THE LOGIC OF GRAMMAR
Reading edition
While instructing his pupils in grammar, a country school-teacher gave out this sentence to be parsed: “Mary milks the cow.” Each word had been parsed except the last, which fell to Bob, a sixteen-year-old boy, near the foot of the class, who began thus:
“Cow is a noun, feminine gender, singular number, third person, and stands for Mary.”
“Stands for Mary!” said the astonished teacher. “And, pray, Robert, how do you make that out?”
“Because,” answered the hopeful pupil, “if the cow didn’t stand for Mary, how could Mary milk the cow?”