Volume 1 — TRICKS THAT WORDS MAY BE MADE TO PLAY.

Odd Jobs for Unemployed Minds in the Arrangement of Freak Sentences.

When Polonius, addressing Hamlet, asked, "What do you read, my lord?" and Hamlet answered, "Words, words, words," Polonius didn't pursue that particular line of inquiry any farther. If he had, Hamlet might have given him a vast deal of interesting information.

Words sometimes have a trick of expressing more than is intended by those who write or utter them. They have strange customs, too, and of these the man who interrupted Hamlet doubtless had much to learn.

For instance, Polonius might have asked:

Grave prince, in thirty-one words how many "thats" can be grammatically inserted?

And Hamlet might have replied:

Fourteen: He said that that that that man said was not that that that one should say, but that that that that man said was that that that man should not say.

This reminds us of the following "says" and "saids":

Mr. B——, did you say or did you not say what I said you said? Because C—— said you said you said you never did say what I said you said. Now if you did say that you did not say what I said you said, then what did you say?

The following is an example of that form of humor which is known as "word-twisting":

Idle minds which conscientiously seek employment are willing to take almost any odd job that comes along. Some have devoted a few hours to the formation of sentences in which each word begins and ends with the same letter. Here are a couple of samples:

A depraved tyrant seeks devoted slaves; a growing empire seeks rather loyal subjects; America, a nation, growing yearly richer, secures equitable legal exchange.