SOUND FAMILIAR? ARE ANY OF THESE YOURS??


Following on from last month’s exploration into the use of words and phrases old and new, we happened upon the most amazing compilation of clangers and other pearls of wisdom collect- ed from students’ examination answers. Just for fun, we’ve put a selection of these into categories of study, and acknowledge fully and with thanks the compiler of the original book enti- tled “Could Do Better”, Norman McGreevy. Eyes down; you have however long it takes to read through these, and we promise a smile or three.


Essays


A gelding is a stallion who has his tonsils taken out so he would have more time to himself. Losing my dog was the final straw in the camel’s pack.


Big flies were hoovering all round the room. I took out a book to read and settled down to read, but soon put it down because I couldn’t read. I summed up my ailments to be double pneu- monia and a weak heart. I hauled myself to my feet and began to walk again to try and keep warm and to take my mind off my stomach. We were trapped in a blazing car, but luckily enough a river was passing by. His mother, being immortal, had died. The equator is a menagerie lion running around the Earth through Africa.


As she went through her wardrobe she found a scorpion in her drawers. She rose quickly. One of the advantages of living in Austria is that one can hear the Matterhorn being blown. I was nervous, but at last I gathered up my guts and spoke to him.


Clowns tie their trousers with string which, when it is pulled, shows a hair-raising scene. When father passed away they burned his ashes and brought them home in a urinal.


Quotations, definitions and translations An octopus is a person who hopes for the best. A Protestant is a woman who gets her living through immoral life.


Newspapers are useful for reporting calamities such as deaths, marriages etc. Trigonometry is when a lady marries three men at the same time.


Caviar is the eggs of a surgeon. Marconi is used to make delicious puddings. Etiquette is the noise you make when you sneeze. Q. In a democratic society, how important are elections? A. Very important. Sex can only hap- pen when a male gets an election. The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom. An aristocrat is a man who does somersaults on the stage.


Glaziers are common, they move about a metre a day in Switzerland.


A connoisseur is a man who stands outside the hotel.


The plural of spouse is spice.


A barrister is a thing put up in the street to keep the crowds back. Parsimony is money left by your father. The future of “I give” is “You take”. Hiatus: breath that wants seeing to. Celibacy is a disease of the brain. The Dauphin was a rare fish that used to inhabit the Arctic Circle in the middle ages. Chivalry is the act of a man who gives his seat to a lady in a public convenience. A Senator is half horse and half man. A millennium is something like a centenial, only it has more legs.


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Coup de grace = a lawnmower. The masculine of ‘belle’ = stomach. Sotto voce = In a drunken voice.


Etc. = a sign used to make believe you know more than you do.


Religious Studies


Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the Ten Commandments.


Samson slayed the Philistines by pulling down the pillows of the temple.


Moses ate nothing but whales and manner for forty years. He died before he ever reached Canada.


The greatest miracle was when Joseph told his son to stand still and he obeyed him. Jesus was born because Mary had an Immacu- late Contraption.


If David had one fault it was a slight tendency to adultery.


A parable is a heavenly story with no earthly meaning.


Sarah was Abraham’s half-wife, otherwise mid- wife, sometimes called columbine. Acrimony (sometimes called holy) is another name for marriage.


Noah’s wife was called Joan of Ark. He built an ark, which the animals came in to in pears. Saddam and Gomorrah were twins. Bearing false witness against one’s neighbour is when nobody did nothing, and somebody went and told of it.


Jesus enunciated the golden rule which says - to do one to others before they do one to you. The people who followed the Lord were called the twelve decibels.


The Pharisees were people who liked to show off their goodness by praying in synonyms. Four men came out carrying a parable on a bed. Aaron was a good man, who helped Moses with his conjuring tricks.


A passover is a man who goes from bad to worse, like Judas Iscariot.


The two major religions of Ireland are Catholic and Prostitute.


Monks were assigned to monkeries where they were supposed to live as nuns. Many, however, simply preyed by day and played by night.


History


Shakespeare wrote tragedies, comedies and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Queen Elizabeth was called the Virgil Queen because she knew Latin. Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.


In the fourteen hundreds most Englishmen were perpendicular.


Julius Caesar was known for his great strength. He threw a bridge across the Rhine. The Black Death was spread from port to port by inflected rats. It was then passed on by midgets. The pyramids were large square triangles built in the desert. O’Cyrus, a god who lived in a pyra- mid, would give you the afterlife if your sole was on straight.


Alexander the Great was born in the absence of his parents.


Q. What was the Age of Pericles? A. I’m not sure, but I reckon he was about forty.


Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving him- self in a long soliloquy.


Souls were believed to spend the ‘here, there and after’ in Ethiopia.


William the Conqueror landed in 1066 AD, and AD means after dark.


William the Conqueror was thrown from his horse and wounded in the feudal system and died of it.


King Minoose became the head Cretin of Crete. The Romans came again 100 years after their first visit, 90 years before. William Tell shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head. The Roman Empire fell through smoking from lead pipes.


Sumerian culture began about 3,500 years before Christmas.


By the year 1000, people were afraid that an acropolis was lurking around the corner. The Pilgrim Fathers became a big band of Quackers. The Great Wall of China was built to keep out the mongrels.


Roman women built fires in their brassieres. It was an age of important inventions and dis- coveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another great invention was the circulation of blood.


Cortez subdued the inhabitants of New Mexico with ease. Small box was killing the natives at a very quick rate. This bothered the Spanish little, for as Catholics they did not believe in God. Philip the Second later annoyed the Dutch by speaking to them in Spanish, a language he did not understand.


John Calvin Klein translated the Bible into Amer- ican so the people of Geneva could read it. Queen Victoria was one of the best reigners. When she died, soldiers fighting in the Boer War left the war to come and see the last of her. Witch hunts erupted in countries such as Ger- many, England, Scotland and Salem. The victims were usually older post-marsupial women. Galileo showed that the earth was round and not vice versa. He dropped his balls to prove gravity. Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Abraham Lincoln’s mother died in infancy. He was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands.


In 1918 more people died from Spanish Fly than from the First World War.


One of the causes of the American Revolution was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. The Boston Tea Party was held at Pearl Harbor. The Constitution of the United States was adopt- ed to secure domestic hostility, and the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms. The battle of Trafalgar was fought at sea, and therefore is sometimes called Waterloo. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn for sixty-three years.


Florence Nightingale never got any sleep for three years because she was continually being needed by the soldiers.


Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while travelling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope.


Sydney was founded by people who had been executed.


Class, we’ve run out of time... and space. Next les- son will involve more History, Science and Music, plus some more Miscellany. Class dismissed! Extracts from COULD DO BETTER by Norman McGreevy (Constable & Robinson, 2010) with kind permission of the publisher. Available from all good book stores for £5.99.


PHTM OCTOBER 2010


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