Disorder in Court

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Order. Order!


About every five years, a little book is published  called "Disorder in the Court."
They're things people actually said in court, word for word. Reading is believing...

Q: What is your date of birth?
A: July fifteenth.
Q: What year?
A: Every year.

Q: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
A: Sweatpants and Reeboks.

Q: This myasthenia gravis - does it affect your memory at all?
A: Yes.
Q: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
A: I forget.
Q: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?

Q: How old is your son - the one living with you.
A: Thirty-eight or thirty-five, I can't remember which.
Q: How long has he lived with you?
A: Forty-five years.

Q: What was the first thing your husband said to you when he woke that morning?
A: He said, "Where am I, Cathy?"
Q: And why did that upset you?
A: My name is Susan.

Q: And where was the location of the accident?
A: Approximately milepost 499.
Q: And where is milepost 499?
A: Probably between milepost 498 and 500.

Q: Sir, what is your IQ?
A: Well, I can see pretty well, I think.

Q: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in the voodoo or occult?
A: We both do.
Q: Voodoo?
A: We do.
Q: You do?
A: Yes, voodoo.

Q: Now doctor, isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?

Q: The youngest son, the twenty-year old, how old is he?

Q: Were you present when your picture was taken?

Q: Was it you or your younger brother who was killed in the war?

Q: Did he kill you?

Q: How far apart were the vehicles at the time of the collision?

Q: You were there until the time you left, is that true?

Q: How many times have you committed suicide?

Q: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
A: Yes.
Q: And what were you doing at that time?

Q: You say the stairs went down to the basement?
A: Yes.
Q: And these stairs, did they go up also?

Q: Mr. Slatery, you went on a rather elaborate honeymoon didn't you?
A: I went to Europe, Sir.
Q: And you took your new wife?

Q: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
A: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

Q: Doctor, how many autopsies have you performed on dead people?
A: All my autopsies are performed on dead people.
Q: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
A: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
Q: And Mr. Dennington was dead at the time?
A: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy.

Q: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?

Q: You were not shot in the fracas?
A: No, I was shot midway between the fracas and the navel.

LAWYER: On the morning of July 25th, did you walk from the farmhouse down the footpath to the cowshed?
WITNESS: I did.
LAWYER: And as a result, you passed within a few yards of the duck pond?
WITNESS: I did.
LAWYER: And did you observe anything?
WITNESS: I did. (Witness remains silent.)
LAWYER: Well, could you tell the Court what you saw?
WITNESS: I saw George.
LAWYER: You saw George *******, the defendant in this case?
WITNESS: Yes.
LAWYER: Can you tell the Court what George ******* was doing?
WITNESS: Yes. (Witness remains silent.)
LAWYER: Well, would you kindly do so?
WITNESS: He had his thing stuck into one of the ducks.
LAWYER: His "thing"?
WITNESS: You know... His thing. His di... I mean, his penis.
LAWYER: You passed close by the duck pond, the light was good, you were
sober, you have good eyesight, and you saw
this clearly?
WITNESS: Yes.
LAWYER: Did you say anything to him?
WITNESS: Of course I did!
LAWYER: What did you say to him?
WITNESS: "Morning, George."

Q: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for blood pressure?
A: No.
Q: Did you check for breathing?
A: No.
Q: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
A: No.
Q: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
A: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
Q: But could the patient have still been alive nevertheless?
A: It is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law somewhere.

______________________________

Crawl On
The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'How To Give A Cat A Pill'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Poems You Really Should Know (pt.37)

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The Two Old Bachelors


Two old Bachelors were living in one house;
One caught a Muffin, the other caught a Mouse.
Said he who caught the Muffin to him who caught the Mouse,-
"This happens just in time! For we've nothing in the house,
Save a tiny slice of lemon and a teaspoonful of honey,
And what to do for dinner - since we haven't any money?
And what can we expect if we haven't any dinner,
But to lose our teeth and eyelashes and keep on growing thinner?"

Said he who caught the Mouse to him who caught the Muffin,-
"We might cook this little Mouse, if we only had some Stuffin'!
If we had but Sage and Onion we could do extremely well,
But how to get that Stuffin' it is difficult to tell" -

Those two old Bachelors ran quickly to the town
And asked for Sage and Onions as they wandered up and down;
They borrowed two large Onions, but no Sage was to be found
In the Shops, or in the Market, or in all the Gardens round.

But someone said,- "A hill there is, a little to the north,
And to its purpledicular top a narrow way leads forth;-
And there among the rugged rocks abides an ancient Sage,-
An earnest Man, who reads all day a most perplexing page.
Climb up, and seize him by the toes!- all studious as he sits,-
And pull him down,-and chop him into endless little bits!
Then mix him with your Onion, (cut up likewise into Scraps,)-
When your Stuffin' will be ready - and very good: perhaps."

Those two old Bachelors without loss of time
The nearly purpledicular crags at once began to climb;
And at the top, among the rocks, all seated in a nook,
They saw that Sage, a reading of a most enormous book

"You earnest Sage!" aloud they cried, "your book you've read enough in!-
We wish to chop you into bits and mix you into Stuffin'!"-
But that old Sage looked calmly up, and with his awful book,
At those two Bachelors' bald heads a certain aim he took;-
And over crag and precipice they rolled promiscuous down,-
At once they rolled, and never stopped in lane or field or town,
And when they reached their house, they found (besides their want of Stuffin',)
The Mouse had fled;- and, previously, had eaten up the Muffin.

They left their home in silence by the once convivial door.
And from that hour those Bachelors were never heard of more.

- Edward Lear

______________________________

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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'How To Give A Cat A Pill'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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How To Give A Cat A Pill

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How to Give a Cat a Pill


Anyone who doubts that cats have personality should find this little fable edifying...

1. Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat's mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right
hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow.

2. Retrieve pill from floor and cat from behind sofa. Cradle cat in left arm and repeat process.

3. Retrieve cat from bedroom, and throw soggy pill away.

4. Take new pill from foil wrap, cradle cat in left arm holding rear paws tightly with left hand. Force jaws open and push pill to back of mouth with right forefinger. Hold mouth shut for a count of 10.

5. Retrieve pill from goldfish bowl and cat from top of wardrobe. Call spouse from garden.

6. Kneel on floor with cat wedged firmly between knees, holding front and rear paws. Ignore low growls emitted by cat. Get spouse to hold cat's head firmly with one hand while forcing wooden ruler into mouth. Drop pill down ruler and rub cat's throat vigorously.

7. Retrieve cat from curtain rail, get another pill from foil wrap. Make note to buy new ruler and repair curtains. Carefully sweep shattered figurines from hearth and set to one side for gluing later.

8. Wrap cat in large towel and get spouse to lie on cat with its head just visible from below spouse's armpit. Put pill in end of drinking straw, force cat's mouth open with pencil and blow down drinking straw.

9. Check label to make sure pill not harmful to humans, drink glass of water to take taste away. Apply Band-Aid to spouse's forearm and remove blood from carpet with cold water and soap.

10. Retrieve cat from neighbour's shed. Get another pill. Place cat in cupboard and close door onto neck to leave head showing. Force mouth open with dessert spoon. Flick pill down throat with elastic band.

11. Fetch screwdriver from garage and put door back on hinges. Apply cold compress to cheek and check records for date of last tetanus shot. Throw T-shirt away and fetch new one from bedroom.

12. Ring fire brigade to retrieve cat from tree across the road. Apologise to neighbour who crashed into fence while swerving to avoid cat. Take last pill from foil wrap.

13. Tie cat's front paws to rear paws with garden twine and bind tightly to leg of dining table. Find heavy duty pruning gloves from shed. Force cat's mouth open with small spanner. Push pill into mouth followed by large piece of fillet steak. Hold head vertically and pour pint of water down throat to
wash pill down.

14. Get spouse to drive you to emergency room; sit quietly while doctor stitches fingers and forearm and removes pill remnants from right eye. Stop by furniture shop on way home to order new table.

15. Arrange for vet to make a house call.

______________________________

Crawl On
The SNAIL

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_________________________________________________________________________________

Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'How To Give A Cat A Pill'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

_________________________________________________________________________________

No Egg In Eggplant

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Let's face it -- English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese?  One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you  call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preacher praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a  play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell? Park on driveways and drive on parkways?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and wise guy are opposites? How can overlook and oversee be opposites, while quite a lot and quite a few are alike? How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another.

Have you noticed that we talk about certain things only when they are absent? Have you ever seen a horseful carriage or a strapful gown?

Met a sung hero or experienced requited love? Have you ever run into someone who was combobulated, gruntled, ruly or peccable? And where are all those people who are spring chickens or who would actually hurt a fly?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm clock goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn't a race at all).

That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
And why, when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it.

______________________________

Crawl On
The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'No Egg In Eggplant'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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The Horrors of our Trade

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The horrors of our trade have long been recognised, as witnessed by the following early 17th century diatribe against learning. The spelling has been modernized:


"Out upon it, who would be a Scholar? Not I, I promise you; my mind always gave me (that) learning was such a filthy thing ... In speech is the Devil's Pater Noster: Nouns and Pronouns, I pronounce you as traitors to boys buttocks: Syntaxis and Prosodia, you are nothing but to get a schoolmaster two pence a week."

- Thomas Nash, "A Pleasant Comedie called Summer's Last Will and Testament

*The remark about boys' buttocks, of course, refers to the much honoured stick and cane method of reinforcing the learning process! And as for the salaries, things haven't changed that much after all!

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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Horrors of our Trade'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Cuddle? Sex?

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Cuddle? Sex? Never the twain shall meet?

One of those rather intriguing brain ticklers which leaves you asking some rather profound questions about how things work, including the brain and even sex...

The point is, did you read the second sentence before questioning or understanding the first properly. How long did it take you to realise that you'd read 'then' as 'than'?

If so we're experiencing the power of set patterns in the brain and isn't it a pretty sight?

We're also experiencing the fact that anything involving sex immediately takes priority over something as mundane as grammar. Food for thought.

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Crawl On
The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Cuddle? Sex?'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Three and a Half Inch Floppies & Other Curiosities

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Memory, application, program(me), for crying out loud.

Look what modern civilisation has done to these steadfast and stalward members of our lexicon...

I was one of the first to do a then-called 'O'-Level exam in computering, and remember my excitement at the feeling of forerunning and being in at the start of things.

Now my three year-old can browse and select, pause and skip You Tube videos like a pro. Tube? Tube???

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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Déjà Poo'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Words To Do Your Worst By

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According to... Cambridge ESOL,these are some words learners have serious problems pronouncing...

Try pronouncing them as they're spelt - (fonetikaly, that is) - and you'll start to see the problem.

According to Cambridge ESOL we should be woefully wary of these treacherous traitors...

And as you look through them you can appreciate the problems. They're monsters!

Cambridge ESOL asked for learners to contribute their own list of dastardly devilish words and this is a selection of them. Probably just as scary as the list above.

Even I've had problems with a few of them.

So goodness knows what non-native speakers must think of these linquistic lepers...

But that's not the concern of The SNAIL. We lafff, I mean laugh at such idiosynchratic anomolies. It's all part of the game. And if you don't want to play, don't put your money down, as they say...

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The SNAIL

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Déjà Poo'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Déjà Poo

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Now why didn't I think of that? So Appropriate for so much of today's B.S... politicians, for example...

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Déjà Poo'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Space To Breathe

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Why does 80% of my writing slam to mind every time I read this cartoon as if it were trying to tell me something about the quality of my prose I suppose... I could go on... and usually do... but just for once...

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Space To Breathe'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Free Pussy

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Cat lovers of the world unite...

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Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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Homographic Homophonic Autantonyms

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I think 'draw', as in 'draw the curtains' - which could be open or close them - is one too.

Darn tricky things they are, whatever the case...

Here are some more from Wikipedia...

• "Apparent" can mean "obvious" or "seeming, but in fact not".
• "Back" can mean "regressive" as in "to go back in time", or it can mean "progressive" as in "to push back a deadline".
• "To buckle" can mean "to fasten" when used transitively or "to bend then break" intransitively.
• "To cleave" can mean "to cling" or "to split".
• "Fast" can mean "moving quickly" as in "running fast," or it can mean "not moving" as in "stuck fast."
• "To overlook" can mean "to inspect" or "to fail to notice".
• "Oversight" (uncountable) means "supervision", "an oversight" (countable) means "not noticing something".
• "Off" can mean "deactivated" as in "to turn off", or it can mean "activated" as in "the alarm went off".
• "Refrain" means both non-action and the repetition of an action, e.g. in musical notation.
• "To sanction" means "to permit", and also "to punish".
• "Shelled" can mean "having a shell" or "has had the shell removed" (as in shelling).
• "To stint" means "to stop", but the noun "stint" refers to the interval of work between stops.
• "Strike", in baseball terms, can mean "to hit the ball" or "to miss the ball".
• "To weather" can mean "to endure" (as in a storm) or "to erode" (as in a rock).
• "Weedy" can mean "overgrown" ("The garden is weedy") or stunted ("The boy looks weedy").
• "To dust" can mean to remove dust (cleaning a house) or to add dust (dust a cake with powered sugar).
• "Yield" can mean "to produce" (as in a chemical equation) or "to concede" (as in driving).
• "Resign" can mean "give up or quit" or "continue".

______________________________

Crawl On
The SNAIL

DON'T FORGET TO COMMENT!

_________________________________________________________________________________

Hotch Potch English: The SNAIL ~ 'Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?'

Created & written by Sab Will

Copyright 2012 Sab Will / Hotch Potch English ~ The Unique English Language Website

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