Garden Path Sentences

Groucho Marx is credited with saying “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”

A great line, and an example of what linguists call a “Garden Path Sentence.”  That’s a sentence that starts out appearing to say one thing and ends up meaning something else – sentences that often force the reader to go back and start over.

Garden Path Sentences are often accidental, but the quote above is an example of a clever use of language; the verb in the first phrase – flies - becomes a noun and the subject of the second, while like is transformed from an adjective to a verb.

Nobody diagrams sentences anymore, but Mrs. Simpson, my fifth grade teacher, would have loved this .

Here are a few more examples I found on line:

Sentence	Initial likely partial parse	Final parse
The old man the boat.	The man, who is old...	The boat is manned by the old.
The man whistling tunes pianos.	The man who is whistling melodies...	The whistling man tunes pianos.
The cotton clothing is made of grows in Mississippi.	The clothing, which is made of cotton, is made of...	The cotton that clothing is made of grows in Mississippi.
The complex houses married and single soldiers and their families.	The houses (meaning buildings or families), which are complicated, got married to...	Single and married soldiers and their families are housed in the complex.
The author wrote the novel was likely to be a best-seller.	The author composed the novel...	The author wrote that the novel in question was likely to be a best-seller.
The tomcat curled up on the cushion seemed friendly.	The tomcat curled itself up on the cushion...	The tomcat that was curled up on the cushion seemed friendly.
The man returned to his house was happy.	The man came back to his house...	Returned to his house, the man was happy.
The government plans to raise taxes were defeated.	The government is planning to raise taxes...	The government's plans to raise taxes were defeated.
The sour drink from the ocean.	The drink that was sour...	Those that are sour drink from the ocean.
Fish people are used to fishing may be gone.	Mermaids are employed in ...	The fish that people expect to catch are dying out.

Achieving Perfection

Heavy philosophical stuff today. 

I woke up this morning thinking about how God (Who in the Judeo-Christian heritage is perfect) could create a universe (which, logically, as the creation of a perfect Being, should also be perfect) from imperfect materials.

For the moment, let’s ignore floods, famine, plagues, etc. and just concentrate on people.  Some groups – Unity comes to mind – may try to say that in spite of our obvious flaws, we are actually parts of God  and therefore perfect pieces of the Universal Jig-saw Puzzle.  It’s a lovely idea, but I really can’t get my mind around it. 

I’m not complaining, it’s our little imperfections that make us interesting.

Actually, the whole concept of sin casts doubt on God’s ability as an architect – if the design was perfect, then the QC at the factory sucked, which sort of takes us back to flaws in the design since He/She created the factory, too.

Going back to my original question – and the graphic at the top of this post – it occurs to me that we can approach perfection in much the same way that mathematics approaches pi.  Start with a polygon with sides that are tangent to the circumference of a circle and keep clipping off the angles – a triangle becomes a hexagon and so forth ad infinitum.  The greater the number of sides, the closer the polygon approximates the circumference of the circle. 

The problem with that is that it is still an approximation, imperfect, flawed.   

Assuming that creation is ongoing and that while it may have been created, the world wasn’t finished in those seven days, God just may not care.  After all, a perfect Being probably possesses infinite patience, and God can keep clipping off angles until the end of time.

Just the Basics

I recently started a group on FaceBook called Addicted to Limericks .  It’s a place where folks are invited to post their favorites, and especially to try their hand a creating an original limerick of their own. 

Many – almost all – of the rhymes have been delightful, and a limerick  posted by one member often leads to several more as other members jump on the bandwagon.

There have been several posts from those who say they would like to participate but lack the skill or simply just don’t know how.  Today’s post is for them.

A limerick is a poem in five stanzas in which lines one, two and five rhyme with each other and line four rhymes with line three. 

Although some liberties may be taken with the meter – and often are – the beat goes like this: da DA, da da DA, da da DA….or:

{Using a dash (-) to indicate unaccented syllables and a caret (^) for accented syllables}

- ^ - - ^ - - ^

- ^ - - ^ - - ^

- ^ - - ^

- ^ - - ^

- ^ - - ^ - - ^

If, instead of dashes and carets, we use zeroes and ones, we get

01001001

01001001

01001

01001

01001001

which translates from binary to decimal as 4,802,890.  I have no idea what that means, but it’s obvious that decimal notation just isn’t as poetic.

But back to those liberties taken with the meter – the most common is dropping one of the unaccented syllables, usually in lines one, two or five; or plugging in an additional unaccented syllable, most commonly at the beginning of a line.

I’m going to stop trying to explain the mechanics of the limerick right here.  Everything I’ve said is true, but it doesn’t convey the pleasure involved – It’s about like expressing an orgasm as a function in a quadratic equation.

It is not mandatory, but the best limericks are humorous and often risqué.  They often make use of puns or contain plays on words and double entendre.

Even if you consider yourself poetically challenged, I would encourage you to try writing a limerick.  It’s easier than it looks, and (to use a New England term that is getting a lot of play these days) it’s wicked fun.

An Unfolding Tragedy

Back on Monday, I wrote a piece about a new restaurant in the area  - La Mordida – and yesterday evening Honey and I decided to give them a try.

We got there early, about a quarter to five, and found the place empty except for a table full of little kids who immediately began yelling “Somebody’s here!” at the top of their lungs.  The kids were ignored until I looked over a partition to find the entire staff – apparently three generations of the same family – eating their own supper at a table in the kitchen.  At that point, one of the teenaged girls got up and seated us.

She handed us each a menu, took our orders for iced tea with lemon and (I guess) went back to finish her supper.  During the ten minutes or so that she was gone, the youngest girl got up from the kids’ table and came to stare at us.  She looked at us with big brown eyes while her mouth opened and closed like a koi at feeding time.  Her older brother, a cute and outgoing boy of about seven, explained that she was trying to talk, but didn’t know how.  He said she was only one year old although she appeared to be a lot closer to two.

The waitress finally arrived with our iced tea (with lime) and a basket of the greasiest tortilla chips I have ever seen.  The chips were cold and in spite of claims on the menu that everything was home made, the salsa was obviously out of a jar.

I ordered what seemed to be the signature dish – parilladas (a sort of Mexican mixed grill with beef and chicken fajitas and shrimp) but was told that they were out of shrimp, so I settled for enchiladas verdes.  Honey ordered a three enchilada plate with one each of beef, chicken and cheese.

Half an hour later, we were seriously wondering whether we were ever going to get any food (we were still the only customers in the place) and discussing whether to just get up and leave, when the waitress arrived with Honey’s plate.  As she placed Honey’s plate before her, she told me that the cook had mistakenly put red sauce instead of green on my order and was starting over.  I told her never mind, I would take what was already fixed and Honey asked her to take her plate back and warm it up – it was already too cold to eat.

While we were waiting, our waitress left the restaurant for a trip across the parking lot to the grocery store.  I don’t think she was getting anything for us, the only thing I could see through the bag when she returned was a can of Dr. Pepper.  In spite of her yelling “No. No. No.” and trying to hold the door shut, all of the little kids had run out and followed her across the parking lot.

Once we finally got our food, we wished we hadn’t.  It was insipid – no salt and no spices whatsoever.  The best thing we had was the guacamole, and the only thing good about that was that the avocado hadn’t turned brown!

When we went to the register to pay,  our waitress said that since they had got my order wrong she was giving me a dollar off.  Honey then explained that her order had only contained two enchiladas instead of three.  The waitress went back to the kitchen to confer, and came back to tell us that if we would return to our table, the cook would make her another one.  We refused, and she finally cut another dollar off of our bill.

I didn’t ask, but just based on our observations, I’m sure that this family has mortgaged everything they own to fulfill a dream of owning a restaurant.  Unfortunately, they were totally unprepared and singularly unfit for the task.  I would be amazed if they are not out of business by Halloween.  Over the too-loud conjunto music blaring from a local Tex-Mex radio station, you could almost hear the place circling the drain.

About the only thing they did right was name the place La Mordida.  This place BITES!

 

An Attack of Limerickitis

Woke up with limericks on my mind this morning.  Specifically, one I learned as a child:

There once was a girl who begat

Three brats she named Nat, Pat and Tat.

The breeding was swell,

but feeding was Hell

When she found she had no tit for Tat!

For some reason, I thought I remembered that this was penned by someone famous – Ogden Nash comes to mind – but I can’t find an attribution anywhere.  A Google search came up with lots of variations of the rhyme, but no source that says who might have written it.  If you know the author, drop me a line or just post in comments.

While I was searching, I did come across another Limerick that gave me a chuckle – one that I don’t think I had ever seen before:

There was a young lady named Rose

Who had a large wart on her nose.

When she had it removed

Her appearance improved,

But her bifocals fell to her toes.

On Demand

Went in for lab work earlier this week in preparation for my annual physical.  I have never had a fear of needles or an aversion to blood, so filling several test tubes for various tests went without a hitch.  Then the tech handed me a cup and asked for a urine sample.

Now, I’m the kid who could never make it through class without a potty break, and I still can’t drive over 100 miles without a stop, but I have never been able to urinate on demand.  After about 5 minutes in the restroom, I told the lab guy it just wasn’t going to happen.

He said “I only need a little, just enough for a dip stick.”

I replied that volume was not the issue, but that I would bring it back later.  He said that, if he didn’t get the sample now, he would have to re-do all the paperwork.  So  45 minutes, a bottle of water and a cup of coffee later, I gave him his specimen.

That wasn’t my worst experience by a long shot. 

Back in 1966, at my pre-induction physical, the army doctors sent two dozen of us to the restroom with specimen cups.  Ten minutes after everyone else had left, I was still standing there in my skivvies with a specimen cup in one hand and my… well, you get the picture.

Finally, in desperation, I grabbed the cup off the rack with the most urine in it – it was almost overflowing – and poured half of it into my container.  Luckily – or not, depending on your point of view – my unwitting urine donor was healthy, and two weeks later I was on a bus headed to Ft. Polk for basic training.

FIRE

One of our closest neighbors – his house is southwest of what we normally try to keep looking like lawn, and directly across the street from our woods – is a Fire Fighter for the City of Houston.

Last week, he had a tree service remove several large trees from his yard.  They cut them down, ground out the stumps, and stacked the trunks and limbs in three or four large piles out in his pasture.

Yesterday evening, I glanced over at his house and saw flames dancing to a height of about ten feet in his front yard.  I called Honey over to look, and we discussed whether to call the fire department.  The flames looked awfully close to the front of their house.

We also discussed what the Hell he might be thinking – he’s a fireman and had to know we have been under a burning ban for the last six months or more!

We couldn’t see anyone in their yard, so I moved down the fence line to see if his truck was home – it was – and discovered that the “flames” were the orange rays of the setting sun shining through a water sprinkler!

Industrial Light and Magic could not have created a more realistic illusion.