Anecdotes for word-lovers
Much fun can be had with the English language, some of which is quite thought-provoking. One particular favourite of mine is: Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
This just shows how parts of speech can change, without much evidence of change in writing or sound to the listener:
grammatical parts | grammatical term |
---|---|
Time | subject (the thing doing the action) |
flies | verb (the action or thing being done) |
like an arrow. | complement (additional elements) |
Fruit flies | subject |
like | verb |
a banana. | complement |
If the second phrase were to retain the grammatical parts of the first, it would be most odd: Fruit (it) flies like a banana.
grammatical parts | grammatical term |
---|---|
Time | subject (the thing doing the action) |
flies | verb (the action or thing being done) |
like an arrow. | complement (additional elements) |
Fruit | subject |
flies | verb |
like a banana. | complement |
This shows the difference between these two examples more clearly, with the changing subjects in bold italic and the verbs in italic.
In table 1 above:
Time [it] flies like an arrow. Fruit flies [they] like a banana.
In table 2 above:
Time [it] flies like an arrow. Fruit [it] flies like a banana.
Here is the full list for your amusement:
- Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
- What’s the definition of a will? It’s a dead giveaway.
- A backward poet writes inverse.
- In democracy, it’s your vote that counts; in feudalism, it’s your count that votes.
- She had a boyfriend with a wooden leg, but broke it off.
- A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
- If you don’t pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.
- With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.
- Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat miner.
- When a clock is hungry, it goes back four seconds.
- The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.
- A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France would result in Linoleum Blownapart.
- You feel stuck with your debt, if you can’t budge it.
- Local area network in Australia: the LAN down under.
- He often broke into song, because he couldn’t find the key.
- Every calendar’s days are numbered.
- A lot of money is tainted. Taint yours and taint mine.
- A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.
- He had a photographic memory which was just never developed.
- A plateau is a high form of flattery.
- The short fortune-teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
- Those who get too big for their britches will be exposed in the end.
- When you’ve seen one shopping centre, you’ve seen a mall.
- Those who jump off a Paris bridge are in Seine.
- When an actress saw her first strands of grey hair, she thought she’d dye.
- Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.
- Santa’s helpers are subordinate clauses.
- Acupuncture is a jab well done.
- Marathon runners with bad footwear suffer the agony of defeat.