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Comedy Shorts - Im Dead, The Ceremony, Mixed Couples, The Beauty of Ants

When the children went to the bank with their father the whole trip was centered on Michael, even though Jane went along he was the one that was supposed to invest his money and see what his dad does. The thought of Jane investing her money in the bank was never even thought of or even the idea that she had any money.

Men are supposed to take care of all the money and be the ones that earn it and that is what the whole bank trip reinforced. Michael always seems to be the one taking the action, in the end when they go fly a kite Michael is the one flying it with his father and Jane and Mrs. Banks are in the background watching. The film interpellates us to think that the men are supposed to be the ones acting on their feelings and saving people and even thinking. The only dominant role that a women plays in the film are the cook, maid and nanny; Mary Poppins is a controversial character because of her ability to do as she pleases even around men but she still plays right into the stereotype that the male should be in the dominant seat.

The film does seem to have a hint of sarcasm about the role of the women as stated earlier but in the end it seems to be just a bit of humor that does not disprove the interpellation. Things seem to all fall into the stereotypical place that society likes for them to be in both in terms of agency and interpellation. It seems as if in this case interpellation coincides with agency which seems to put the happy ending to the movie.

The movie is about a colony of ants that spends most of its time gathering grain for the grasshoppers, who intimidate and frighten them into doing it. It leaves the ants little time to gather food for themselves before the rainy season begins, but it is a part of their culture, and so they continue to repeat the tradition year after year. In the beginning of the movie, the ants are preparing their yearly offering when it is ruined by Flik , an ant in the colony. The grasshoppers are very angry and demand that they gather twice the amount of food before the last leaf falls.

He finds what he thinks are warrior bugs, but are actually circus bugs, who in turn think that Flik is a talent scout. They travel back with him to the colony, impress everyone, and then discover their real purpose for being there. They end up staying however, and the ants come up with a plan to keep away the grasshoppers—they make a bird to scare them. They all work together, but in the end their plan is foiled. Flik , however, stands up for the colony, the grasshoppers are scared away, and the head grasshopper, Hopper, gets eaten by a bird.

In the end the ants no longer have to gather food for the grasshoppers—only themselves. The first character I wanted to talk about that demonstrates resistance of interpellation is Flik. The main problem is that through trying to make things better for the colony, he brings in new ideas that the colony is not willing to accept. You wanna help us build this thing, then get rid of that machine, get back in line, and pick grain like everyone else!

He is almost repressively interpellated , in that the other ants try to force him to act like everyone else. An example of this is while the ants are in line to deposit their grains onto the pile; a leaf falls on the path of the line, and the ant it falls in front of freaks out. When that is impossible, they flip out. Flik resists interpellation, which also provides him with agency. There are several examples of this throughout the movie, one of which is the way that he stands up to Hopper.

In this way, Flik gains agency because he acts on behalf of himself and admits that he resisted interpellation purposefully. Another example of Flik gaining agency is when he left the colony. The colony did not like that someone tried to be different than what was expected of them, and were willing to punish Flik because of it—another example of how their interpellation is repressive.

Flik , however, decides to go off on his own to try again to help his colony. He acts as a free agent in that sense—it was his idea to leave, although he did have to get permission. Another resister of interpellation is the ladybug. He usually gets pretty angry when this happens, and tries to inform the other bugs that he is a male and being a ladybug does not necessarily make him a lady. In the end, however, he becomes more feminine, due to his affiliation with the Blueberries.

In contrast is Heimlich, the caterpillar who desperately wants to fit in with his species by growing wings and becoming a butterfly. However, he is incredibly happy because as a caterpillar, he wanted so badly to go through the same transformation that other caterpillars go through—due to ideological interpellation.

Last words

In this way, Heimlich is a foil for the ladybug—they represent opposing desires and goals. Additionally, Dot is a marked contrast to her sister, Atta. Dot is very rebellious and attempts to gain agency in a few ways, the first of which is trying to use her wings to fly before they were fully grown. However, her desire to fly could also be attributed to interpellation—she wants to be able to do what everyone else is able to.

But Dot also demonstrates agency by leading the Blueberries into hiding from the grasshoppers when they come to collect their grain at the end of the season. She goes on her own to find Flik to bring him back and help the rest of the colony—and this time she is able to fly. Her ability to fly and the complete growth of her wings can be interpreted as a symbol of her independence and power. When she finds Flik , she gives him a rock to represent a seed to remind him of what he told her in the beginning of the movie: So Dot, the little girl, teaches Flik , the young man, a lesson, which helps her to gain agency.

Atta is ideologically interpellated to believe that she must be infallible in order to govern the colony. She seems very rule-oriented and unable to function unless she knows what it is she is expected to do. She seems to be unable to simply observe a situation and come up with an answer—she has to know what was done in the past, what her mother did, etc. However, by the end of the movie, Atta gains agency, in that she is crowned as Queen by her mother, who apparently decides that she is ready.

Atta also resists interpellation—she saves Flik by grabbing him and flying off with him. He tells her to fly away from the ant hill while it is raining which is very dangerous for the ants , and she responds that the ant hill is the other way. Some of the characters in the movie resisted interpellation in a healthy way, and some were interpellated in a healthy way, but some were also interpellated in an unhealthy way. Meta-textual sources call attention to themselves as a created thing by being self-referential, breaking the fourth wall or defamiliarizing their audience.

This causes the source, whether it is television, movies or books to recognize itself as what it is, and for the audience to also realize that they are indeed only an audience and are not actually a part of what they are witnessing. Meta-textual sources do not offer the experience in which one gets lost in what they are watching or reading, instead it causes the audience to do the opposite and remember exactly what it is that they are doing. This paper will reflect some of these meta-textual ideas by giving examples of ways these ideas can be portrayed.

I loved the close nit family that they shared and when watching it nearly every night on television after school, I began to feel a part of it as well. Those girls were my sisters and the experiences they went through seemed to always be exactly what I was feeling as well. Sitting in the middle of my living room floor I would be completely engrossed in what was happening on TV that I would not even remember where I actually was. The final episode was tragic because it seemed like my family was leaving me forever; however, that alone was not enough but the editor of the series probably made the biggest mistake it ever could.

Once the episode was over, without any commercial interruptions, the cast lined up across the kitchen floor and took a bow and I heard the roar of an audience. The camera paneled up, through the fourth wall of the set and showed me what I never knew had existed, because there, giving a standing ovation, were tons of fans of the show watching as the cast took their final bow.

Not once in any episode had I ever wondered why I had never seen that fourth wall of the kitchen, bedroom, living room or garage, instead it seemed like I was actually there in the midst of it all with the fourth wall behind me. Finding out that Full House was actually a television show and that Michelle, Stephanie and DJ were all actors and were not related to each other or me in any way completely broke my heart, and I still have not forgotten that feeling to this day.

Breaking the fourth wall completely ruins the feeling of getting lost in the episode, and takes away all closeness the audience ever shared with the cast. In the movie Monty-Python and the Holy Grail, the cast chooses to act without the use of many props, or the ones that you would typically expect, and also the plot and scene location is oddly chosen; yet, the movie gives off the appearance that all of this is taking place during medieval times.

The main character is acting as if he is the King, and goes throughout the countryside, not on horseback but followed by his sidekick with clinking coconuts, claiming that he needs to find the Holy Grail. Watching throughout the entire movie the audience is thinking that they have been taken back in time, until the very end when cop cars pull up to the actors, get out and start arresting them. The director closes the scene and all of the extra characters in the background take a knee and rest while the cops are asking what is going on.

The main character claims that they are just filming a movie, however the cops still shut down their attempts anyway. This is a prime example of a movie being self-referential because it dedicated an entire scene to show the audience that they are not back in medieval times, but are actually in the rural countryside of modern day Europe.

The first scary movie that I ever saw was Scream when I was about eleven years old. I had never been more terrified in my life, and the first time I saw little through cracked fingers over my face. But as I continued to watch it, literally over ten times, and as the sequels came out they became my favorite and always promised a good scare. Then during the first few years of high school, stupid comedies began to be the biggest blockbuster hits and with these came the release of Scary Movie.

At first it did not seem appealing to me, but eventually I was dragged by one of my friends and this comedy brought about an entire new meaning to my favorite scary movie series. Seeing that goofy looking scream mask with the tongue sticking out, and watching the horrible acting of a girl running from the killer completely defamiliarized me to the movies that I loved most. I wish I had never seen those movies because then I would still be able to sit down and watch them and get a good scare every now and then.

If one knows that what they are going to be seeing is funny, fictional and is established in order to provide them with a good laugh, then I feel that meta-textual sources are capable of providing great entertainment for the people that experience it. The book does have an emotionally powerful story that shows a tree sacrificing itself over the years to make the boy happy. In many ways the tree is like the boys mother, who would sacrifice anything for their child just to bring them happiness. The tree having human qualities, such as speech and the ability to feel emotions, gives the book a fantasy aspect which is one of the common assumptions found by Nodelman.

The tree being represented as a mother figure is used to challenge many of the common assumptions. The tree starts out loving the boy for no apparent reason besides he is there like a mother would love a newborn baby. As a child the boy plays all the time with the tree and as he grows up he begins to only come to the tree when he wants something. The tree acts as an old woman being visited by her son in a retirement home, asking the boy to spend time with it by climbing up the trunk and swinging from the vines, only to have him wanting material objects.

Instead of money and the old family house, the boy takes the trees precious apples and the majority of the trees body to build a house and a boat. The ending is bittersweet for the tree which gets what it wanted all along, to just be with the boy, but the tree has been reduced to an old stump because of him. The tree is like an old woman who sacrificed her medication money for their son and is dying because of it, but still feels happiness to have that same son come and visit them. The ambiguous ending does challenge the assumption of teaching valuable lessons about life in a fun way.

I am very tired. The image of the only human character in the book being shown right before death is definitely not a typical happily ever after ending. The two characters in The Giving Tree rely on each for different things. The Tree relies on the boy for his happiness and company, while the Boy relies on the Tree for the different objects it can provide him. The two are on common grounds at the end when the only thing the Tree can offer the boy is a seat and its company, and all the boy wants is a place to sit.

The Boy does love the tree, but smiles while carving his name into the tree which would hurt a living emotional creature such as the tree. The trees desperation for love seems rather pathetic as it willing gives up its body to him, also the fact that everything it gives up was its own idea and not the Boys adds to her desperation. A positive role model would be confident and show dignity, which are two qualities that neither of these characters posses. At the start of the story when the Boy is actually a boy, he seems like more of a role model possessing innocent qualities much like the children reading the book would contain.

The child innocence the boy possessed is the only stage of the Boys life any child could truly understand. The desires for a wife and a home are things which children never desire. But they are aware of these things from interacting with the adults in their life, just not able to fully comprehend the need for such grown up things. A child could most likely understand the Tree and its need to make the Boy happy since many children would do anything to make their parents happy.

One of the most disturbing ways that the Tree tries to make the boy happy is when it tells him to cut it down so he can make a boat out of it. This leaves the tree as nothing more but a stump, which is what is left of a tree after it was chopped down and killed. This makes the image of the Boy carrying away the tree seem frightening because its true that the branches and the apples could be seen as part of its body but taking away its trunk seems like taking away its whole body, leaving its soul in the stump.

So, cutting the tree down is the emotional equivalent of cutting a character in half and could be a frightening image to many children. The theme is evident in the story and should be realized by most children after multiple readings and talks with their parents. When I was little, there was no public library where I lived. A service was started when I was five years old called The Bookmobile that would come to our county every three weeks. It would park at specific sights and people could come and check out books or read magazines. To this day, I vividly remember the first book I ever checked out—Dr.

I was absolutely fascinated by the book. I remember how shiny and new it was compared to the Bible story books and fairy tale books that I had, and how it was filled with wild and wacky looking creatures. I read it over and over and tried my best to see how fast and far I could read the different sections without taking a breath. I like green eggs and ham! However, if you were searching for a book that reinforced the typical case prototype which Perry Nodelman wrote about, then this book could be the poster child for this type of book.

In this book, if you count the hyphenated name of the character Sam-I-Am, there are only two words in the entire book that are larger than five letters long. The other word is anywhere, which like Sam-I-Am, can be separated into words of less than five letters. Not only the words are simple, but the illustrations are simple, being a few steps above a line drawing.

The creatures are extremely imaginative, but even though they are fantastic, they are not in any way threatening, for threatening and scary creatures are a no-no in the typical case prototype. I could not, would not, with a fox. It also reinforces the assumptions that children have short attention spans and learning must be made fun. For instance, while the book itself is fairly long for a picture book, most of the pages contain little text. Also the rhyming, rhythmic nature of the words encourages young readers to make a game of the rhymes, just as I did as a child.

Green Eggs and Ham also supports the contention that books should teach a lesson or moral. This lesson is also not given as a directive that should be obeyed without question. And you may like them. It is also very adult centered in that the book has a happy ending. This friendship is evidenced by a change in attitude and body language, and most obviously by his putting his arm around Sam-I-Am at the end of the book It does deviate, however, from the traditional child and adult roles in some ways. One way it does this is in the characteristics of the two main characters.

The larger character is also childlike because of his very stubbornness, which in the assumptions Nodelman wrote about could be considered the opposite of maturity and adulthood. It is possible this role reversal was done as a devise to stress how unreasonable it is to act in this way. Being stubborn and unreasonable is the opposite of how an adult would act, so therefore this type of behavior is shown to be even more undesirable and incorrect and children should strive to behave like Sam-I-Am.

While this book is in most ways a typical case prototype, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Every child is different, with different reading levels, interests, and levels of maturity. To say that only one style of book is good for children and should be read by children is to limit them and possibly foster bad connotations with reading.

I know that this is not what Nodelman is advocating; rather he is attempting to point out that there is a lack of logic and consistency in these assumptions. I loved this book as a child and still love it now. Green Eggs and Ham gave me an opportunity to play with and enjoy reading at a level I was comfortable with at that time. It also encouraged me to try and make up my own rhymes and fantastic creatures.

I know that I loved this book as a child and I still love it now. All of my boys loved it and my ten year old still takes it out sometimes just to have the fun of reading, listening, or playing with the rhymes. But the Lemony Snicket books clearly do not hold the listed assumptions as truth, instead presenting the strong, smart Baudelaire children to prove each generalization false.

It opens with a death, features the children in uncomfortable and miserable situations, and describes only darkness and pain. The characters are not what one would expect either. Violet is a fourteen-year-old inventor, Klaus is twelve and a brilliant reader, and even the infant Sunny is very bright but has trouble saying what she means with only baby-talk. Adult characters are either evil geniuses or bumbling fools who refuse to take the orphans seriously.

The Baudelaire orphans cannot turn to a trusted adult for help in their hardships; they must rely on their own intellect and cunning to save themselves. Indeed, it is the adults that they are most often fighting against. This is also quite uncommon. Usually, grown-ups are there to help and guide the children; it is still quite controversial for an adult to be portrayed in such a negative light. Furthermore, children are conventionally shown to need help and guidance, but here the Baudelaires prove themselves to be remarkably self-sufficient.

The children are intelligent, eager to learn, and able to think about and react to the situation at hand. Another relatively uncommon feature of this book is that it is not didactic in any traditional sense. The adults in the story are certainly not role models, and they do not display behavior that a parent would wish their child to imitate. The children succeed because they are different from the adults, not because they have been assimilated into miniature versions of them.

This is most readily shown when Mr. Poe comes to the shore to tell the Baudelaire children that their parents have died: Poe can think is that he might be using words that are too big for them. But this is what the children are used to dealing with. And rather than struggling against a dragon or monster, they fight against the adults who try to take advantage of them. The Bad Beginning goes counter to every traditional assumption listed in the beginning of this paper.

And yet, the Series of Unfortunate Events has become one of the most popular and highly-regarded series around. He is passing out book reports, showing his superiority by dressing in a suit and standing tall, requiring the sitting students, whose papers he just evaluated, to look up to him. The viewer then sees Cory putting on a clown nose and making silly faces. His behavior is quite a contradiction to the composed and dignified teacher in the scene, leaving the audience with an impression that adults are more perfect than children.

Feeney continues to pass out the book reports he congratulates a student, named Rick, for his efforts. He is no longer smiling and appears confused. Still wearing the clown nose, Cory tells Mr. Feeney, who unlike Cory, is very collected in his appearance, thoughts, and behavior informs Cory that Rick worked hard for his C and Mr. Feeney respects him for it. The teacher then looks down at Cory still wearing his large red foam nose and suggests that he not waste his time being the class clown. He then contradicts himself, by looking at the test, because he wants Mr.

Feeney to think that he is a genius. His mom and younger sister, Morgan, are discussing when Morgan can get a Halloween costume. The mom tells Morgan that she is very busy with work but that Eric, the oldest son, will take her shopping. Morgan becomes impatient and again announces her desire for a Halloween costume. Eric agrees to help but can not do it unassisted. He still needs his mom to take them to the store and his dad, when he gets off from work, to then pick them up. Morgan returns home with a costume of a Zombie.

She looks at Eric, giving blame to her older son, and announces that she wanted Morgan to pick out her own costume. This is giving the child agency and allowing her to express and expand her own imagination. She explains that Morgan picks out her own clothes because they like to give her freedom of expression. This is another example of interpellation, because whoever decided clothes have to match or what should be considered a match? It seems as though they are trying to protect her from the messages of disappointment that they are sending to their older son Eric. The director, in this scene, displays an agreement with the common assumption that children are innocent and need to be protected.

Feeney congratulates him verbally but appears doubtful through his facial expressions. Cory is worried that Mr. Feeney knows he cheated and that he will tell his parents. He announces that he does not like lying to his parents. However, they fail to realize that it was their initial mistake that caused the adult to give the detention sentence. He knows that adults assume that he is fallible and will love and take care of him despite his mistakes. The bell then rings and Mr. Feeney announces that he wants to talk to Cory. The student looks nervous and gets out of his seat slowly, as though he is about to meet his death.

Cory looks as though he is going to be physically hurt, though he knows Mr. Feeney is only going to talk to him about his high IQ score. This quote also reinforces his admiration of adults because he is associating Mr. Feeney sits down with Cory and asks if there is anything he wants to share. He explains that Cory will be transferred to an advanced school where the school is committed to giving children all that they deserve.

Cory is aware that his parents and teacher know that he cheated on the IQ test. Before finally admitting to his parents that he found the answers to the IQ test, Cory takes a second intelligence test. This test reveals that he has the IQ of an average sixth grader. It is this common assumption that adds to the adult-centeredness of the episode because adults like Mr. Feeney are portrayed with high intelligence, while the child is not corrected when calling himself a moron. At the end of the episode Cory tells his parents and teacher the truth; which gains him the respect he so desired from his teacher.

The episode is didactic because Cory has learned that he should tell adults the truth and he should never cheat. He accepts the fact that he is inferior to adults, a point which I do not like about the episode, but a typical adult-centered characteristic. This positive portrayal of parents makes it impossible for the viewer to be mad at the adults for punishing Cory, especially since Cory realizes that he deserves punishment, and therefore, is not upset.

The fairy tale, The Little Mermaid was story that I could not go to sleep without hearing. I was about six years old when I first heard this story and it allowed my imagination to meander into the world of mermaids. Whether I was at the beach swimming like a mermaid in the ocean or simply reading the story over and over, I was fascinated by the mermaid world under sea. I was nearly obsessed with mermaids and wished I could be one of them.

This story created the magic in my imagination; however, as I read the story more and more, I came to see the practicality in it. Maybe I was convinced that there really were mermaids out there so the story became practical to me? To illustrate, The Little Mermaid portrays a young mermaid with these typical characteristics, but Andersen takes it a step further.

The mermaids in each version of the story differ greatly, especially the reasons behind each mermaid's wish to go to land with the people. Andersen's mermaid wants to be a human being so she can have an eternal soul after she dies. She is driven to become a human. Their world seemed to her to be much larger than her own. Disney made The Little Mermaid a traditional fairy tale, because Andersen's ideas could not be translated into a modern cartoon that was socially accepted for children. So Disney used the classic battle between good and evil, which is typically understood everywhere, instead of the mermaid's battle within herself as Andersen wrote.

In my mind, fairy tales represent the good conquering over the evil after a significant challenge. In contrast, Andersen displays the sea witch winning the battle. The little mermaid does not look back on her life under the sea, but looks forward to her chance to attain an eternal soul. Why would the sea witch say such a thing that might change the little mermaids mind about becoming a human? I assume that the reasons for this line may be to enforce the adult figure in the story. The sea witch is older; therefore, she is wise and guides the young mermaid. For example, Disney reveals the story to have a happy ending in that the little mermaid and the Prince marry.

One could conceive the ending to have different meanings. The little mermaid had failed and evil had won. In the original Andersen story, The Little Mermaid , she does not marry the Prince, which is what seems to be what she should do. Still, she learned to love unconditionally, and did not turn into sea foam, as mermaids do. She ascended and obtained a human soul from entering the daughters of air. The daughters of air are portrayed to be a spiritual movement. When I read this story as a child, I can see why I related the daughters of air to heaven.

Finally, by losing her life, she wins the hope of immortality because of her years of good deeds. It is almost like viewing death as a reward in this story because she in fact did win and gain her immortal soul. After reading the story at age nineteen, what really struck me was how the little mermaid did not get what she thought she wanted, but ended up with something much more important or valuable: This means that they fit what we would assign to children right or not.

This, among other terms, will be used to weigh through the book Giraffes? Doris Haggis-On-Whey to assess how it relates to other books. It fits the look of an educational book. What I mean by this is that when I think of an educational book, I associate lots of photographs, small amounts of text simply to explain the background information or captions to pictures , and a particular layout for their pages. This vision of a particular educational book is founded in the strictly educational, typical case prototype books I used to read as I was younger; the Eyewitness book series used to be my absolute favorite book to read for the very same reasons listed above.

They disguised learning to be fun and painless. To continue on, this book has a very similar layout to that series. Part of a series itself, the authors and designers purposely tried to model the visual presentation of an Eyewitness look in this satiric series, as to help create its ambiance.

On every single page there is at least one photograph in which the surrounding text pertains. The diagrams or drawings are all clearly labeled, as well as the photographs, to keep things clear. Moreover, there is a pocket on the back inside cover of the book where they provide several activities to complete. Each diagram has a specific purpose; this purpose is to support the text, and bring it clarity. More importantly than the pictures or layout of the book, is the actual text. As mentioned earlier, at first glance the book looks like it set the standards for the typical case prototype book.

When one reads the text, however, they are shocked from the lack of validity, completely crushing any thought of this book fitting the typical case prototype. I believe this is true, because the text of a book is far more important than the pictures.

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The book goes out of its way to make fun of all educational writing. Every situation presented in the book is presented as fact, no matter how farfetched it is. It is as if the book is telling joke after joke, and keeping a straight face the whole time.

The text is comprised only fictional scenarios or facts, while the pictures and layout design lead you to believe otherwise. You see, giraffes love drinking fruit juices…but their bodies have no real use for fruit juice, so it all trickles down to their legs where it stays and squishes around. This is only one example of how the book is so unbelievable; on every single page, there are multiple examples of such ridiculous statements. The mere appearance of the book is shockingly similar to those I have read as a tool to induce learning. Instead of being completely false, the book Giraffes?

Does contain a small amount of educational material in it. For instance, on page 48, there are two diagrams of fish; one of the colored pictures labels the outside organs of the fish, while the other informatively labels some of the inside organs. The same case occurs on pages 6, 9, 13, 38, and A child reading this book would be able to sort out that this piece of information is correct, compared to the extremely farfetched text of the story. Because the whole rest of the book is in outfield, learning about the fish is somewhat disguised. Even if the reader has some negative stigma towards learning, they will not realize what is happening.

The reader is subconsciously focused on not believing anything about the giraffes. When they see information that is true, they do not remember that they are learning. These comparatively small diagrams in the book are a very good reference for information. For this reason, I feel that the book has both typical and atypical case traits. The appearance of the book and hidden learning tools are created for children to induce learning. The ridiculous text, however, completely bashes any hope of it fitting into the typical case mold.

The book is just too progressive and turns how we would normally react to a story from natural to unnatural. The readers have to be conscious to how they respond to such material, as opposed to a conservative book that reinforces old ideas or beliefs. This defamiliarization causes us to challenge all that we have known to be true about educational books. When I read those books, I would never give a second thought to whether or not what I was reading was true. I would completely trust the narrator and authors. After reading a book that tricks you to believe that it might be true, I will never be able to read an Eyewitness book in the same light.

That is the heart of defamialization ; it permanently causes something to be looked at differently. One tool that the author uses to defamiliarize the readers is metafiction. The irony in this quote, is that what the authors are claiming is so absurd, that there is no way it would be obvious to anyone. No one would know to think that, because it is not based on any hint of truth. This concept is one of several that help explain the term metafiction.

In metafiction , not only does the narrator do too much or too little, the lines between the fictional world and the real world are blurred. The book is doing something, whether it is a quote, picture, etc. After reading the above mentioned quote on page 9, and also looking at pages 7 and 13, it becomes clear that the author is drawing attention to the absurdity of the text.

This tool is used to heighten the satiric nature of the book. From pure common sense, we know what the text claims is not true about fruit juices ; such claims have no scientific standing. When the author also jokes later in the book about personifying words, we have to second guess that as well.

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This silly statement about words calls attention to the fact that the reader is actually reading. Horrobin Guide to Favourite Australian Fish ed. Like most inshore saltwater predators, Salmon hunt around rocky headlands, offshore islands and bomboras [etc. Bombora probably derives from the Aboriginal Sydney Language where it may have referred specifically to the current off Dobroyd Head, Port Jackson.

The term was first recorded in and is now used frequently in surfing and fishing contexts with its abbreviation bommie and bommy being common: Used allusively to refer to a hasty departure or speedy action. Bondi is the Sydney suburb renowned worldwide for its surf beach. Trams last ran on the line in , but the phrase has remained a part of Australian English. The book is aimed at young adults and the young at heart Bonzer is an adjective meaning 'surpassingly good, splendid, great'.

In the early records the spelling bonzer alternates with bonser , bonza , and bonzor. The adjective, noun, and adverb are all recorded from the early years of the 20th century:. The little pony outlaw is wonderfully fast at disposing of his mounts. Yuong Jack Hansen undertook to sit him but failed at every attempt. Jack states he got a 'bonza on the napper', at one time when thrown. The python is shedding his skin Cable By Blow and Kiss: Came back grinning widely, with the assurance that it [ sc. A fool or simpleton; a stupid person; an uncouth person.

Boofhead derives from buffle-headed 'having a head like a buffalo' OED and bufflehead 'a fool, blockhead, stupid fellow' OED. Bufflehead has disappeared from standard English, but survives in its Australian form boofhead. It was popularised by the use of boofhead as the name of a dimwitted comic strip character invented by R. Clark and introduced in the Sydney Daily Mail in May For an earlier discussion of the word see our Word of the Month article from December Many a time when his round head nodded wisely in accord with the sergeant's explanations, the sergeant was tempted to think: For those who think we should follow the Kiwis in taxation, feel free to move there.

We get their boofheads so they can have ours. Boomerang is an Australian word which has moved into International English. The word was borrowed from an Aboriginal language in the early years of European settlement, but the exact language is still uncertain. Early evidence suggests it was borrowed from a language in, or just south of, the Sydney region. While the spelling boomerang is now standard, in the early period the word was given a variety of spellings: The Australian Aboriginal boomerang is a crescent-shaped wooden implement used as a missile or club, in hunting or warfare, and for recreational purposes.

The best-known type of boomerang , used primarily for recreation, can be made to circle in flight and return to the thrower. Although boomerang -like objects were known in other parts of the world, the earliest examples and the greatest diversity of design is found in Australia. A specimen of a preserved boomerang has been found at Wyrie Swamp in South Australia and is dated at 10, years old. Boomerangs were not known throughout the entirety of Australia, being absent from the west of South Australia, the north Kimberley region of Western Australia, north-east Arnhem Land, and Tasmania.

In some regions boomerangs are decorated with designs that are either painted or cut into the wood. Very early in Australian English the term boomerang was used in transferred and figurative senses, especially with reference to something which returns to or recoils upon its author. These senses are now part of International English, but it is interesting to look at the earliest Australian evidence for the process of transfer and figurative use:. Like the strange missile which the Australian throws, Your verbal boomerang slaps you on the nose.

The argument that there should be profitable industrial prison-labour is a boomerang with a wicked recoil. Labour-Socialist legislation is boomerang legislation, and it generally comes back and hits those it was not intended for. By the s the verbal sense developed another meaning: Australia's a big country An' Freedom's humping bluey And Freedom's on the wallaby Oh don't you hear her Cooee, She's just begun to boomerang She'll knock the tyrants silly.

On 13 November the Canberra Times reported that 'Greg Chappell's decision to send England in appeared to have boomeranged'. These verbal senses of boomerang have also moved into International English. For a further discussion of boomerang see the article 'Boomerang, Boomerang, Thou Spirit of Australia! The phrase is first recorded in the s. Given that her cousins are real-life princesses, Makim should be the full bottle on the art of pouring and drinking tea like a lady. A tax avoidance scheme. In the late s a large number of bottom of the harbour schemes were operating in corporate Australia.

The term is usually used attributively. The feller in the dock was some fabulous creature - part lawyer, part farmer - who'd been caught in a bottom-of-the-harbour tax avoidance scheme. An employee responsible for maintaining the outer fences on a station, or a publicly owned vermin-proof fence. This sense of boundary rider is recorded from the s but in more recent years, as a result of changes in technology and modes of transport, this occupation has become relatively rare. Since the s the term has been used of a boundary umpire in Australian Rules Football, a cricketer in a fielding position near the boundary, and a roving reporter at a sporting game.

For a more detailed discussion of the original sense of boundary rider and the later sporting senses see our Word of the Month article from December The duties of a boundary rider for the most part consist in riding round the fences every day, seeing that they are all in good order, blocking up any panels that may be broken, putting out strangers that is stock that have strayed on to the run , and, in fact, doing all that may pertain to keeping his master's stock on his own land, and everybody's else out of it.

Mechanisation had finally reached the open-range country. There were no more pumpers or boundary riders. Be the unlikely winner of an event; to win an event coming from well behind. For a detailed discussion of this phrase see our blog 'Doing a Bradbury: Maybe Doing a Bradbury will become a common saying in Australian sport[: The Socceroos need some of that luck. Someone would one day do a 'Bradbury' and finish third or fourth in the Brownlow Medal yet be crowned the winner. The practice of improperly increasing the membership of a local branch of a political party in order to ensure the preselection of a particular candidate.

The term is a specific use of branch meaning 'a local division of a political party'. While the practice described by branch stacking has been around for a very long time, the word itself is first recorded in the s. Banks and Blaxland electorates adjoin each other and what the people lodging the appeals are saying is that extensive branch 'stacking' has been going on. Labor will fight branch stacking by forcing all members to be on the electoral roll before taking part in a preselection vote.

Leaving immediately; making a hasty departure; at full speed. It is likely that this expression was first used in horseracing to refer to a horse that moved very quickly out of the starting gates. The phrase plays on two different meanings of the verb be off: The irony is of course that their CEO is the least loyal person in the company.

First sign of a better offer and they are off like a bride's nightie. An invitation to bring a plate of food to share at a social gathering or fundraiser. There are many stories of new arrivals in Australia being bamboozled by the instruction to bring a plate. As the locals know, a plate alone will not do. In earlier days the request was often ladies a plate , sometimes followed by gentlemen a donation.

Mrs Gum has kindly offered her home on Saturday, 14th of April for a social evening. Ladies bring a plate. A visit in from our Tasmanian friends. Please bring a plate. The story of wild horses in the Australian landscape was vividly brought to life in Banjo Paterson's poem 'The Man from Snowy River': The origin for this term is still disputed. Curr in Australian Race gives booramby meaning 'wild' in the language of the Pitjara or Pidjara or Bidjara people of the region at the headwaters of the Warrego and Nogoa Rivers in south-western Queensland.

This is in the general location of the earliest evidence, but the language evidence has not been subsequently confirmed. This origin was popularised by Paterson in an introduction to his poem 'Brumby's run' printed in A common suggestion is that brumby derives from the proper name Brumby. This theory was also noted by E. Morris in Austral English in Over the years, various Messrs Brumby have been postulated as the origin. More recently, Dymphna Lonergan suggested that the word comes from Irish word bromaigh , the plural form of the word for a young horse, or colt.

A fine grazing block, lightly timbered, and for which the lessee would expect to draw a thousand pounds for his goodwill, without a hoof upon it, by a singular species of transition is suddenly metamorphosed into a mass of scrub, only fit for a mob of 'Brumbies'. The country's rotten with brumbies.

Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms

A forlorn hope; no prospect whatever. One explanation for the origin of the term is that it comes from the name of the convict William Buckley, who escaped from Port Phillip in and lived for 32 years with Aboriginal people in southern Victoria. A second explanation links the phrase to the Melbourne firm of Buckley and Nunn established in , suggesting that a pun developed on the 'Nunn' part of the firm's name with 'none' and that this gave rise to the formulation 'there are just two chances, Buckley's and none'.

This second explanation appears to have arisen after the original phrase was established. For an earlier discussion about the origin of the term buckley's chance see the article 'Buckley's' in our Ozwords newsletter. In our sporting columns, in the Fitzroy team appears the name of Bracken. It should have been Buckley. Olympus explains that he altered it because he didn't want the Fitzroy men to have 'Buckley's chance'. If I lose this job I've got Buckley's chance of getting another one.

A pair of close-fitting male swimming briefs made of stretch fabric. The Australian term is probably a variation of the international English grape smugglers for such a garment. The term is a jocular allusion to the appearance of the garment. Budgie smugglers is first recorded in the late s.

For a more detailed discussion of the word see our Word of the Month article from December Nothing stands between you and a continent made entirely of icebergs except the Southern Ocean. That, and a thin pair of Speedos so figure-hugging you can see every goosebump - flimsy togs that are known not-all-that-affectionately by us Brown boys as budgie smugglers!

A kind of fine powdery dirt or dust, often found in inland Australia. Roads or tracks covered with bulldust may be a hazard for livestock and vehicles, which can become bogged in it. It is probably called bulldust because it resembles the soil trampled by cattle in stockyards. The word can also be used as a polite way of saying bullshit.

Both senses of the word are first recorded in the s. Motoring across Lake Eyre This 'bull' dust might be about two feet deep, and cakes on the surface, so that it is hard to penetrate. Cleary Climate of Courage: When a stretch of loose bulldust appeared too daunting, Joe would gun the engine down and go at a speed that didn't give us time to bog down.

He knew that the horse, trainer and rider were O. I told him that nothing would get within a 'bull's roar' of Agricolo to interfere with him, and such was the case. Again, through no fault of the sometimes-too-helpful McGuire, no recent contestant has come within a bull's roar of winning a serious amount of cash. The term is often found in this phrasal form where it now has several meanings: These figurative senses of bung emerged in the late 19th century.

He was importuned to desist, as his musical talent had 'gone bung' probably from over-indulgence in confectionery. Sydney boy Scott Reed was the name on every recruiter's list, but he has been taken to hospital with a bung ankle. An amphibious monster supposed to inhabit inland waterways. Descriptions of it vary greatly. Some give it a frightful human head and an animal body. Many descriptions emphasise its threat to humans and its loud booming at night.

It inhabits inland rivers, swamps, and billabongs. The word comes from the Aboriginal Wathaurong language of Victoria. Bunyip is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of this word see the article 'There's a Bunyip Close behind us and he's Treading on my Tail' in our Ozwords newsletter. On the bone being shown to an intelligent black, he at once recognised it as belonging to the 'Bunyip', which he declared he had seen. Everyone knows bunyips live in the Wingecarribee Swamp, problem is, there are quite a few different theories about this elusive animal and it all seems to turn on how much grog visitors to the swamp have had before they hear the distinctive roar.

Venture an attempt; give something a try. This is an Australian alteration of the standard English phrase give it a whirl. Give it a burl is first recorded in the early years of the 20th century. Should be some fish out there I say. We'll give it a burl, eh? I've never been on a boat cruise. We wanted to give it a burl and see how it went. We'd do it again. What do you think this is, bush week? These senses of bush week go back to the early 20th century.

The phrase originally implied the notion that people from the country are easily fooled by the more sophisticated city slickers. The speaker resents being mistaken for a country bumpkin. I get smart alecks like you trying to put one over on me every minute of the day. What do you think this is? They had already been warned about the breastfeeding business Beat it, you two! The act or process of criticising the Australian Government and its bureaucracy.

Canberra , the capital of Australia, has been used allusively to refer to the Australian Government and its bureaucracy since the s. The term Canberra bashing emerged in the s, and is also applied in criticisms of the city itself. For a more detailed discussion of the term see our Word of the Month article from February Even Federal Liberal MPs from Tasmania feel that their electoral standing is increased by regular outbursts of 'Canberra bashing'. While Canberra bashing has always been a national sport, it is fair to say it has rarely, if ever, been played so artfully and with such dedication as in the past two to three years.

Politicians on both sides have shown a willingness to put the boot into a national capital. In a political context a decision made by a party leader etc. This term also takes the form captain's call. Captain's pick is derived from sporting contexts in which a team captain has the discretion to choose members of the team. The political sense emerged in Australian English in For a more detailed discussion of this term see our Word of the Month article from January Ms Peris, who as of yesterday was yet to join the Labor party, is set to become the first indigenous ALP representative in federal parliament with an assured top place on the NT Senate ticket in what Ms Gillard described as a 'captain's pick'.

What Abbott's stubbornness missed, however, was that it was the public and his own MPs more than the media or Labor who were disgusted by his intransigence in refusing to remove his captain's pick Speaker. To die; to break down; to fail.

Also spelt kark , and often taking the form cark it. The word is probably a figurative use of an earlier Australian sense of cark meaning 'the caw of a crow', which is imitative. Nelson Petrol, Bait, Ammo and Ice: The offside rule has carked it, and good on the refs. The resulting play is five stories from the morgue, monologues by people who have recently carked it and have 'woken up' in the morgue. A derogatory term for a person who espouses left-wing views but enjoys an affluent lifestyle.

It is modelled on the originally British term, champagne socialist , which has a similar meaning. The term chardonnay socialist appeared in the s, not long after the grape variety Chardonnay became very popular with Australian wine drinkers. I'm going to keep charting their perturbations.. Maybe if these rorts are dispensed with, instead of getting failed businessmen, unionists who couldn't get work elsewhere and lawyers who are nothing more than chardonnay socialists and see life as an MP a cosy way to feather their nests, we'll see people in Parliament who have a genuine wish to do something for this country.

A checkout operator at a supermarket. This term usually refers to female checkout operators hence chick , an informal word for a young woman , but with changes in the gender makeup of the supermarket workforce the term is occasionlly applied to males. Checkout chick is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of the term see our Word of the Month article from May The checkout chick is too busy taking money to tell you how to operate your cut-price, multi-purpose, plastic encased kitchen magician.

This gormless dude started arguing with the checkout chick and held up a line of about 30 people. A domestic fowl; a chicken. Chook is the common term for the live bird, although chook raffles , held in Australian clubs and pubs, have ready-to-cook chooks as prizes. The term has also been transferred to refer to other birds, and often in the form old chook it can refer to a woman.

See our Word of the Month articles 'chook run' and 'chook lit' for further uses of chook. A man was found in the cow-shed of Government House Was he looking after the housemaid or the little chookies? We have chooks at our farm in Bena, an hour and a half out of town. This expression recalls an earlier time when many Australians kept chooks domestic chickens in the backyard and the dunny was a separate outhouse. Maybe when Mr Keating has finished educating the judiciary, he might have a go at the politicians and bureaucrats, starting with arithmetic.

Although I must say this is a very cunning, contrived piece of legislation, if that is what they set out to do. May their chooks turn into emus and kick their dunnies down. Chunder possibly comes from a once-popular cartoon character, 'Chunder Loo of Akim Foo', drawn by Norman Lindsay for a series of boot polish advertisements in the early s.

It is possible that 'Chunder Loo' became rhyming slang for spew. Chunder , however, is the only form to be recorded. The earliest evidence is associated with Australian troops in action to the north of Australia during the Second World War. Shute A Town like Alice: The way these bloody Nips go on. Back at least 20 years - to a land where women glow and men chunder. Something that is largely illusory or exists in name only; a poor substitute or imitation.

For a more detailed discussion of the word see our blog 'The evolution of a word - the case of Clayton's'. So who's the press secretary working out of the NSW Parliament whose press-gallery nickname is Clayton.. Pung Growing up Asian in Australia: My bikini top is crammed so full of rubbery 'chicken fillets' I'd probably bounce if you threw me.

These Clayton's breasts jiggle realistically when I jump up and down on the spot. In the pastoral industry an animal that has not been branded with a mark identifying the owner can easily be stolen or lost. The word is first recorded in the s. There are several transferred and figurative senses of cleanskin that evolved from the orgininal sense. In the first decade of the 20th century cleanskin began to be used to describe 'an Aboriginal person who has not passed through an initiation rite'.

From the s cleanskin was also used of 'a bottle of wine without a label that identifies the maker, sold at a price cheaper than comparable labelled bottles; the wine in such a bottle'. These are branded by the owners of such herds, who know all the while that they do not belong to them, on the assumption that they have the best right to these 'clean skins', and that, after all, they are more likely to be their property than that of anyone else. Keenan The Horses too are Gone: In the rangelands an unbranded calf becomes a cleanskin and cleanskins belong to the first person capable of planting a brand on the rump.

A friend, a companion. It is likely that these terms, as well as cobber , found their way into London slang especially from the Jewish population living in the East End , and from there, via British migrants, into Australian English. Cobber , now somewhat dated, is rarely used by young Australians. Our service was restored at about A small-scale farmer; in later use often applied to a substantial landowner or to the rural interest generally. Cocky arose in the s and is an abbreviation of cockatoo farmer.

This was then a disparaging term for small-scale farmers, probably because of their habit of using a small area of land for a short time and then moving on, in the perceived manner of cockatoos feeding. Removing the stereotypical image of farmers being whinging cockies is also important. A person sentenced in the British Isles to a term of penal servitude in an Australian Colony. The foundations of European settlement in Australia are based on the transportation of tens of thousands of prisoners from the British Isles. While in America convict is still used to refer to a prisoner, in Australia it is now largely historical.

For a further discussion of this word see our blog 'A long lost convict: The convicts on both sides are distributed in huts. Angas Description of the Barossa Range: No convicts are transported to this place, for South Australia is not a penal colony. Originally a call used by an Aboriginal person to communicate with someone at a distance; later adopted by settlers and now widely used as a signal, especially in the bush; a name given to the call.

The iconic call of the Australian bush comes from the Aboriginal Sydney language word gawi or guwi meaning 'come here'. Cooee is recorded from the early years of European settlement in Sydney. It is often found in the phrase within cooee meaning 'within earshot; within reach, near'. In calling to each other at a distance, the natives make use of the word Coo-ee , as we do the word Hollo , prolonging the sound of the coo , and closing that of the ee with a shrill jerk. If I ever see you within coo-ee of my boat again, I'll drown you. These Games are no longer some village competition with a hometown audience that you can please with a cooee and a wobbleboard.

The word is a borrowing from Yuwaaliyaay and neighbouring languages , an Aboriginal language of northern New South Wales. In the earlier period it was was spelt in various ways, including coolabah , coolobar , and coolybah. It is term for any of several eucalypts, especially the blue-leaved Eucalyptus microtheca found across central and northern Australia, a fibrous-barked tree yielding a durable timber and occurring in seasonally flooded areas.

Coolibah is first recorded in the s. The country consists of open plains, with myall and coolabah. With its dead coolibah trees, sun-bleached cattle bones and screeching galahs, Howard Blackburn's back paddock could be anywhere in Australia's drought-ravaged grazing lands. Bad, unpleasant or unsatisfactory: Things were crook on the land in the seventies. Crook means bad in a general sense, and also in more specific senses too: All senses are recorded from the s. Clune Roaming Round the Darling: My cobber, here, used to sing in opera.

He's a pretty crook singer, but he'll sing for you. I was feeling crook at the Ipswich races and over the weekend. Used to indicate the need for a rest in order to settle down, solve a problem, etc. The phrase now often with some variations was originally the title of a a revue at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney Catholic Church officials once thought child-sex abuse victims just needed a 'cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down' to get over crimes committed against them by paedophile clergy.

These terms are now obsolete. These were called currency. Let the currency lads and lasses turn Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses if they choose. The answer of the simple Currency Lass will suit our purpose, who, when asked if she would like to visit England, said, no! An unfashionable person; a person lacking style or character; a socially awkward adolescent, a 'nerd'. These senses of dag derive from an earlier Australian sense of dag meaning 'a "character", someone eccentric but entertainingly so'.

Ultimately all these senses of dag are probably derived from the British dialect especially in children's speech sense of dag meaning a 'feat of skill', 'a daring feat among boys', and the phrase to have a dag at meaning 'to have a shot at'. Dag referring to an unfashionable person etc. Has it helped them feel more relaxed with the boys in their PD group.

Christian, while your budget may appear to be reasonable.. Never ever wear a striped suit, a striped shirt and a striped tie together - just dreadful You look like a real dag. Hurry up, get a move on. When a daggy sheep runs, the dried dags knock together to make a rattling sound. The word dag originally daglock was a British dialect word that was borrowed into mainstream Australian English in the s. C'mon Mum, rattle yer dags - the old girls are hungry! Rattle yer dags, woolclassers, time's running out to re-register yourselves with the Australian Wool Exchange.

To pull down or remove the trousers from a person as a joke or punishment. Dak derives from another Australian term daks meaning 'a pair of trousers'. The term is first recorded from the early s but is probably much older than that. For a more detailed discussion of dak see our Word of the Month article from July We played footy together, but his recognition was going on to play for Footscray; I was the little fella so mine was getting dakked every pie night.

His family didn't know about it until he was dacked during a game this year. A simple kind of bread, traditionally unleavened and baked in the ashes of an outdoor fire. Because it was the most common form of bread for bush workers in the nineteenth century, to earn your damper means to be worth your pay. There is at this moment many a poor settler up the country, buried in the bush.. We made damper out of flour and water, squeezed it around green sticks to cook over the coals.

A commemorative ceremony held at dawn on Anzac Day. Anzac Day, April 25, is a national public holiday in Australia commemorating all those who have served and died in war. While commemorative services have been held on April 25 since , the term dawn service is not recorded until the s.

Ahead of us, already drunk in preparation for an Anzac Sunday, three old mates, Les, Norm and Billy, a rolled flag between them, zigzag toward the Dawn Service. Cruise Express's Legends of the Mediterranean package will cruise the waters off the Turkish coast at dawn on April 25 and the official dawn service ashore will be broadcast on the ship.

The didgeridoo is a wind instrument that was originally found only in Arnhem Land in northern Australia. It is a long, wooden, tubular instrument that produces a low-pitched, resonant sound with complex, rhythmic patterns but little tonal variation. In popular understanding many Australians probably believe that this is an Aboriginal word. Subsequent research has cast doubt on this etymology, and in the following statement was made in Australian Aboriginal Words in English: The name probably evolved from white people's ad hoc imitation of the sound of the instrument'.

This argument is supported by two of the earliest pieces of evidence for the term:. It produces but one sound - 'didjerry, didjerry, didjerry -' and so on ad infinitum. First recorded in this sense Australian Soldiers' Magazine February: About the origin of this word 'Digger' It came to France when the sandgropers gave up digging on the goldfields of W. They include a major who planned an 'unprecedented operation' to capture a rogue Afghan sergeant who murdered three Australian diggers.

Reliable; genuine; honest; true. This word is a shortening of fair dinkum which comes from British dialect. The adjective is first recorded in Australia from the s. For a more detailed discussion of dinkum see the article 'The Story of Dinkum' on our blog. I'll tell you, sir, what happened, and I tell the dinkum truth.

The electorate is better educated than ever before, people are more financially successful and they see through the paradox that governments promise more and more but can achieve less. The starting point is to make the debate more dinkum. The phrase was first recorded in This may give a clue to the source of the phrase. If you are done like a dinner , you are completely and efficiently demolished.

Bride Letters from Victorian Pioneers: The horse swam for a quarter of a mile down the river with the cart after him.. Keep going the way they are and they will be done like a dinner for many elections to come. To inform upon someone ; to incriminate someone. The word is probably related to British dialect dob meaning 'to put down an article heavily or clumsily; to throw down', and 'to throw stones etc.

A Bug's Life - Wikipedia

Dob is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of this term see the article 'The Story of Dob' on our blog. He came to me and dobbed in one of the carpenters for talking. He used to sell single cigarettes to kids, and although it was common knowledge, he had never been busted and no one ever dobbed on him.

This example illustrates the way the origins of words and phrases can be lost with changes in technology. The expression has several variants including fed up to dolly's wax , and its meaning does not always denote being 'full' with food. First recorded in the early 20th century. There are books on this and books on that about past, present, and future international relations all deadly dull And I am fed up to dolly's wax with them. Tiffany Mateship with Birds: In a preferential system of voting a vote recorded by allocating preferences according to the order in which candidates' names appear on the ballot paper; such votes viewed collectively.

First recorded in the early midth century. In previous Senate elections about 2 per cent. In South Australia this vote - the 'donkey vote' - will go to the Anti-Communists. Although happy to top the ballot in Warringah, Greens candidate Keelah Lam said the only donkey votes in Warringah would come from people with no interest in politics. A parliamentary question asked of a Minister by a member of the party in government to give the Minister the opportunity to deliver a prepared reply. It comes from Dorothy Dix , the pen-name of Elizabeth Gilmer , an American journalist who wrote a famous personal advice column which was syndicated in Australia.

Her column came to seem a little too contrived, as if she was writing the questions as well as the answers. For a discussion about the use of Dorothy Dixer in rhyming slang see the article 'Dorothies and Michelles' in our Ozwords newsletter. There were many questions on trade and finance matters.

Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school. These are the things I learned… Share everything. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Give them to someone who feels sad. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day.

Take a nap every afternoon. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.


  • Cracking the C, C++, and Java Interview;
  • California Breweries North (Breweries Series);
  • Wilms Tumour: Your Way Forward;
  • Love Actually () - IMDb.
  • Non ! Ce nest pas la faute à Bruxelles (ESSAI ET DOC) (French Edition).
  • What part of you CAN, dont you understand?!
  • Adventures into the Unknown: Vigil Among the Vampires and other stories.

Sweet and silly wedding readings from children's books If you and your partner are both kids-at-heart looking for a wedding reading to highlight your sweet and silly sides, these passages from children's books just might be perfect! How to find and include readings in your wedding ceremony? When it comes to "elements to include in a wedding," one of the first things that many people think of are readings. And there's a good reason why -- so…. Sweet, serious, and non-gaggy: Notes You can add a note for the editor here.

When Megan's not writing, traveling, and sleeping, she's eating like the fate of the world depends on it. You can snoop into her personal life over on her website The Dash and Dine! I'm doing a reading at a wedding pretty soon. It's going to be 'We Go Together' from Grease.

I've been leaning heavily towards using Tim Pratt's "Scientific Romance" found here: Especially for this part: I never understood why more time travelers don't do that sort of thing. OMG I love this one. It sounds so much like my honey. We want to do out own vows but both don't really want to write them.

I sent this to him as an idea to read as his vows. Oooooh, that's a good one! Wish I had found it on my search. Thinking about adding it to the article just because it's THAT rad. We're doing the Taylor Mali poem for ours. We split it up between two readers; one person has the Mali poem, the other a collection of assorted quotes on the subject of love.

Of course, that includes the Hitchhiker's Guide's advice. Also squeezing in "A Lovely Love Story" which gets a lot of traffic around here. I felt like a genius when I realized I could have one of my favorite poems as a wedding reading— Frank O'Hara's "Having a coke with you…" The line "I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world…" always makes me tear up. We had a friend read the picture book of Neil Gaiman's "Instructions" http: She did a beautiful job.

It'd be particularly perfect because the man I plan on proposing to is delightfully English. These are all fabulous! And I think I've finally found one of our readings for our wedding in the Taylor Mali poem. So adorable, so true…and, as we're huge dog lovers, so perfect for my DF and I. And I'm trying to work out a way to modify the Taylor Mali one to work for owning cats… haha We have a dog too but the boy prefers the cats. Let me know if you figure this one out… FH and I love that reading, but we're definitely cat people.

I considered this too I love the reading, but don't own a dog. Unfortunately, my conclusion was that's Falling in Love is not like owning a cat at all. XD Let me know if you work it out! I didn't realise until after we'd picked it but she actually wrote a lot of poems I liked as a kid. For some reason it never occured to me that people who wrote silly poems about everyday life might have written something about weddings too.

I love the "you're my cup of tea" one and may use as part of a toast at my wedding reception, which will be a "High Tea" theme in a castle. I think that poem is charming! Props for including the Douglas Adams! I pulled that segment as the one to be on the back of my programs the second I went over "word related wedding things. We did a portion of the script of the film Stardust also by Gaiman for ours — where Yvaine is talking about love:.

You know when I said I knew little about love? I know a lot about love. I've seen it, centuries and centuries of it, and it was the only thing that made watching your world bearable.

Wedding poems

Pain, lies, hate… It made me want to turn away and never look down again. But when I see the way that mankind loves… You could search to the furthest reaches of the universe and never find anything more beautiful. So yes, I know that love is unconditional. But I also know that it can be unpredictable, unexpected, uncontrollable, unbearable and strangely easy to mistake for loathing, and… What I'm trying to say, Tristan is… I think I love you.

Is this love, Tristan? I never imagined I'd know it for myself. My heart… It feels like my chest can barely contain it. Like it's trying to escape because it doesn't belong to me any more. It belongs to you. And if you wanted it, I'd wish for nothing in exchange — no gifts. No demonstrations of devotion. Nothing but knowing you loved me too. Just your heart, in exchange for mine. Thanks for restarting one — it's brought back loads of happy memories of the planning of my wedding.

My traditional southern pastor wasn't keen on the idea of using Dr. I was so excited to use it in our wedding. Some people were confused by it, but that was okay as everyone could tell how much it meant to us. We had a friend read it, but we already knew it pretty well from scrutinising our options while putting together our ceremony.

We were particularly fond of the reference to our "giant double brain" and quoted it to each other before the wedding. When it came to the reading during the actual ceremony, I started getting excited when that line was about to come up. This is the most original idea I've heard in yonks and will very likely be using it! Somebody loves you if they pick an eyelash off of your face or wet a napkin and apply it to your dirty skin.

They notice these things. They really look at you and are the first to notice if something is amiss with your beautiful visage! Unsure if someone really gives a shit about you? I can come over and bring you get well remedies! Being sick is different. Being sick means asking someone to hold your hair back when you vomit.

Somebody loves you if they call you out on your bullshit. They know you well enough and care about you enough to ask you to chill out, to bust your balls, to tell you to stop. They have an opinion about your decisions and the things you say and do. They want to be a part of it; they want to be a part of you. You know how with some of your friends there needs to be some sort of activity for you to hang out? That is fucking love. They realize the things you need to do in order to be content and come to terms with the fact that it might not include them. Never underestimate the gift of understanding.

When there are so many people who are selfish and equate relationships as something that only must make them happy, having someone around who can take their needs out of any given situation if they need to. Somebody loves you if they can order you food without having to be told what you want. Somebody loves you if they rub your back at any given moment. Somebody loves you if they give you oral sex without expecting anything back. No one is the prostitute. Just you and them. Somebody will always love you. Do you know of a way to contact the author? I'd love to use that, but it might have to be polished up a little bit for use at our wedding and I'd want to get the author's permission if possible.

I cried the first time I read that passage about Fenchurch and Arthur and I started crying again when I saw it here, just now! I know it's science fiction, but it's one of the truest and most poignant descriptions of meeting the right person — maybe especially as a lonely nerd — that I've ever read.

I wish my partner a serious D. Hey, now we have something for our next big anniversary. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyeilding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur.

Yes, that's exactly what love is: For those of you who cannot quite picture a pygmy mouse lemur, imagine a miniature Don Knotts or Steve Buscemi wearing a fur coat. OMG I'm so keeping that! We're involved with Pit Bull rescue perfect description of one in the first part of the quote and the second… well, who doesn't laugh at Don Knotts, let alone a mini one?

Does anyone know of any poems or stories about cameras that could be related back to love? I'm a photographer and really want to tie something about cameras into our readings! We modified "Yes, I'll Marry You" for a reading at our wedding and actually incorporated it into our theme as well!!! I was very excited to see it in your article!

Ever since you walked right in, the circle's been complete I've said goodbye to haunted rooms and faces in the street To the courtyard of the jester which is hidden from the sun I love you more than ever and I haven't yet begun. You breathed on me and made my life a richer one to live When I was deep in poverty you taught me how to give Dried the tears up from my dreams and pulled me from the hole Quenched my thirst and satisfied the burning in my soul.

I love you more than ever, more than time and more than love I love you more than money and more than the stars above Love you more than madness, more than waves upon the sea Love you more than life itself, you mean that much to me. I hate the way you talk to me, And the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car, I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots And the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick, It even makes me rhyme. I hate the way you're always right, I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, Even worse when you make me cry.

I hate it when you're not around, And the fact that you didn't call. Julia Stiles wasn't meant to cry in that scene; she just spontaneously started weeping as she read it, and they liked what it did for the character so much they kept that single take. I like you and I know why.

I like you because you are a good person to like. I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it's special And you remember it a long, long time. You say, Remember when you told me something special And both of us remember. When I think something is important you think it's important too We have good ideas When I say something funny, you laugh I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny too Hah-hah!