HUMOUR

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 190, 28 August 1937, Page 13

HUMOUR

a l Uncle John was lighting hxs pipe >when Aunt Maria "glanced xxp from her kuitting. "John," she remurked, "do yqu know that rcxt Sunday will bo the twenty-fifth anniversary cf our wedding?" ''You don't say so, Maria;" responded tmcle Johu, pulling vigorously ou ii'.s pipe. "WhrJ. about it?" "Nothing," aoiv.rud Aunt Maria,. •"crJy I thought we ought to kill them two chickeai." "But, Maria," demanded Uncle Josh„ "how can you blame them two chickens for what happrmed, twenty-flve years ago?"

The man was being ©xamined and cross-examined for . life insuranceu He had "Deen put through a severe phyaical inspection, and had had to answer numerous questions abont himself, his past, his ancestors, and so on^ Finally the ;examiner asked: "You .don'Lt dissipate, doyou? Not living fast, or doing anyy ithing in exeess?" • The prospective risk, a littlq man; with an apologetic air, seemed fright> ened by this prolonged proceduraj Ho thought a 'moment, ' and then yeplied, hesitantlyj "I — er — I sometimes chew a piece of gum..', ^

I ■ • MJ A woman was walking down, a street with a Pekingese on a leasiu A huge van was pulled up to the kerb- and a pair of mechanics were banging away at the engine, trying to get the contrap-i . tion started, When the wonAn and the tiny dog >came alongside, ione of the men* advanced:— * 'Lady, could we borrow your dog £05 a minutef " The woanan .was startled* ' "Why, what are you going to do with! the dog J" "Hiteh- "im up to the van to. get it started.'4 "How: idiotic! A little dog like" that couldn't pull that big van." "Oh, that's all right, lady," said tle driver,* with completa assurance;; ''.we got whipsl."-

for citizenship of the English Iaiguage, but some, though amusing, remain mere tolerated strangers. Yet what so well debuuks an ioutburst, say, ,of bogus indignatioa as a sub-trueulent, "So what?" "Scram" has eujoyed a voguei, but is scarcely makiug the gTada (is this englneer's slang?) Purxsts detest the American way of throwiug in adverbs, as in "think up," "beat up." But Mr. H. W. Horwill, a keen student of American English, discovers that "try out" is good Elizabethan, and that' "through with" is used by Shakespeare. ("If a man is through with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security"— 2 :Henry IV.). To those who say Americanisms are all vulgar, Mr. Horwell replies that . the Americans often replace English words by more genteel- equivalents:. Such as cuspidor for spittoou; faucet, for, tapj mucilage, for gum; janitor, for caretaker; and exeeutive, for a manageri He seems to debunk the notion that America 's new words pollute .the English language. So what?