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|Amazing AnagramsDormitory == Dirty Room Desperation == A Rope Ends It The Morse Code == Here Come Dots Slot Machines == Cash Lost in ‘em Animosity == Is No Amity Snooze Alarms == Alas! No More Z’s Alec Guinness == Genuine Class Semolina == Is No Meal The Public Art Galleries == Large Picture Halls, I Bet A Decimal Point == I’m a Dot in Place The Earthquakes == That Queer Shake Eleven plus two == Twelve plus one Contradiction == Accord not in it This one’s amazing: [From Hamlet by Shakespeare] To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Becomes: In one of the Bard’s best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten. And the grand finale: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.” — Neil A. Armstrong becomes: A thin man ran; makes a large stride; left planet, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

|The English LanguageHave you ever wondered why foreigners have trouble with the English Language?Let’s face itEnglish is a stupid language.There is no egg in the eggplantNo ham in the hamburgerAnd neither pine nor apple in the pineapple.English muffins were not invented in EnglandFrench fries were not invented in France.We sometimes take English for grantedBut if we examine its paradoxes we find thatQuicksand takes you down slowlyBoxing rings are squareAnd a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. If writers write, how come fingers don’t fing.If the plural of tooth is teethShouldn’t the plural of phone booth be phone beethIf the teacher taught,Why didn’t the preacher praught.If a vegetarian eats vegetablesWhat the heck does a humanitarian eat!?Why do people recite at a playYet play at a recital?Park on driveways andDrive on parkwaysYou have to marvel at the unique lunacyOf a language where a house can burn up asIt burns downAnd in which you fill in a form By filling it outAnd a bell is only heard once it goes!English was invented by people, not computersAnd it reflects the creativity of the human race(Which of course isn’t a race at all)That is whyWhen the stars are out they are visibleBut when the lights are out they are invisibleAnd why it is that when I wind up my watchIt startsBut when I wind up this observation,It ends.

|Eye Halve a Spelling ChequerEye halve a spelling chequerIt came with my pea seaIt plainly marques four my revueMiss steaks eye kin knot sea.Eye strike a key and type a wordAnd weight four it two sayWeather eye am wrong oar writeIt shows me strait a weigh. As soon as a mist ache is maidIt nose bee fore two longAnd eye can put the error riteIts rarely ever wrong.Eye have run this poem threw itI am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect in it’s weighMy chequer tolled me sew.– Sauce unknown

|Q: How many letters are there in the alphabet?A: Twenty-four, because E.T. went home.

|Q: What do you call Santa’s Helpers?A: Subordinate clauses!

|Q: What does Santa call his wife at tax time?A: A dependent Claus.

|How many letters are there in the alphabet?Noel, noel, noel, noel … the angels did say…E.T. went home.Get rid of X. There’s too many unknowns in the world already!(Only one vowel left, or is that “Anly ana vawal laft” This may be stretching it a bit, but not unless you consider, as our good friends in Canada say: Good day, A!And we all know that M&Ms melt in your mouth, so it’s safe to count them out.And of course, Y not.We might as well put off using U until later in the year: See U in SeptemberTWA just took off!!

|How you can spot a Canadian, eh? -Don McGillivray (Ottawa columnist for Southam Newspapers)How do you tell a Canadian from an American?It used to be enough to ask him to say the alphabet. When the Canadian got to the end, he’d say “zed” instead of “zee”. But 18 years of Sesame Street have taught a lot of Canadian kids to say “zee,” and it’s starting to sound as natural as it does south of the 49th parallel.Another test used to be the word “lieutenant”. Canadians pronounced it in the British was, “leftenant”, while Americans say “lootenant”. But American cop shows and army shows and movies have eroded that difference, too.Canadians have been adopting American spelling as well. They used to put a “u” in words like labour. The main organization in the country, the equivalent of the AFL-CIO, is still officially called the Canadian Labour Congress. But news organizations have been wiping out that distinction by adopting American spelling, mostly to make it easier to use news copy from such agencies as Associated Press without a lot of changes. So it’s “Canadian Labor Congress” when the Canadian Press, the national news agency, writes about it.Some pronunciations, considered true tests of Canadians, are not as reliable as they’re thought. Take the word “house” for example. When some Canadians say it, it sounds very Scottish in American ears. Visiting Americans trying to reproduce what they hear usually give the Canadian pronunciation as “hoose”.The same for “out” and “about”. The way some Canadians say them sounds like “oot” and “aboot” to many Americans. And when an American says “house” to a Canadian, the Canadian often hears a bit of an “ay” in it, something like “hayouse”.But pronunctiaiton isn’t a good test because people from different parts of Canada speak differently. A resident of the Western province of Alberta, where there has been a considerable inflow of settlers from the United States, may sound like a Montanan or a Dakotan.Then there’s the ubiquitous Canadian expression “eh?” - pronounced “ay?” This is a better test because many Canadians tack it on to the end of every assertion to turn it into a question.

|An American will say, “Hot day!” A Canadian will say, “Hot day, eh?” meaning “It’s a hot day, isn’t it?”This is something deeper than spelling or pronunciation. It goes to the heart of the less-assertive Canadian character. The United States was born when Americans revolted against King George III and asserted their independence. Canada never came to a similar point of self-assertion and that little word “eh?” is their refusal even to assert that it’s a hot day without inviting somebody else to verify it.One definition of a Candian is “a North American who refuses to join the revolution”.Another way to tell the difference between a Canadian and an American is to invite the suspected Canuck to lunch and watch him eat. If he’s really upper crust, he’ll eat like an Englishman, with knife and fork held firmly in his right and left hands. He’ll cut with his knife, pack the results on the back of his fork and convey the food to his mouth with the fork still in this left hand.Many an American eats with knife and fork, too, but in a different way. He takes the knife in his right hand and the fork in his left to cut up the food. Then he puts the knife down and takes the fork in the right hand to convey the food to his mouth.A common garden-variety Canadian does the job differently. He doesn’t use his knife at all, except for particularly stubborn steaks and other such tough foods. Instead he takes the fork in his right hand and leaves the knife beside his plate. Then he cuts the food with the edge of the fork and feeds himself with the fork held in the same hand.But suppose all these tests are inconclusive. There’s one more, rather dangerous, way to tell a Canadian from an American. Just remark to the suspect that Canadians and Americans are so much alike that it’s hard to tell one from the other. If the person involved is an American, he’ll probably agree.But if he’s a Canadian he’ll let you know, in no unterms, that you’re wrong. And that stubborn sense of difference is one main reason why the two countries, despite similarities, remain separate.(I’m pretty sure I agree with the last statement, but I’m not too sure if I like being called a wimp that doesn’t even dare to assert that it’s a hot day. (Which it is today.) And I’m tremendously relieved to know that I’m upper crust when it comes to eating. -KO)

|The Committee for the Reduction of Redundancy and the Antiproliferation of Repetition has decided not to meet until they have their first meeting and thus will not be meeting until the first time.Their Pre-meeting Statement wanted to make this clear before they had their first meeting, so that it would not be unor confusing.So their first meeting will actually be their first meeting and they will not have a meeting before the first meeting.This should avoid having people show up for their first meeting before it is held, since to do so would be confusing to those who did so and this is what they want to avoid by reducing the confusion and lessening the repetition.