Okay so I know I said I wasn’t fucking around anymore but sometimes I can’t help it, too often actually but I’d like to think that some of this sometimes is good for me and not in just a letting off steam sort of way but in a makes me a little smarter in a way kind of way. If you click on that second link, or if you read that post already, you will know I recently discovered garden path sentences. I think these are great, and/but they make my head hurt.
I decided to try to write one that contained global ambiguity (I learned this term today, here’s an example - “I know more scientists than Stephen Hawking,” this could mean either “I know scientists in addition to Stephen Hawking” or “I know more scientists than Stephen Hawking,” without additional context each interpretation is equally correct), and that referenced garden path sentences. Here’s what I came up with:
“The sentence led up the garden path made me very happy, more than my high school English teacher.”
This one isn’t self-referential, but I still like it.
The novel proved to be written by Calvino in a month was eaten by bookworms.
That one works, I think. I think it works… ambiguity because “in a month” could qualify “proved”, “written” or “eaten.” Garden path because of “was eaten by book worms.” It’d be funnier with “just like my high school English teacher” at the end.
I would now like one that contains a pun about the word “sentence”, one that references (either explicitly or more subtly) the Borges story “The Garden of Forking Paths” (which I should read again, because I don’t remember much except the title) - preferably this one will also contain a pun or some other joke of some sort, and one that begins with the phrase “What in the hell.” I’m not sure that last one is possible.
I’m not working on any of this tonight though cuz it’s late and I gotta walk my dog and really above all because that one I wrote made my brain feel tired and knotted.
Question: are garden path sentences paraprosdokians, or just sort of like them?
Need a manifesto? Got no time to draft one? Mutual aid is here!
This post is an object lesson in how a) not to tell a joke, b) to come off as quite closed minded and sectarian and as something of a jerk, and c) to appear both awkward and pretentious all at once. I consider it thus a triple word score in the Scrabble game of life, and I hope a useful tool for anyone seeking to accomplish any of the above. (more…)
I was all set to write this post (by “all set” I mean I had my titular phrase and some rough ideas to bounce around) and then I totally got derailed by the following sequence of events: I mistyped the post’s title at first as “What’s a metaphor?” then was struck by the idea that there has to be some pun that could be made here, then I was stymied by my inability to come up with one. Now I’m having trouble remembering what the ideas I even had were.
Curses.
What’s a metaphor? (more…)
The English write Jeremy Bentham used the phrase once (I believe he actually said “upon” and not “on” but whatever). He wasn’t talking about The Coming Insurrection but he could have been. That’s the title of a whack job piece of what I recently heard aptly described as lifestyle communism - little different from lifestyle anarchism except in the resources it (ab)uses, calling to mind Paul Mattick’s suggestion that Marxism might be the last refuge of the bourgeoisie (most notably the petit bourgeoisie, or upper strata cultural producers who aspire to petit bourgeois [qua celebrity] status). Here’s a good review of why the book is crap. (more…)
So back here in the What In The Hell (Am I Doing In This Cave) Cave I have a computer monitor that tracks in real time how people found my site, what they’re wearing, and what their last meal was. It’s awesome. Through that device I found this link:
http://www.stumbleupon.com/url/whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2008/02/29/is-the-best-lightbulb-joke/
Some discerning well dressed character who had just eaten a tasty meal of corn chowder and sourdough bread, washed down with a natural cola and a dessert of fresh strawberries and cream (me, I’d have had chocolate cake, but I’m not one to judge) posted my lightbulb jokes up for the amusement of others. This fine altruist also listed the following (more…)
I’ve been an atheist since I was 14 or 15, in terms of the ideas I hold. I don’t know that being an atheist is just about the ideas one holds, though. There’s also habits and gut level reactions and so on. I think I’m mostly an atheist at that level, but not entirely. For instance, every once in a while when I’m really stressed out and/or something really bad happens, there’s this voice in the back of my head, my voice, where I say something like this to myself: “Please let it be okay.” Something like that. It’s the same part of the back of my head where I used to pray back when I was religious. I don’t believe in any higher power, it’s just a way to express fervent and desperate hope. I’m not praying to anyone. Until now. (more…)
