Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Serendipitous wording

I'm fond of puns, especially accidental ones. I picked up a book by Deimling(*) at Half Price Books in an effort to try to keep my mind sharp, and discovered that the store tag gave it the name "Nonlinear Fun"

The first example that comes to mind...

  1. lonely lad sitting on the porch swing
  2. lad and lass cuddled on the porch swing
  3. lad and lass drumming fingers on the arm rests as her young brother regales them with his day's adventures

Or if you are a devotee of that esoteric art of bridge:

  1. 1 person drumming his fingers
  2. 2 people drumming fingers
  3. 3 people drumming fingers
  4. 4 people in a lively game kicking each other under the table

The change in fun is not proportional to the change in the number of people.

On the serious side: somehow the third helping doesn't give quite the same satisfaction that the first did. We're not very fond of temperance; we even have an industry set up to try to drive it out of us. ("It's OK to go a little wild" sponsored by Ho Chunk Casinos) But fun isn't linear...


(*)I'm only on page 13. He seems to be working to prove fairly obvious things, and letting knottier things slide, and all without examples. I like examples. He probably does too, but the traditions must be upheld, I guess.

1 comment:

Korora said...

Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi, Makruk, Sittuyin, etc:

1: 1 person drumming fingers.
2: 2 people playing an intense game.
3: 2 people trying to play an intense game as another person kibitzes.