I often write notes to myself at 3am that I think are pretty brilliant at the time and then the next morning I read these same notes which seem to be from some sort of psychopath, but I thought I’d share the one I found on my nightstand this morning:
Why do the words “whose” and “shoes” rhyme if they’re spelled differently?
Like…Who’s gonna choose to light the fuze on whose shoes to lose the booze if Ms Cruz pays her dues as a ruse to take a cruise with kangaroos and ewes while drinking Mountain Dews?
I mean, that whole sentence is exactly why we shouldn’t have been allowed to invent a written language. Both because it features 14 different words with violently random spellings for the exact same sound and also because the sentence itself is ridiculous.
Anyway, this is why all spelling bees should be cancelled going forward.
I didn’t know that bees could spell. 😉
Breaking news!!
I play this rhyme game with my grand babies 😂💕
English is not for sissies.
The genuine wittiness of your comments fill me with oohs (and aahs, I suppose.)
…with violently random spellings… made me laugh out loud.
Bees shouldn’t be canceled. They’re woke folk.
I am sorry you are awake at 3am but not sorry we got this as a result. 😂
That you could think of all these rhymes with different spellings at 3am isn what impressed me the most. My husband woke me up to say good bye this morning. I couldn’t figure out how to say “i love you too” back at him. I think I said “youm….” thankfully he knows I’m, well, me.
And why in the name of all that is holy do “pony” and “bologna” rhyme?!?!
Really, the problem here was when we decided that we all needed to spell things the same way and that we need to spell words the same way every time. No one had this problem before the late 1700s, they just spelled stuff however they thought it sounded.
The fascinating thing about American English language is that is is constantly evolving to become even more confusing to those who are trying to learn it, even to native speakers of it. So why even bother to try, just reinvent new words…
English-speaking Americans find learning foreign languages so difficult, but I’ve always thought that English has got to the most difficult. I am impressed by English learners who master our mess of a language. Kudos to them! (Coo-doughs?)
My friend’s Italian husband doesn’t understand the concept of spelling bees, as Italian words are spelled exactly as they sound (just need to be sure you emphasize any double letters when speaking; ex: Buon anno means Happy New Year and Buon ano means Happy Asshole).
Brillz.
That sentence needs to be on a shirt you sell!!! I’d totally buy it!
If the plural of “mouse” is “mice”, why isn’t the plural of “house”, “hice”?
If the plural of “goose” is “geese”, why isn’t the plural of “moose”, “meese”?
(Deep thoughts compliments of a drunken eve, too many years ago to count.)
I am not a nazi grammar therefore i don’t care! my friend gave me a birthday present today and it was a Tshirt with dorothy barker on front, Amongst other wisdom ^j^
You’re such a muse.
Etymology is fascinating no matter what Jimmy Carr thinks.
I’ve always been amused at the way English is considered “a” language when we borrow from so many other languages & mangle them so indiscriminately. Go into the East End in London or the backwoods of Appalachia & try to understand the language!
Honestly….your 3.a.m. epiphanies sounds just like my lsd ones 🤣🤣
3AM you is far more coherent than 3AM me. Seriously. I am lucky if I don’t walk into a wall on the way to the bathroom when I wake up having to pee.
Glad you didn’t go down the rabbit hole of “-ough!” 🤣
Who’s the one to decide whose going to “cancel” those bees? Got any clues? (Did you ever watch Blues Clues? But I digress.) The bees better choose to fly faster if they hear any owls and their hoo hoos. And what about those to, too, and twos?
Is it possible your nocturnal muse isn’t just your brain, but someone who’s far more sweet and insidious? Did you hear innocent little mews whispering in your ears? Do you ever find yourself getting out the tuna treats at 3am?
I think it also could just be the booze…or maybe Victor.
I love you, Metaphysically.
I once woke up in the middle of the night to write a joke in my notes app: What do you call a half man named afghan in a place where you hire the band?
I didn’t write down the punchline because it was so obvious that I would definitely remember it in the morning.
Just this week I scribbled *the most brilliant* anthology? / song title? / research idea?? in my bedside journal. I woke up to “3 Abstracts in Birmingham” — whatever that means.
No, it’s why rhyming poets lose what little grip they may have on sanity: it’s all about the words, dude.
👍 agreed!
But.. you’re a genius!
Marty K, Ted Geisel aka Dr. Seuss wrote a book entitled, “The Tough Coughs as He Ploughs the Dough”. English is ridiculous.
Yes, English is the worst language! You on the other hand are brilliant 🙂
Whipping this one out for the next person I encounter who thinks English is easy…
A Nony Mouse wrote “English is not for sissies.” That should go on the other side of the T-shirt.
Does it count that I am reading this at 3 on the morning…
I often have ideas that seem to be brilliant in odd places, the shower, midnight, even during public speaking. (Thanks ADHD brain.) I do try to write most of them down but some of the best stuff has been lost in space forever. I so felt this violence you speak of that occurs often in the middle of the night.
I have the utmost respect for people who learn English. I find languages difficult to learn and have always been grateful to those that have a second language and helped me out when I was very confused while travelling! Also, English is SO WEIRD.
I do this in my head all the time!!
No, I totally get this. It’s brilliant. It’s adult Dr. Seuss.
Reminds me of something that happened in band one time in middle school. Whatever song we were given had “colonel” in the name. One of the girls in my class got SO MAD that it sounds nothing like it’s spelled lol. Was entertaining
I’m learning Greek, and I’ve been grumpy about the fact that there are at least 5 different ways to write the sound “ee”. Now I’ll stop complaining.
Trues.
I would get story ideas late at night, and forgot enough of them that I purchased a mini tape recorder (b.c…. Before Cell phone). Unfortunately, most of what I said made absolutely no sense, and then I fell asleep during recordings. I finally got a cell phone. I’d pass up it’s recorder, instead writing texts to myself. Thus, I taught myself to sleep text. What I accidently sent others (relatives, church friends, doctor’s office, my son’s teachers, etc.) was, “I just thincoud d. dddffff ffffffffffffgfffgggfff…(imagine two solid pages of text with my finger stuck on just one or two letters. No spaces🤪)
Most of English weirdness has to do with which language the words come from. Bill Bryson said something like, English doesn’t so much borrow words from other languages as chase them down an alley, mug them, and shake them upside down for loose change. Mother Tongue: English and how it got that way. Recommend.
But iz it slough, slough, or Slough?
I think you’ve got it on the nose. Thanks for the laugh
Or, Violently Random Spelling Bees should become the national event. Homonyms and rhyming words only, without definitions but only 1 is correct.
Hi
You forgot “ooze”
They’re going to Costco to get their flat tire fixed which popped because there was glass on the road.