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Varun was a little off the mark in his diagnosis that I must be senile (in his pseudo-limerick).
I find that it is my wife who is showing symptoms of senility while she says I am afflicted with pseudo-senility, an altogether different but related old-age disorder.
Senility: forgetting inconvenient things that happened (IOUs)
Pseudo-Senility: remembering convenient things that never happened (UOMees)
It is like this:
I distinctly recall my wife telling me a couple of days back that she read a news item saying England is recruiting Indians for teaching English (and Math) to their kids.
Now she flatly denies she ever said it.
But I also recall her asking me to send my Resume'.
But, I said, I am already doing my bit: in almost every blog I am inventing new and exotic words, grammar, usage, figure of speech, Needless Capitalization (vide Deutsche), punctuation, spelling, syntax and stuff to enrich English.
This is primarily because Blogspot's gul-stats daily adds more Audience of Non-English-Speaking-Countries to the list of dozen or so I posted earlier; e.g. Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Luxembourg, Moldova, Latvia...and perhaps Ruritania...
I mean there ought to be a limit.
This blogpost is therefore to express my deep indebtedness to Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859).
For, it was he who insisted that for Indian kids the medium of instruction ought to be English rather than Sanskrit or Persian or worse.
But for him I wouldn't be blogging up custom today, nor my son drumming up custom for his Indian Company in the US right now.
To TBM we owe our Bread 'n' Butter & Fish 'n' Chips.
As a mark of Gratitude 'n' Respect I am taking the liberty of e-sending the following Bouquet of Old Cauliflowers to be laid at his Grave with Pomp 'n' Show.
[Knowledgeable readers would complain that I stole the Macaulay-Cauliflower pun from the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: but his Copyright expired long ago. To those who have already scented these foul-smelling Macauliflowers, I suggest that they at once go to bed or work as the case maybe]. .
A very old Spider
Said to the older Fly:
‘You can come nearer, dear,
My fiber’s gotten dry’;
Said the older Fly
To the old Spider:
‘I can’t come nearer, dear,
I can no more FLY!’
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2. Peacock
A very old Peacock
Couldn’t see in the dark;
He went to an Optician
To get a prescription;
Who charged a million rupees
For his thousand ‘eyes’!
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3. Elephant
A very old Elephant
Went to a Dentist
To get a set of false teeth;
He told the Elephant:
‘You already have a set;
Very nicely bent
And made of Ivory’!
*************************************************************************
4. Woodpecker & Kingfisher
A very old Woodpecker
Said to the old Kingfisher:
‘My beak is getting blunter
The bark is getting tougher,
And I am suffering from hunger’;
Said the old Kingfisher
To the old Woodpecker:
‘I'm no longer the King here,
The fish are getting cleverer,
I too suffer from hunger’;
The latter stopped hunting fish,
The former poking for woodlice;
They both went to the Restaurateur,
Ordered some Bread 'n' Butter
And lived happily ever after!
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5. Government Bull
A very old Government Bull
No longer felt useful;
With Cows and Calves so youthful
He felt very miserable;
He went to the Gov't Hospital
And found this Placard; ‘House-Full’;
The Matron there was kind to him
And referred him to an Old Age Home;
There he felt merry and gay
With older Cows and heaps of Hay!
...Posted by Ishani
******************************************************************************************
Varun was a little off the mark in his diagnosis that I must be senile (in his pseudo-limerick).
I find that it is my wife who is showing symptoms of senility while she says I am afflicted with pseudo-senility, an altogether different but related old-age disorder.
Senility: forgetting inconvenient things that happened (IOUs)
Pseudo-Senility: remembering convenient things that never happened (UOMees)
It is like this:
I distinctly recall my wife telling me a couple of days back that she read a news item saying England is recruiting Indians for teaching English (and Math) to their kids.
Now she flatly denies she ever said it.
But I also recall her asking me to send my Resume'.
But, I said, I am already doing my bit: in almost every blog I am inventing new and exotic words, grammar, usage, figure of speech, Needless Capitalization (vide Deutsche), punctuation, spelling, syntax and stuff to enrich English.
This is primarily because Blogspot's gul-stats daily adds more Audience of Non-English-Speaking-Countries to the list of dozen or so I posted earlier; e.g. Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Luxembourg, Moldova, Latvia...and perhaps Ruritania...
I mean there ought to be a limit.
This blogpost is therefore to express my deep indebtedness to Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859).
For, it was he who insisted that for Indian kids the medium of instruction ought to be English rather than Sanskrit or Persian or worse.
But for him I wouldn't be blogging up custom today, nor my son drumming up custom for his Indian Company in the US right now.
To TBM we owe our Bread 'n' Butter & Fish 'n' Chips.
As a mark of Gratitude 'n' Respect I am taking the liberty of e-sending the following Bouquet of Old Cauliflowers to be laid at his Grave with Pomp 'n' Show.
[Knowledgeable readers would complain that I stole the Macaulay-Cauliflower pun from the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table: but his Copyright expired long ago. To those who have already scented these foul-smelling Macauliflowers, I suggest that they at once go to bed or work as the case maybe]. .
A Bouquet of Old Cauliflowers
1. Spider & Fly
A very old Spider
Said to the older Fly:
‘You can come nearer, dear,
My fiber’s gotten dry’;
Said the older Fly
To the old Spider:
‘I can’t come nearer, dear,
I can no more FLY!’
*********************************************************************
2. Peacock
A very old Peacock
Couldn’t see in the dark;
He went to an Optician
To get a prescription;
Who charged a million rupees
For his thousand ‘eyes’!
***********************************************************************
3. Elephant
A very old Elephant
Went to a Dentist
To get a set of false teeth;
He told the Elephant:
‘You already have a set;
Very nicely bent
And made of Ivory’!
*************************************************************************
4. Woodpecker & Kingfisher
A very old Woodpecker
Said to the old Kingfisher:
‘My beak is getting blunter
The bark is getting tougher,
And I am suffering from hunger’;
Said the old Kingfisher
To the old Woodpecker:
‘I'm no longer the King here,
The fish are getting cleverer,
I too suffer from hunger’;
The latter stopped hunting fish,
The former poking for woodlice;
They both went to the Restaurateur,
Ordered some Bread 'n' Butter
And lived happily ever after!
********************************************************************
5. Government Bull
A very old Government Bull
No longer felt useful;
With Cows and Calves so youthful
He felt very miserable;
He went to the Gov't Hospital
And found this Placard; ‘House-Full’;
The Matron there was kind to him
And referred him to an Old Age Home;
There he felt merry and gay
With older Cows and heaps of Hay!
...Posted by Ishani
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