The problem with the alphabet is that it bears no relation to anything at all, and when words are arranged alphabetically they are uselessly separated. In the OED, for example, aardvarks are 19 volumes away from the zoo, yachts are 18 volumes from the beach, and wine is 17 volumes from the nearest corkscrew.

The problem with the alphabet is that it bears no relation to anything at all, and when words are arranged alphabetically they are uselessly separated. In the OED, for example, aardvarks are 19 volumes away from the zoo, yachts are 18 volumes from the beach, and wine is 17 volumes from the nearest corkscrew.

Reality changes words far more than words can ever change reality.

So familiar are eggs to us, however, that in the eighteenth century they were referred to as cackling farts, on the basis that chickens cackled all the time and eggs came out of the back of them.

Anyone who has ever taken out a mortgage will be unsurprised to learn that it is, literally, a /death pledge/.

Poetry is much more important than the truth, and, if you don't believe that, try using the two methods to get laid.

Freud said that everything was secretly sexual. But etymologists know that sex is secretly food.