When I was in high school—so, many years ago (how many is left as an exercise for the reader)—my English teacher, Ms. Reinhardt, gave us a set of puzzles: familiar sayings, aphorisms, and clichés in unfamiliar guise. Amazingly enough, I kept my copy all these years, and just ran across it yesterday evening while searching for something else.
I don’t know what their origin is—I don’t think she made them up—but wherever they’re from, they’re cool brain-teasers. (And if anyone does know the source, let me know so I can credit them properly.) How many of them can you figure out?
1. A lithoid form, whose onward course
Is shaped by gravitational force
Can scarce enjoy the consolation
Of bryophytic aggregation.
2. To carry haulm of cereal growth
The tylopod is nothing loath;
But just one haulm too many means
That dorsal fracture supervenes.
3. When, nimbus-free, Sol marches by
Across the circumambient sky,
To graminiferous meads repair—
Your instant task awaits you there!
4. There is no use in exhortation
To practice equine flagellation,
If vital forces did depart
And still the breath, and cease the heart.
5. That unit of the avian tribe
Whose movements one can circumscribe
In manu, as a pair will rate
Subarborially situate.
6. For none who claims to represent
The Homo species sapient,
Will loiter Einstein’s fourth dimension
Or sea’s quotidian declension.
7. Faced with material esculent
As source of liquid nourishment
Avoid excess; ‘twill but displease
Of culinary expertise.
8. Conducting to the watering place
A quadruped of equine race
Is simple; but he may not care
To practice imbibition there.
9. The coroner observed: “Perpend,
The death of this, our feline friend,
Reflects preoccupation shown
With business other than his own.”
10. Of little value his compunctions
Who executes clavigerous functions,
When once from circumambient pen
Is snatched its equine denizen.
Got em all?
2 Comments
Skua@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 178d
::: spoiler Number 1
A rolling stone gathers no moss :::
::: spoiler Number 2 The straw that breaks the camel's back :::
::: spoiler Number 3 I think this might be "Make hay while the sun shines"? Very unsure about this. Presumably the sun can't be lightless, so we must be using nimbus to mean "cloud" here. The sun across a sky that is cloudless all around seems close enough to "the sun shines". I don't know what graminiferous means, but I would guess it's something about eating? Mead is... Well normally I'd think of that as fermented honey, but maybe it's a contracted form of meadow. The last sentence is simpler, just being about getting work done right away. Sun shining and getting work done right away sounds close to "make hay while the sun shines". :::
::: spoiler Number 4 It's no use flogging a dead horse. :::
These are fun!
Edit: oh, there are ten! Time to try the rest
Skua@kbin.earth · 3 pts · 178d
::: spoiler Number 5 A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush :::
::: spoiler Number 6 I want to say "time waits for no man" here, but I'm not sure what's going on with the tides part after it. I don't think I know any proverbs combining those two concepts :::
::: spoiler Number 7 Unsure about this one but I would guess "too many cooks spoil the broth". Liquid nourishment can definitely be soup, avoiding excess to avoid displeasing culinary tastes works for too many/much of something spoiling it, but I don't know what esculent is so I'm not certain :::
::: spoiler Number 8 You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink :::
::: spoiler Number 9 Curiosity killed the cat :::
::: spoiler Number 10 Not sure about this one. Something about a person's opinions not mattering once a horse is taken from its field, but I haven't got any ideas of where to go with that :::