MORE SCHOOL "HOWLERS."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

MORE SCHOOL "HOWLERS."

AN ENGLISH COLLECTION. Even the staid London Times cannot refrain from printing school " Howlers " now and then. It recently culled the following from tho University correspondent : A welsher is a native of Wales:. A fissure is a man who sells fish. A blizzard is the inside of a duck. Polonius was a mythical sausage. The masculine of " vixen " is vicar. Shakespeare lived at Windsor with his merry wives. The King wore a scarlet robe trimmed with vermin. A parallelpiped is an animal with parellel legs. Gravity tells us why an apple does not go to heaven. Average means something that hens lay their eggs on. A line in geometry is what you draw and don't see. G. B. Shaw is the captain of the London Fire Brigade. A phlegmatic person is one who has chronic bronchitis. Ambiguity means telling the truth when you don't want to. A street is a road that has a very good class of people in it. The Immortal William is a name applied to the German Emperor. Wolsey saved his life by dying on the way from York to London. A passive verb is when the subject is the sufferer, as " I am loved." The Greenwich Meridian is the largest telescope in Greenwich Observatory. The whole world except the United States lies in the temperance zone. A trade union is a place to which a 'workman goes when he gets the sack. Transparent means something you can see through—for instance, a keyhole. Algebraical symbols are used when you don't know what you are talking about. The Minister of War is the clergyman who preaches to the soldiers in the barracks. Alfred the Great started a Chronicle and this still exists as a morning newspaper. Artificial perspiration is what you make a person alive with when they are only just dead. Queen Elizabeth rodo through Coventry witli nothing on and Raleigh ofl'ered her his cloak. An hypotenuse is the thing someone saw when ho had a bath and ho yelled " I've found it." The mechanical advantage ol: a long pump-liandlo is that you can have someone to help you pump. In the eighteenth century travelling was very romantic; most of the highroads were only bridal paths. Henry VIII. was very cruel to Ann Boleyn and ironed her. (The 'text-book says " he pressed his suit on her.") The chief duties of an M.P. are to go to sleep when another man is speaking, and force his party into power. The sun never sets on the British Empire because the British Empire is in tli'e oust and the sun sets in this west.