finding difficulties

MumblingNerd

I regularly find it difficult to retrieve words to express thoughts and have always had problems remembering names and numbers.

It’s only in recent years that I’ve started to think about word finding difficulties and consider how it’s affected me. Thinking about it has made me realise that in some ways it’s had a fairly significant effect on some aspects of my life.

As a young child I was fairly slow learning to talk and I couldn’t pronounce some sounds very well, for example the letter ‘r’. As a toddler I couldn’t say my name ‘Roy’. I pronounced it ‘Moy’; my father made a toy garage for me and put ‘MOYS GARAGE’ on the sign over the entrance.

Although I drew a lot, I was sluggish in learning to read; at around age eight I still didn’t read very well and was given some Janet and John books by the school to practice at home with.

I didn’t learn the times tables properly. At school I learnt the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and a bit later the 12 (because of pounds, shillings and pence) and I could sometimes work some of the others out by adding up as I went along.

I don’t like writing, my handwriting is hard to read and I’ve always found it tricky to remember what to capitalise and punctuate. For some years in my 20s I wrote everything out in CAPS, even my name; my bank eventually refused to accept my signature until I stopped using capital letters.

'Engine'_by_Roy_Manterfield_(March-1958) — Dodgy spelling (1958)

My spelling has always been weak; I have to think very carefully all the time I’m writing by hand and there are many words that I still can’t spell, because I can’t think of a straightforward way of remembering how many letters there should be, or which order the letters go in. For example: across/accross, dificulty/difficulty, writing/writting, letter/leter, neighbour/nieghbor, metre/meter, confussed/confused, always/allways, recal/recall, scisors/scissors and in writing I tend to mix up short words such as ‘to’, ‘of’ and ‘or’. I sometimes miss letters, especially vowels, out of words. It’s only in my 50s that I’ve found a way of remembering which way round the ‘i’ and ‘e’ go in ‘their’. Until my 40s I had problems remembering the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’ and at school for example I was made to write out a hundred times the difference between ‘they’ and ‘thay’.

I have trouble in remembering times and dates; since my early teens I’ve always carried a diary and lists of things to remember, do or buy. Having my first PDA in 2002 was a huge improvement; everything is in one place and reminder alarms can be set for events of all kinds, brilliant!

I use a computer whenever I can, always with auto spelling and auto correction, which has been a huge boost to the speed and accuracy of my writing. As I type these notes the software is correcting the spelling as I go and changing the letter order of words like ‘and’ and ‘the’ when I transpose the letters. Before computers I had to write copious notes with multiple corrections and a lot of Tippex and then use scissors and sellotape to put the sentences in the right order, then write the whole thing out again neatly enough for someone else to read. This applied to essays and letters, and to writing greetings cards and postcards, where I still usually write out a few lines, correct them and then try to write neatly on the card.

I sometimes pause or struggle when trying to recall words or names, and often replace a word with something similar, to try and get my thought across, when I can’t use the word I’m having difficulty remembering.

I find it easier to comprehend what someone is saying if I can see them and I sometimes have difficulty taking phone messages or understanding what someone is explaining during the call. I have to ask for spellings quite often over the phone and I can’t often remember the letters until it’s written out in full, so I have to ask the person to repeat the spelling until I have it all down on paper.

I only remember one or two oral instructions at most; so I usually have to make notes. I also find it hard to remember more than one or two food or drink orders, when I’m in a pub or restaurant, without writing them out.

The only car registration I can remember

I have problems remembering names and especially numbers. I don’t remember my car registration number or any previous ones, apart from an old black Morris 8, series E that my father sold about 1963 which was DBC 357; I’ve no idea why I remember that.

I can’t remember any mobile phone numbers, including my own. The only numbers I can usually remember are my home phone and my main bank account, which has been the same for over thirty years. I find it hard to remember door codes and usually remember in what order to press the buttons rather than the numbers.

There are lots of technological aids; I don’t often remember web addresses for example, so I use ‘delicious’ to store all of my favourite bookmarks in one place, then they are always available anywhere online.

Sometimes I can’t recall people’s names even if I’ve known them for decades; I know exactly who they are, why and where I know them from and everything about them, but I can’t recall their name. The same regularly applies to celebrities on TV and people in the news. Yet sometimes I can remember an actor’s real name but not their stage or character’s name.

I confuse the names of people with similar sounds; I think Alice but say Janis, or Yvette instead of Colette.

I have a huge number of the universal ‘tip of the tongue’ experiences, where I know something, especially a word or name, but can’t immediately recall it. I can quite often think of the first letter of the missing word and think of words related to it, but not bring up the actual word.

Occasionally I say a word that isn’t the one I intended to use (this needs elaboration, but I’m out of words for now).

I can’t read (or write) and listen to someone speak at the same time and if two people talk to me simultaneously my attention skips from one to the other and I fail to understand what either of them has said. However, that may be because I’m male and useless at multi-tasking!

I find it very hard to learn or remember stories, poems or song lyrics and I don’t remember many song or group names or tell jokes, but I do produce spoonerisms (occasionally inadvertently) and many puns in striving to recall the meaning or word that I want to use.

I’m very uncomfortable talking in a small group of people and can’t address a large group at all; I become speechless and silent and can neither think of anything to say nor remember what I meant to say. Very embarrassing.

My hearing has deteriorated slightly in recent years, particularly in my left ear, which had to be operated on in 2004 to stop the impairment getting worse, but it’s left me with poor hearing and occasional tinnitus in my left ear.

The hearing problem has made some of these word finding issues worse. I try to avoid talking to people where there is a lot of background noise, such as in pubs, social occasions and on buses, because I find it very hard to understand what is being said. Separating speech sounds from background noise, such as a television, can be quite hard.

I’ve not had any sort of assessment, except when, as a toddler, my mother was concerned about my speech, hearing and concentration and asked our family doctor for advice. He conducted a short ‘whispering’ test from the opposite end of the room and said there was nothing to worry about.

In the last year or so, when I’ve started to think about the subject, I’ve done some research and, apart from very minor similarities to some aspects of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), I’ve only found one website that has any correlation to any of my concerns (http://www.wordfinding.com/). Then more recently I came across the term ‘lethologica’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethologica) which may have some connection to the problem.

Assessment almost certainly isn’t necessary, as I don’t think the effect on my day to day life is that critical. Setting the issues out in black and white and attempting to describe it, as I’ve tried to do here, probably makes more of an issue of it than is warranted.

But I might change my mind.

Asinine aphorisms

MumblingNerd, Puns and Word-play

Tinkering with puns, oronyms, homonyms, heterographs and homophones, well, something like that:

Cold toast; butter late than never.

Plain English guide; clarity begins a tome.

Pick up a music book; raise the volume.

Rugby; know pain, know game.

Erectile dysfunction proverb; all’s swell that ends swell.

Ore on hymns, hoe mown hims, hater owe grafts and home of phones:

To wear is you man, two four give deep vine.

Eerily tube head and hurling two rice mixer man wail the unwise.

Love of moon knees the route of fall weevil.

Therefore oarsmen have the poxy lips.

Pea pulling lass how says shoe dent thrust owns.

Ape plays four a very thin, hand eave hairy thinning hits plaice.

May bee hits called enough two freezer balls offer brass monk quay, butt theirs nope lace like comb.

If you can’t stand the hate get art of the cute chin.

At ten shone deaf is sit high pair active ET dis-sword her.

A pitcher is worth a throw sand-wards.

A leotard cannot change its spots.

Likeable Ena China Shop.

Learn to talk before you pun.

Many hands make plight worse.

A stick in thyme says mine.

Make a slick pose out of a Scouse seer.

Merry in haste; relentless pleasure.

Money Hans makes lie to work.

Banging your ted against a brick wall.

North thing dentured, north thing grained.

Look beef; all you’ll heap.

Anna play day keeps the dock tray way.

Nose mock without fear.

Won man’s meat is an udder man spy son.

An unrelated reminder; Friar Tuck doesn’t like spoonerisms and (according to @VenusDeMileage) neither does Betty Swollocks.

The first rule of Homophone Club is: ‘Yew do knot torque about Homophone Club.’

For other stuff in this blog, click on these links:

Humour

Puns and word-play

Quotations

Small selection of short jokes

Humour

My dog, Minton, ate some shuttlecocks the other day. Bad Minton.

Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn’t much, but the reception was excellent.

Two chickens are sitting by the side of the road. One says to the other: “Are you going to cross then?” “No,” he says,“we’ll never hear the end of it.”

I walked by the fridge last night, thought I heard two onions singing a Bee Gees song, when I opened the door it was just chives talkin.

There are two billiard balls in a pub. One says to the other: “You’re round.”

What do you call a pig with three eyes? A piiig!

How do you titillate an ocelot? You oscillate its tit a lot…

What do you get if you cross an elephant with a rhino? Elephino…

How do you make an octopus laugh? Ten tickles.

“What are you doing in that wardrobe?” ~ “Narnia business!”

I love the way the Earth rotates; it really makes my day.

Can February March? No, but April May.

Have you heard about the new corduroy pillows? They’re making headlines everywhere.

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other: “Does this taste funny to you?”

What do you call a camel with three humps? Humphrey…

An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

There are two monkeys getting into the bath. One says: “Ooh ooh ah ah ah ah!” The other says: “Well put some cold in then!”

Two fish swim into a wall. One turns to the other and says: “Dam”.

There are two eggs in a frying pan. One says: “Aaagh! It’s really hot in here!” The other says: “Aaagh! A talking egg!”

There are two hats are on a hat stand. One says to the other “You stay here and I’ll go on a head”.

The roundest knight at King Arthur’s round table was Sir Cumference. He acquired his size from too much pi.

Q: What do you get if you cross a grizzly bear and a harp? A: A bear faced lyre.

What did the mother buffalo say to her child as he left for school?…“Bison”.

A man goes into a library and says “Fish and chips please”. “This is a library!” said the librarian. So the man whispers back “Sorry, fish and chips please”.

In France they love rabbit puns; apparently they’re lapin it up.

I was thinking about word play on video-games, but no pun Nintendo’d.

I’ve stopped gluing Formica to mdf board; it was counterproductive.

I was going to do a pun about a sick bird, but it’s ill eagle.

I have a great pun about a cow that fell off a tall building; it’s ledge end dairy.

Might buy the book ‘How to Make a Tornado’ by New Scientist; I’m hoping there will be a good twist at the end.

Do you know how duvets are insulated? They’re down loaded.

An owl fell in love with two comedians and had two wits to woo.

The capacitor kissed the diode, because he just couldn’t resistor.

The new theory on inertia doesn’t seem to be gaining momentum.

I tried to eat my watch, but it was too time consuming.

A new scientific study has revealed that if your parents didn’t have children, neither will you.

What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear.

What’s loud and sounds like apples? APPLES!

What did the pirate say on his 80th birthday? Aye Matey.

What washes up on tiny beaches? Microwaves.

What did the cobbler say when a cat wandered into his shop? Shoe!

The frustrated cannibal threw up his arms.

How does a lion like his meat? ROAR!

I intended making a John F Kennedy jelly mould today, but I didn’t want to set a president.

What’s green and has wheels? Grass. I lied about the wheels.

I once had a make shift job at a computer keyboard factory.

A man walks into a zoo. The only animal in the entire zoo is a dog. It’s a shitzhu.

I used to fix computers, but IT’s all behind me now.

Due to indigestion, I’m having a little whine with this cheese.

Small boats are very vulnerable to pier pressure.

I intended to have a clock for lunch, but it was too time consuming.

Successful jewel thieves usually have a good ring leader.

Always be kind to your dentist; they have fillings too.

My singing partner couldn’t make it last night; I had to duet alone.

I once got stuck in a glue factory.

I watched a TV drama yesterday about a house with a tiny garden; there wasn’t much of a plot.

A noun and a verb were seeing each other, but they split up because the noun was too possessive.

I took up fencing once, but I couldn’t see the point.

Why is a good book called a page turner: surely that’s the minimum requirement of any book?

Telepath wanted; you know where to apply.

A tomato family went for a walk. The youngest tomato lagged behind, so the others went back, squashed it, and shouted “Ketchup!”

It’s an old one, but have you all seen the Christmas alphabet? ► ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I imagine snooker players never get tired of receiving potted plants at Christmas.

#PhotoTip
Don’t stand too close to other people in group photos; it makes it easier to crop them out later.

A classics professor goes to a tailor to get his trousers mended. The tailor asks “Euripides?” The professor replies “Yes. Eumenides?”

What do you call two crows on a branch? Attempted murder.

Why did Karl Marx dislike Earl Grey tea? Because all proper tea is theft.

Did you hear about the man who was cooled to absolute zero? He’s 0K now.

I wrote a theatrical performance about puns; it was a play on words.

I saw a policewoman using a taser recently; she was stunning.

No one knew my friend had dentures until it came out in conversation.

I’m trying to eat more greens, so I’m now on a new dye it.

I tried wearing a Malaysian dress, but it was sarong size.

Sometimes, from time to time, every so often, occasionally, now and then, once in a while, I wish I’d not been given this thesaurus.

What did the zero say to the number eight? “Nice belt.”

Why couldn’t the chicken find her eggs? Because she mislaid them.

Two cows standing in a field, one says “Moooooooo”, the other says “Damn it, I was going to say that!”

Cat pilot: “If the cabin loses pressure, oxygen masks will drop down. Please bat them with your paws.”

Give a hungry man a GCSE Science textbook and he will eat Faraday.

If at first you don’t succeed, try at least two more times, so that your failure is statistically significant.

Rory McIlroy is getting new golf shoes, because he had a hole in one.

Okay, time for a quick pole: North or South?

Why don’t you ever see hippopotamus hiding in trees? Because they’re really good at it.

How do you fix a broken tuba? With a tuba glue.

What’s the best way to carve wood? Whittle by whittle.

A farmer asked his new farm hand if he’d shoed a horse before. The farm hand replies “No, but I once told a donkey to piss off”.

What do Jack the Ripper and Winnie the Pooh have in common? Identical middle names.

When the wheel was invented it caused a revolution.

What do an eagle and a mole have in common? They both live underground. Except for the eagle.

According to the Automobile Association, the A3 and A4 are both stationery.

I really can’t speak highly enough about helium balloons.

I play a fluorescent triangle really well. I apologise for the gloating.

What’s the difference between a cat and a compound sentence? One has claws at the end of its paws and one has a pause at the end of its clause.

Why wouldn’t the prawn share his treasure? Because he was a little shellfish.

Before I met my wife I was single by choice. Unfortunately not by my choice.

Who does a Pharaoh talk to when he’s upset? His mummy.

Did Pharaohs like wrap music?

What do you do with a sick ship? Take it to the docks.

Cinderella was a keen soccer player, but she was kicked off the team because she ran away from the ball.

I was the first person to install trampolines in musician’s tour buses and now everybody is jumping on the bandwagon.

All owl puns are terrible; says who?

In democracy it’s your vote that counts. In feudalism it’s your count that votes.

A kitchen explosion in France would result in linoleum blown apart.

You’re stuck with your debt if you can’t budge it.

I used to break into song because I couldn’t find the key.

#SpellingRule
I before E, except after C… and also when you heinously seize your weird foreign neighbour’s feisty beige heifer

How do you spot a Finnish extrovert? They look at somebody else’s shoes.

Archaeologists are in a legal battle about how they can get to a Bronze Age village, but they expect reach a settlement.

When I’m watching a film, I usually eat popcorn, but if it’s a horror film, ice cream.

The grass may be greener on the other side, but at least you don’t have to mow it.

My life is an open book, but it’s badly written and I die at the end.

Waking up this morning was an eye-opening experience.

Escalators don’t break down; they just turn into stairs.

A clean house is the sign of a broken computer.

Always give 100%. Unless you’re donating blood.

The wifi went down during our family dinner tonight, someone started talking and I’ve no idea who they are.

I just bought a thesaurus, but when I opened it all the pages are blank. I have no words to describe how angry I am.

One day it’s the best thing since sliced bread, the next, it’s toast.

True friendship is when you walk into someones house and your wifi connects automatically.

I had a Wookie steak in a restaurant last night; it was a little Chewy.

Maths teachers call retirement the aftermath.

What do you call Dracula when he has hayfever? The pollen Count.

A golf ball is a golf ball no matter how you putt it.

Where do they get the seeds to grow seedless grapes?

Hell is wallpapered with all our deleted selfies.

Nothing ruins Friday more than realising that today is Tuesday.

I bet you I could stop gambling.

Someone ripped pages from both ends of my dictionary; it just goes from Bad to Worse.

My mother just found out that I’ve replaced her bed with a trampoline; she hit the roof.

Some people think I’m addicted to somersaults, but that’s just how I roll.

I’ve just broken a window, but I felt no pane.

The debate about unmanned aircraft just keeps droning on.

When cave men got together they formed clubs.

When the queen starts a new hive, bees have a house swarming party.

Tall people sleep longer in bed.

My leaf blower doesn’t work; it sucks.

A couple started to drift apart after they bought a water bed.

A paediatrician is usually a doctor with very little patients.

If you don’t pay your exorcist you get repossessed.

Children can play hopscotch almost anywhere, but my drive is where I draw the line.

When the cannibal arrived late for the celebration meal, they gave him the cold shoulder.

Turtles think frogs are homeless.

The hardness of butter is directly proportional to the softness of the bread.

If you expect the unexpected, doesn’t that make the unexpected the expected?

After waiting ages for the bowling alley to open, we finally got the ball rolling.

Peter Pan is useless at throwing punches; they Neverland.

If you press the lift button at least three times it goes into urgent mode and arrives much faster…

Who said nothing is impossible? I’ve been doing nothing for years.

Everywhere is in walking distance, if you have the time.

Any salad can be a Caesar salad if you stab it enough.

I refused to believe my father was stealing from his job as a road worker, but when I got home all the signs were there.

Everyone seems normal, until you get to know them…

It’s bad luck to be superstitious.

Music makes every day better. Especially if you turn it up loud enough to drown out everyone around you.

Is it right that only one company makes the board game Monopoly?

Yesterday I fell from a 10 metre ladder; fortunately I was on the second step.

There are days when I feel so old that, when I was a child, rainbows were in black and white.

I’ve decided to put something aside for a rainy day. It’s an umbrella.

A police officer who arrested a judge dressed like a convict for a costume party had never learned to book a judge by their cover.

A bow and quiver are both required for archery, but they are also instructions for what to do if someone aims at you.

The correct way to use a stress ball is to throw it at the last person to annoy you.

Letting the cat out of the bag is a hell of a lot easier than putting it back in.

Time is what keeps things from happening all at once.

Black widow spiders kill their males after mating just to avoid the snoring.

My new electric garden trimmers are cutting-hedge technology.

For other stuff in this blog, click on these links:

Humour

Puns and word-play

Quotations

Some favourite quotes

Quotations

“It is bad luck to be superstitious.” – Andrew W. Mathis

“Hindsight is always twenty‑twenty.” – Oscar Wilde

“A great deal of what we see depends on what we are looking for.” – Unknown

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.” – Douglas Adams

“Before you argue with a fool make sure he is not similarly occupied.” – Willam George Plunkett

“A committee is a group of the unwilling, chosen from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.” – Anonymous

“Little old grey haired, hunchbacked, mumbling nerd.” – Alice Manterfield (on Roy Manterfield)

“The fish can be ‘heads’ because it has a head, oh wait, it has a tail as well doesn’t it!” – Grace Carlin

“A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.” – Frank Herbert

“Atheism is a non-prophet organisation.” – George Carlin

“To believe something in the face of evidence and against reason – to believe something by faith – is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect.” – A.C. Grayling

“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” – Douglas Adams

“In the elder days of Art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the Gods see everywhere.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Friar Tuck doesn’t like spoonerisms.” – Roy Manterfield

“My absolute favourite piece of information is the fact that young sloths are so inept that they frequently grab their own arms and legs instead of tree limbs, and fall out of trees.” – Douglas Adams

“Beware of half-truths – you may have the wrong half.” – Willam George Plunkett

“When you have nothing to say, say nothing.” – Winston Churchill

“Life is just one damned thing after another.” – Joseph Heller

“Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” – Douglas Adams

“It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.” – Dick Cavett

“The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once.” – B F Skinner

“Experience is the art of not making the same mistake too many times.” – Willam George Plunkett

“Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?” – Douglas Adams (on religion)

“I may not have gone, where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up, where I intended to be.” – Douglas Adams

“One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.” – Marie Curie

“[The World Wide Web is] the only thing I know of whose shortened form — www — takes three times longer to say than what it’s short for.” – Douglas Adams

“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.” – Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

“Men are always whining about how women suffocate them. Well, if you can still hear them whine, you’re not holding the pillow hard enough!” – deathbychoccy (Twitter 11 Febraury 2009)

“Self Portraits are generally coloured.” – Willam George Plunkett

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it” – Groucho Marx

“Lady Nancy Astor: Winston, if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea. Churchill: Nancy, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.” – Winston Churchill

“Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember, it didn’t work for the rabbit.” – R E Shay

“A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.” – Groucho Marx

“Life is now. There was never a time when your life was not now, nor will there ever be.” – Harmony Jones (Twitter 17 March 2009)