"That's a matter of a piñon," he barked.

Way to go, Ros & Jerry.

Your last two make their pun with Tom's verb, rather than with an adverb. I've heard that this varient is called a "croaker", but I'd call it a Tom Swiftie.

"I forgot my Viagra ," said Tom pointlessly.
"You certainly need it ," said Thomasina, disappointedly.

Tom manages a Plaza de toros (bullring, for bullfighting).
"We might as well cancel and give the matadors the day off," said Tom, with noble insight.

quote:

---

"I forgot my Viagra ," said Tom pointlessly.
"You certainly need it ," said Thomasina, disappointedly.

---

"Oh really?" Tom said, rigidly.

"Well, that was a limp rejoinder," Thomasina said.

"It was the best I could come up with," muttered Tom softly.

"People say I'm handy," said Onan self-consciously.


(Technically, that was an "Onan Swifty," a little-used sub-division of the overall "Tom Swifty" genre.)

quote:

---

Originally posted by C J Strolin:
"People say I'm handy," said Onan self-consciously.

---

"Unlike the Venus de Milo," said Tom disarmingly.

PS: "CJ, it's good to see you again," shufitz rejoined.

"I'd love to dance with you, but I'm spoken for," said the debutante mistakenly.

"You're obsessed with that subject!" No I'm not!" said C.J. and R.E. at lager-heads.

"I quite agree," said B.H. punishingly.

"No more beer or whiskey?" whined Tom dispiritedly.

"Oh, lord!" said Thomasina, spiritedly!

(whined/wined? good one, Hic)

It's an outrage! Hic gets a "good one" (and I agree) for "whined/wined" while "lager-heads" goes without comment? I was proud of that one!

Who says you're easy?!

Quite right, CJ. Your "lager-heads" was inspired, and it "served" (no pun intended) as the inspiration for my pun.

"I merely followed with the obvious and vapid drinking pun," said hic insipedly.

"I see," said the blind man, "it's all coming back to me now," as he stood there, peeing into the wind.

quote:

---

It's an outrage! Hic gets a "good one" (and I agree) for "whined/wined" while "lager-heads" goes without comment? I was proud of that one!

---

Now, you know how I feel about my double dactyls!

Mr. Treetop writes:

quote:

---

"I see," said the blind man, "it's all coming back to me now," as he stood there, peeing into the wind.

---

... inspiring this:

"I see," said the blind carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

* ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** *

Thanks for the warm "welcome back," Kalleh. Since mid-September I've been showing a couple of first-time visitors around my native state -- Colorado -- and today I'm driving the length of Oklahoma. Friday I will return to Hawaii, God willing and if the Creeks don't rise.

~~~ jerry

"We'll all miss Elia Kazan," he said directly.

The name Elia Kazan always struck me as a good one for a magician. The above post brought back a not-quite-a-Tom-Swifty-but-close that I wrote years ago for a play (a group effort - writing by committee is a horror I've since avoided!) which promptly tanked:

The magician, making the corpse disappear, shouted "Abra Cadaver!"

Sorry to bring the news that it's been reincarnated. Do you read the Harry Potter books at all?
The Forbidden Curse which kills (accompanied by a flash of green light) is "Avra Kedavra"...

Great! Just watch, once again I won't see a penny of it.

As the author of the children's drug education book "Harry's a Pothead and the Sorcerer's Stoned," this won't be the first time those bastards screwed me out of some serious royalties.

"I'll have camomile or orange pekoe," said Tom teasingly.

"I have yet to arrive," gasped Tom, anticlimatically.

I love it Jerry, and you've inspired a response.

"You're not doing much for me either," replied Thomasina unbecomingly.

"I beg of you ... please! .... no tricks," Tom entreated.

Ooooooh I like that. The topical-Tom Swiftie.

"Tricks are part of the fun," said Tom's friend, egging him on.

"Next on our U.S.A. Holiday Schedule is Thanksgiving," said Tom, graciously ... gratefully?

"We'll get matching clown Halloween costumes," said Thomasina, trying to make-up.

"Thanks for the shredded cheese," Tom said gratefully.

Hey! That one even makes sense!


(Tom Swifties not being my long suit, I beam with pride...)

"Every October 31st, I become impotent" declared Tom with a hollow wienie.

(Yeah, yeah, I know. Stick to double dactyls, right?)


And not a T.S. but a question: If you go out tomorrow dressed as a hooker and say "Trick of Treat," are you being redundant?

quote:

---

If you go out tomorrow dressed as a hooker and say "Trick or Treat," are you being redundant?

---

I hereby nominate that line for a special niche in the "World's Funniest" Department.

Well done, C.J.

~~~ jerry

Yet another typo.

Oh, the ravages of old age!

Keep this in mind, young man,
As on through Life you roll:
Keep your eye upon the do-nut,
And not upon the hole !!

Has this habit of responding to compliments with self flagelation been a part of your life for a long time, C.J.?

I was born in 1930. Tell me about old age.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jerry thomas:
Keep your eye upon the do-nut,
And not upon the hole !!

---

Ich bin ein Berliner.

quote:

---

Originally posted by jerry thomas:
Has this habit of responding to compliments with self flagelation been a part of your life for a long time, C.J.?

---

Generally not. With Shufitz, B.H., R.E., Arnie etc etc etc to attend to this process, self-flagelation would simply be redundant.

I was just mildly miffed that I had come up with a rather pleasant play on words and then included such an easily avoided flaw.


And regarding age, it's 95% mental. I've known 25-year-olds who were ready for the Old Folk's Home and, on the other hand, once had an extremely mind-boggling affair with a woman very much my senior. (Yowzah!!)

Back to Tom Swifties, and I have no clue why this popped into my head.

"I'll make a fortune selling CD's of the arias from Aida!" said Tom operatunistically.

"Oh how I wish I could write like Victor Hugo," cried Tom, miserably.

...but I'm improving with experience, he said less miserably.

"And don't forget Dreyfus," he said, accusingly.

(And Tomasso, the Italian, muttered, "That would-a not be a-fair.")

"This time Hugo too far," said Tom victoriously.

(Rolling on the floor laughing here. These last few have been hilarious.)

I lost at strip poker, Tom said embarrassingly.

"Now where did I put that roach?" he asked, disjointedly.

Does it have to be an adverb to be a pure Tom Swiftie?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I lost at strip poker, Tom said embarrassingly.

---

For example, it seems to be a little sharper to make it
"'I lost at strip poker,' Tom said, embarrassed."

Would a suitable [no pun intended, of course] adjective still qualify?

I had assumed that the descriptive word had to qualify the verb describing Tom's actions - in the most recent example, "said".

That being the case then an adverb is the only part of speech possible.

Though I have to say that I felt that the adverb in that last example would better have been embarrassedly rather than embarrassingly. Tom was embarrassed; he was not embarrassing.

Richard English

For what it's worth, here's Tom Swifties -- The Archive.

Of course, Kallah's can be made adverbial just by changing it to "embarrassedly."

There's a variant (I think it's called "croakers") where the wit is in the verb. An example would be "That's not a fir tree or a spruce," Tom opined.

Sheesh! Why do they talk behind my back?, Kalleh asks supinely.

Embarrassedly then.

Jerry, that was a good site. I had thought they all had to be adverbs, but I see that Hic is right about a variant. For example, I liked, "The fountian is broken," Tom spouted.

[This message was edited by Kalleh on Mon Jan 5th, 2004 at 21:27.]

Um...so do we need a special name for
"I'm embarrassed!" said Tom, after losing at strip poker ?

A "Fom Twistie," maybe?

I like that name, Hab!

BTW, just for the record, "embarrassingly" could mean that Tom told his friend about his strip poker game, in an attempt to embarrass her, thus embarrassingly [You can't blame a woman for trying! ]