Grif.Net

Bob forwarded the story of a woman who visited a psychic of some local
repute.

In a dark and gloomy room, gazing at cards laid out before her, the reader
delivered the bad news.

“There is no easy way to say this so I’ll just be blunt. Prepare yourself to
be a widow. Your husband will die a violent and horrible death this year.”

Visibly shaken, the woman stared at the psychic’s lined face, then at the
single flickering candle, then down at her hands. She took a few deep
breaths to compose herself. She simply had to know.

She met the psychic’s gaze, steadied her voice, and asked,

“Will I get away with it?”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

Talking with a friend about the vagaries of English from yesterday’s odd
collection, I was reminded . . .

There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in
pineapple.

English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is
neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

Why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and
hammers don’t ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One
goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats
vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by
truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a
wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house
can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out,
and in which an alarm goes off by going on.

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

In rhetoric, antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses,
but in transposed grammatical order (ex: “I know what I like, and like what
I know”). I find them intriguing and wonder if there are more that are YOUR
favorites?

From the inaugural address of John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961 “…ask not
what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

From a speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower to the Republican National Committee
January 1958, “What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the
fight – it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”

James Boswell on ‘The Life of Johnson’ wrote “This man I thought had been a
Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.”

At the Lord Mayor’s Luncheon in November 1942, Winston Churchill said of
World War II, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the
end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Even Malcolm X stated in 1964 of the difference between black and white: “We
didn’t land on Plymouth Rock, the rock was landed on us.”

Dr. Seuss’ Horton remarked, “I meant what I said, and I said what I meant.
An elephant’s faithful, one hundred percent!”

From Ambrose Redmoon, “To be kissed by a fool is stupid; to be fooled by a
kiss is worse.”

In ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, Karl Marx wrote:
“It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the
contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness”.

Line spoken by Mae West in ‘I’m No Angel’ (1933), “Well, it’s not the men in
your life that counts, it’s the life in your men.”

Genesis 9:6, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be
shed.”

From Croesus, 6th century BC, and still appropriate today: “In peace sons
bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.”

And my favorite –

From the StarKist tuna advertisements of the 1980s, “Sorry, Charlie.
StarKist doesn’t want tunas with good taste – StarKist wants tunas that
taste good.”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

A Dutchman was explaining the red, white and blue Netherlands flag to an
American.

“Our flag is symbolic of our taxes. We get red when we talk about them,
white when we get our tax bills, and blue after we pay them.”

The American nodded. “It’s the same in the USA, only we see stars too!”

[thanks, Betty Jo]

~~
ANSWERS to the children’s quiz:

1. What grows down as it grows up?
A DUCK

2. When does a boat show affection?
WHEN IT HUGS THE SHORE

3. What 11-letter English word does everyone pronounce incorrectly?
INCORRECTLY

4. What is found in the middle of Paris?
“R”

5. What kind of cheese is made backwards?
EDAM

6. Before Mount Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the
world?
MOUNT EVEREST

7. Why can’t a bicycle stand up without a kickstand or bike rack?
IT IS TWO TIRED

8. Who said: “Duh suddle cub up to borrow”?
LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE (WITH A COLD)

9. How do you make seven even?
DROP THE “S”

10. What has three heads and is ugly and smells bad?
OH, MY BAD. YOU DON’T HAVE THREE HEADS . .

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

LORD, PROP US UP

Every time I am asked to pray, I think of the old deacon who always prayed,
Lord, prop us up on our leanin’ side. After hearing him pray that prayer
many times, someone asked him why he prayed that prayer so fervently.

He answered, ‘Well sir, you see, it’s like this . . . I got an old barn out
back. It’s been there a long time, it’s withstood a lot of weather, it’s
gone through a lot of storms, and it’s stood for many years. It’s still
standing, but one day I noticed it was leaning to one side a bit. So I went
and got some pine poles and propped it up on its leaning side so it wouldn’t
fall.

Then I got to thinking ’bout that and how much I was like that old barn. I
been around a long time, I’ve withstood a lot of life’s storms, I’ve
withstood a lot of bad weather in life, I’ve withstood a lot of hard times,

And I’m still standing too. But I find myself leaning to one side from time
to time, so I like to ask the Lord to prop us up on our leaning side, ’cause
I figure a lot of us get to leaning, at times. Sometime we get to leaning
toward anger, leaning toward bitterness, leaning toward hatred, leaning
toward cussing, leaning toward a lot of things that we shouldn’t, so we need
to pray, ‘Lord, prop us up on our leaning side,’ so we will stand straight
and tall again, to glorify the Lord.

[author unknown

Isaiah 40:29-31 “He gives power to the faint, and to those who have no might
He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the
young men shall utterly fall; but they that wait upon the LORD shall renew
their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and
not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint.”

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”

[Duane forwarded this story]

An old, tired-looking dog wandered into the yard. I could tell from his
collar and well-fed belly that he had a home. He followed me into the
house, down the hall, and fell asleep in a corner.

An hour later, he went to the door, and I let him out.

The next day he was back, resumed his position in the hall, and slept for an
hour. This continued for several weeks.

Curious, I pinned a note to his collar: ‘Every afternoon your dog comes to
my house for a nap.’

The next day he arrived with a different note pinned to his collar: ‘He
lives in a home with ten children — he’s trying to catch up on his sleep.’

Then the note concluded: ‘Can I come with him tomorrow?’

~~
Dr Bob Griffin, www.grif.net
“Jesus knows me, this I love”