When I was a callow youth, my neighborhood buddies and I used to sing a learned lyric that played around with levels of diction:
Perambulate, perambulate, perambulate your craft
Placidly down the liquid solution.
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically:
Existence is but a delusion.
Translated into clear and simple English, our polysyllabic poem turned out to be Row, row, row your boat …
These days my youthful adventure in oblique obfuscation, polysyllabic poetry and sesquipedalian song has evolved into a challenging game of circumlocutory clichés. The popularity of this game may be founded on our fascination with big words — or on the fact that so many people actually write that way!
Here’s a list of simple, everyday adages, bromides, quotations, proverbs, saws and folk wisdom that I have rewritten in inflated, jargonized English. Your task is to translate each sesquipedalian statement into its original, straightforward form. For example, “Under no circumstances should you compute the quantity of your barnyard fowl previous to their incubation” emerges as “Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.”
Now translate these 15 reclassified classics into what each proverb really says. Take your time and that “precipitancy spawns prodigality.” That is, “haste makes waste.” Answers repose at the end of this column.
1. Integrity is the superlative strategy.
2. A plethora of individuals with expertise in culinary techniques vitiates the potable concoction.
3. Eleemosynary deeds have their incipience domestically.
4. All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not, ipso facto, auriferous.
5. An addlepated individual and his specie prematurely diverge.
6. The ultimate entity of dried gramineous organism induces a rupture of the dorsal portion of the ship of the desert.
7. Hubris antedates a gravity-impelled descent.
8. Three quarters of a dozen individual movements by a slender sewing instrument may be obviated by the utilization of a single, opportunistic thrust of said instrument.
9. Exclusive dedication to necessitous employment without interludes of hedonistic diversion renders John a bland young male.
10. Soft airs possess the potency to mitigate the barbaric thorax.
11. Minuscule erudition jeopardizes security.
12. Consolidated we maintain ourselves erect; bifurcated we plummet.
13. A feathered biped in the terminal part of the arm equals the value of a brace of such creatures in densely branched shrubbery.
14. Persons deficient in judgment hasten to undertake that for which winged celestials hesitate to assume responsibility.
15. Individuals who make their abode in vitreous edifices of patent frangibility are advised to refrain from catapulting petro us projectiles.
DEAR RICHARD: I’ve been enjoying the challenge of teaching improv via zoom. Apropos your recent column about clashing proverbs, our new game named Twisted Proverbs is a fun warm-up. I present the group with a well-known proverb and they brainstorm playful endings. Here are examples of what my improv group created:
A bird in the hand … is finger-lickin’ good. If the shoe fits … buy it. People who live in glass houses … shouldn’t play strip poker. Don’t count your chickens … till after they cross the road. The best things in life are … expensive, with no parking. A journey of a thousand miles begins with … “Ho! Ho! Ho!” —Jacquie Lowell, Clairemont
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On Saturday, Oct. 15, at 11 a.m., I’ll be performing a Halloween show at the Scripps -Miramar Ranch Library Community Room, 10301 Scripps Lake Drive. No need to call ahead; just show up. ission is free and worth every penny. I’d love to meet you there.
Answers
1. Honesty is the best policy. 2. Too many cooks spoil the broth. 3. Charity begins at home. 4. All that glitters is not gold. 5. A fool and his money are soon parted.
6. The straw that broke the camel’s back. 7. Pride goes before a fall. 8. A stitch in time saves nine. 9. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. 10. Music has charms to soothe the savage breast.
11. A little learning is a dangerous thing. 12. United we stand; divided we fall. 13. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 14. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 15. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Please send your questions and comments about language to [email protected]; website: www.verbivore.com.
