Archive for the 'Humour' Category

If anything gets my family riled up, it has to be the misuse of the humble apostrophe. My daughter, an English teacher, calls herself “The Apostrophe Nazi”. She delights in correcting errors wherever and whenever. My son even uses an apostrophe to abbreviate his name – Simon has become Sim’. It also annoys me when [...]

Sometimes I come across the name of a person that is strangely appropriate to their occupation. In today’s local paper I was amused to read a letter to the editor from a Dr. Pain. I’m not sure I would like to consult him, especially if he turned out to be a dentist. Some years ago [...]

The Birthday Gift The small group of family and friends gathered around the table. The glow of the candles lit my face. One puff and they were out, to the cheers of everyone in the room. The flash of my daughter’s camera momentarily blinded me. “Happy Birthday!” they all shouted and they launched into a [...]

There are only a few questions that are common to all people. They are The Big Questions of Life. Many philosophers down through the millenia have attempted to bring answers to these burning questions. Probably the most inspiring attempt was contained in the trilogy of five books written by Douglas Adams in his Hitchhikers Guide [...]

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are this year’s winners. Read them carefully. Each is an artificial word with only one letter altered to form a real word. 1. Intaxication: [...]