The Written Word

I love words. I like long ones and short ones, easy speaks and tongue twisters, blunt or flowery.  Words are an author's artistic medium and I have the highest regard for anyone who can call the right combination at a moment's notice.  I think of the right thing to say the day after it was needed.

Oscar Wilde was a genius and assembled his words into masterpieces, comic and otherwise.  Ogden Nash was also a master.  Who can forget "A panther is like a leopard / except it hasn't been peppered. / If you ever see a panther crouch / prepare to say ouch" ?  

The true premier of words was Edgar Allen Poe.  The drunken, drug addicted sot had a working vocabulary of 80,000 words.  The master of the macabre made $20 words dance a complicated ballet across the page, leaving the reader with nightmares for a week.

Then there are the hubbies.  Sisters and I married able, intelligent men.  My brothers-in-law can do anything, fix anything, build anything. My hubby has a rapier wit.  None of them can get words right to save them, but they all try.  

My guy was going to put a gazebo in my crazy pills to see if I would be able to tell, gets phlagm in his throat in the winter and likes to watch Katherine Hefburn and Earl Flynn movies on tv.

Sister's husband said things 'leak like a fizz', other sister's husband gets his colostopies regularly for his health. 

Of course, there are many more examples, but I can only remember a few at any given time.  They are a constant source of giggles for us.  It's fair though, because we have given them plenty to laugh at as well.  It goes both ways.

My hands-down favorite is Calvin and Hobbes.  Bully approaches Calvin and said, "Gimme a quarter, Twinky."  Calvin looks up at said bully and responds, "Your simian countenance denotes a heritage rich in species diversity."  Bully says, "Huh?"  Calvin flips him the quarter and said, "It was worth it."