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Friday the 13th Special Rerun. Don’t you feel lucky?
We excerpt an amusing short review by William M. Briggs on what looks to be a funny new Science Fiction novel, A Theory of Nothing by Thomas Barlow. While we try to poke fun at some of the nonsense in Sci-fi and the way science is too often done in the real world, this book seems to have skewered both in a way we can only envy.
The working of this beastie conjured the theoretical negatronium particle, which was duly searched for and discovered. Thinking on this led Barlow to have Karlof say, “It is one of the extraordinary attributes of modern theories that their theories often prove malleable enough to conform to almost any fact.”
This allows Barlow to have a wise old man to tell Karlof, “Long ago, we invented the first truly effective way to disconnect Americans from reality. It’s called the national debt… What we’ve shown, through the practical application of simple economic principles, is that if Americans cannot have free energy, they can at least have free money. Public debt is our equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.”
Originally filed 2/10/17
Spoofemism (spōō′ fə mĭz-əm) noun A jokey, or sarcastic euphemism.
Top (or at Least) Ten Spoofemisms
Filed in Fauxcabulary 6/4/25
Spoofemism (spōō′ fə mĭz-əm) noun A jokey, or sarcastic euphemism. Like calling a bald guy “tonsorially challenged.” A gag that works, or not, because of the…
euphemism treadmill: a linguistic phenomenon where words that are initially used as polite substitutes for offensive terms eventually become stigmatized themselves, leading to the need for new euphemisms. This cycle continues as society seeks to avoid negative connotations associated with certain concepts.
Problem is, whether you call him a janitor or custodian or caretaker or sanitation engineer or whatever, he’s still a guy cleaning toilets. It’s not the term that stinks, it’s the job.
Filed in Fauxcabulary 6/2/25
Brain Tweezers (Mit Dr. Sigmund Fraud)
Filed in Brain Tweezers 5/30/25
Home entertainment center for families that
prefer the book to the movie
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 5/28/25
In case you missed it fifteen years ago, here it is again, tweaked slightly with new art and the word gaffe spelled correctly this time. As in gaffe: a clumsy social error; a faux pas; a blatant mistake or misjudgment; a socially awkward or tactless act. Not gaff: a public place of tawdry entertainment, or a big hook attached to a pole used to land large fish.
Folks who speak a good deal in public are bound to make the occasional gaffe. Politicians are no exception to outspoken people sometimes tying their tongues and logic in knots. Still, you have to wonder about the thinking behind the following statements:
“There are two kinds of truth. There are real truths, and there are made up truths.”
—Marion Barry, mayor of Washington
“Things are more like they are now than they have ever been.”
—Gerald Ford
“The streets are safe in Philadelphia — it’s only the people who make them unsafe.”
—Frank Rizzo, mayor of Philadelphia.
“A zebra does not change its spots.”
—Al Gore
“We’ve got to act wisely and otherwisely.”
—Allan Lampart, mayor of Toronto
“I stand by my misstatements.”
—Dan Quayle
Refiled from 6/3/10
Speaking of politicians and gaffes, see the entry immediately below:
In case you missed it seventeen years ago, here it is again, tweaked slightly
“We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.” —Robert Wilensky
On the other hand, maybe Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare’s plays either:
American Pravda – Who Wrote Shakespeares Plays
Originally filed 3/2/09
In case you missed it sixteen years ago, here it is again, tweaked slightly
They say there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, yet there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Which pithy bit of folksy wisdom do we go with? I guess whenever we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma all we can do is follow the sage advice of the inimitable Yogi Berra, who was a yogi after all:
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
Originally filed 12/10/10
“That darned cat has been spraying in the house again.”
Refiled in Gag Cartoonery 5/9/25
“Ooh, how cute, It’s just what I was looking for.
Can I see it in a suede?”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 5/2/25
Following up last week’s Bizarro English Spelling bit on potato, I now trot out the classic example of same, “ghoti.” I tack on a bit at the end and we get “ghoti and ctoghce.” Which, of course, is “fish and chips.” Not buying it? Consider how this could be…
gh sounds like F as in laugh
o sounds like short I as in women
ti sounds like SH as in nation
t sounds like CH as in picture
o sounds like short I as in women
gh sounds like P as in hiccough
ce sounds like S as in price
All perfectly logical. How could you possibly think otherwise? And, after all, toghce are ghlayet phoughpteighbteauce. Or if you prefer the lazy guy spelling, chips are fried potatoes. Just so you know, ghlayet (fried) works out as…
gh sounds like F as in laugh
l sounds like R as in colonel
aye sounds like long I as in “Aye-aye, cap’n.”
t sounds like D as in bottle (at least for Americans, who are prone to T-flapping, pronouncing Ts as Ds.)
For phoughpteighbteauce, (potatoes) see entry filed 4/21/25 below.
Anyway, this silly fishy spelling of ghoti goes back to an 1855 letter by Charles Olliver, which is the earliest known source of “Ghoti”, as well as other related respellings by Alexander J. Ellis. Just to add a little (pronounced liddle) icing on the fish cake, here is another way to pronounce ghoti…
gh is silent as in night
o is silent as in people
t is silent as in ballet
i is silent as in business
In other words, ghoti wouldn’t be said as anything at all, it’d be an entirely silent word. English, what a language.
Filed 4/30/25
“Miss Thompson, could you bring me the Williams file, please
—and a belt?”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 4/28/25
“Actually, Father, I have no intention of jumping.
I just came out here for a cigarette.”
Refiled in Gag Cartoonery 4/23/25
In some ways learning to speak English is a fairly straightforward proposition. There’s only one definite article (the) two indefinite articles (a, an) and these don’t change depending on gender, because there is none of that gender nonsense in English. Another English simplification is, unlike many languages, nouns don’t change depending on postion or function in a sentence. As the lady said, rose is a rose is a rose.
Learning to write English, on the other hand, is a linguistic maze wraped in a conundrum. Where English goes off the beam is spelling, which I think was devised by diabolical practical jokers or French anarchists. Some say spelling is simply phonetics, which should be spelled fonetiks, thus showing how wrong those folks are. Still, there are spelling rules, which are pretty much optional in practice. For instance, want to make an ‘ooh’ sound? Take your pick: do, due, dew, too, two, shoe, through, queue, tutu, vacuum.
Which brings us to ‘ghoughpteighbteau’ or spelled another way, ‘potato.’ Or maybe ‘potatoe.’ Anyway it could be ‘ghoughpteighbteau’ if you follow the spelling of other English words:
gh sounds like P as in hiccough
ough sounds like long O as in though
pt sounds like T as in ptomaine
eigh sounds like long A as in weigh
bt sounds like T as in debt
eau sounds like long O as in bureau.
And if you want to similarly rewrite the classic Gershwin brother’s song from Shall We Dance, I offer the following:
You say ghoughpteighbteau and I say ghoughptaubteau,
You like ptoughmeighpteau and I like pteaumauptough,
Ghoughpteighbteau, gheauptaubtough, ptoughmeighpteau, pteaumauptough,
Let’s call the whole thing off
Filed 4/21/25
“Excuse me, sir, by any chance do you have a set of jumper cables?”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 4/14/25
Mr. Yardley (the Homeowners Pal) Advises
I recently returned from a two-week Caribbean cruise (great food) and all the clothes in my closet and dresser were mysteriously replaced with exact duplicates two sizes too small. Hard to believe, but true.
What’s hard to believe is that you find it hard to believe, the answer is obvious. You were lolling about deckside and gorging yourself on shipboard brunches, buffets and fine dining, meanwhile your home was invaded by pixies, notorious practical jokers, who pranked you with magical pixie dust. If, the next time you clean house, the dust seems to sparkle and magical things happen you’ll know that’s the case. Get yourself a Scottish terrier, it’s well known that a house with a Scottie will not also have pixies.
Should you determine it’s not pixies infesting your wardrobe, get a cat instead.
Filed 4/16/25
“I’ll be honest, kid; if you want to succeed in standup
you’ll need more than a lot of old talking dog jokes.”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 4/14/25
“Hey, waiter, I’m still waiting for my Chef’s Surprise.”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 3/31/25
Hover over the picture for the optical illusion
Filed 3/28/25
“No doubt about it, Harry. It’s the first sign of spring.”
Refiled in Gag Cartoonery 3/21/25
“OK, that’s one mega caterpillar burger and a large
swamp juice. Would you like flies with that?”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 3/19/25
And now for something I rarely do, a post that’s nothing but a link. This one to a video about the weirdest things about English called The Weirdest Things about English, weirdly enough. Notice, though, it is not the weirdest things about the English, which would be a whole ’nother, and much longer, bit.
The Weirdest Things about English
Filed 3/17/25
“In the beginning was the word. Bird is the word. Ba-ba-ba bird
bird bird. Bird is the word…”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 3/14/25
I’m sure we’ve all experienced the embarrassing situation when showing something to someone else and... I think the following statements sum it up:
“I swear it was broken just a second ago.”
“I swear it was working just a second ago.”
Well, there’s a word for the phenomenon of something not working until the repairman looks at it when it works perfectly: Vorführeffekt. Granted it’s a German word, still, there it is. It translates in English to demonstration effect; Vorfuhr (demonstration) + effekt (effect)
I wish there was an English term for that because there’s no way I can remember Vorführeffekt let alone pronounce it. Perhaps Dr. Bellows has a word for it, he experienced something along those lines every week on I Dream of Jeanie. “I swear, General, it was snowing in my office just a minute ago.”
Filed 3/7/25
…These Wokies are the proxy offendees for others, whether these others dislike it or not. They bend themselves into knots finding the secret encoded insult in the most innocuous things. Like taking offense at the naming sports teams for anything dealing with American Indians, though when asked most Indians take no offense, and in fact rather are honored. Think about it, are Danes insulted, or honored, by the Minnesota Vikings name? Do Greeks object to calling a team the Spartans? Do the saints in heaven object to the New Orleans Saints? Do Somalis object to calling a team the Pirates?
I rest my case.
Filed 3/5/25
Round and round he goes; what he says next nobody knows. Seems like he doesn’t even know himself. Whatever it might be I’m sure it’ll be calculated to make your head spin. It’s positively mesmerizin’.
Filed in Mouse Utopia 2/28/25
“I wonder who’ll be more surprised, fundamentalists or atheists.”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery 2/24/25
Politically Incorrect Lightbulb Jokes
• How many trannies does it take to change a lightbulb?
Trannies don’t change lightbulbs, they change themselves.
• How many globalist elites does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Two replacement immigrants.
• How many boomers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Boomers are stuck in 1972 and are change incapable.
• How many perverts does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
That’s unknown, but it only takes two to screw in a public restroom.
Filed 2/7/25
(Copyright Jonathan Swift 1726-7)
Writing machine art taken from the original English edition
When I see, read, or hear things about our glorious high-tech future (and present for that matter) it puts me in mind of Guliver’s Travels. Not the bit about the Lilliputians, a tired allusion at any rate, but rather of Gulliver’s lesser cited visit to Balnibarbi, what you might call an early progressive society run by an academic elite.
Excerpts from Guliver’s Travels, Part III – A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg and Japan:
Swift relates Gulliver’s conversation with a Balnibarbian explaining the local way of things:
The sum of his discourse was to this effect: “That about forty years ago, certain persons went up to Laputa, either upon business or diversion, and, after five months continuance, came back with a very little smattering in mathematics, but full of volatile spirits acquired in that airy region: that these persons, upon their return, began to dislike the management of every thing below, and fell into schemes of putting all arts, sciences, languages, and mechanics, upon a new foot. To this end, they procured a royal patent for erecting an academy of projectors in Lagado; and the humour prevailed so strongly among the people, that there is not a town of any consequence in the kingdom without such an academy. In these colleges the professors contrive new rules and methods of agriculture and building, and new instruments, and tools for all trades and manufactures; whereby, as they undertake, one man shall do the work of ten; a palace may be built in a week, of materials so durable as to last for ever without repairing. All the fruits of the earth shall come to maturity at whatever season we think fit to choose, and increase a hundred fold more than they do at present; with innumerable other happy proposals.
“The only inconvenience is, that none of these projects are yet brought to perfection; and in the mean time, the whole country lies miserably waste, the houses in ruins, and the people without food or clothes. By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.”
Swift’s description of the writing machine at the academy of Lagado:
“Perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge, by practical and mechanical operations. But the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness; and he flattered himself, that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man’s head. Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.” He then led me to the frame, about the sides, whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order.
The professor then desired me “to observe; for he was going to set his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.
Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections.
Filed 1/31/25
Mr. Word Tells You — Write More Better
Make your writing more dynamic, get readers to sit up and pay attention; whenever possible use the active voice which engages the reader more directly than the passive voice. Take the following examples:
Poor (passive voice): “Last night Bill Gates was shot by a disgruntled employee.”
Such wimpy verbiage doesn’t engage the reader, but leaves them flat and bored, the audience yawns and turns on the TV instead.
Better (active voice): “Last night a disgruntled employee shot Bill Gates.”
Now that’s something people would like to read.
Filed 8/23/24
Besides Saint Peter at the legendary pearly gates of Heaven, not as well know is Saint Elmo at Heaven’s complaint desk where one recent day a disgruntled Boomer newcomer grumbles, “What goes on here? Don’t I get a harp, wings and halo?”
“First, you don’t play the harp.” explains the saint. “Next, only angels have wings. Lastly, you aren’t a saint, you’re just dead.”
The newbie growls, “That’s unacceptable. I demand to see a lawyer.”
“Go to Hell.”
“Hey! That’s a rotten thing to say.”
“Well, You’re the one that wanted to see a lawyer.”
Filed 1/22/25
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Having an imaginary friend
is fairly common and quite harmless.”
Filed in Gag Cartoonery
Top Ten Articles of Faith in 2024
Filed 1/17/25
Top Ten “Trending” Trends in 2024
Filed 1/15/25
Top Ten Things Establishment Elites Learned from the Conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East in 2024
Filed 1/10/25
Hover to open book
Thus we wind up the series with the only actual quote from, as the DOJ has it, “an elderly man with a bad memory.”
Filed in The Little Read Book of Uncle Joe Squarehair 1/8/25
Parse, punctuate, capitalize or whatever the following so they make sense:
What? Gibberish, right? Nope. They are all proper English that make sense. Just not obvious sense. If there’s such a thing as devious sense this is it. These are them? That can’t be right. Anyway, before I go completely off the beam, here are those statements made coherent:
Still don’t get the last one? Understandable. That’s because buffalo can be a proper name of a city, an animal, or a verb. With that in mind you get:
To make it super clear we use the alternative plural of bison, bisons; plus an optional comma to mark where a slight pause helps:
This last one is a garden-path sentence, I think. At any rate a garden-path sentence is a grammatically correct statement that at first seems to be saying one thing but isn’t and so must be reread and reinterpreted to make sense. For insance “The old man the boat.” Most take “the old man” to be determiner – adjective – noun, but when “the boat” follows it makes no sense because there’s no verb. The correct interpretation of “the old man” is determiner – noun – verb, as in “The old (are the persons who) man the boat.”
If that isn’t clear there’s more at: Garden-path Sentence
Filed 1/3/25
“Yegads! Here’s Another One!” —Mortimer Brewster
Filed 1/1/25
