word games from the Grammar Lady

[barbara100 at jps.net]

GRAMMAR HOTLINE COLUMN  
MARY NEWTON BRUDER, 2000 

        Readers:  In keeping with the ``appropriateness'' discussion that has arisen in the past few weeks, here is a set of proverbs sent by a loyal reader. Notice how the overblown vocabulary obscures the meaning and impedes comminication. Can you figure them out? Here's an example:  Similar sire, similar scion. (Like father, like son.) 

        1. Precipitancy creates prodigality. 
        2. Tenants of vitreous abodes ought not to hurl lithoidal fragments. 
        3. It is not proper for mendicants to be indicatrous of preference. 
        4. Compute not your immature gallinaceous prior to their completed production cycle. 
        5. It is fruitless to become lachrymose because of scattered lacteal fluid. 
        6. Cleave gramineus matter for fodder during the period in which the orb of the day is refulgent. 
        7. Pulchritude does not extend below the surface of the dermis. 
        8. Failure to be present causes the vital organ to become more enamored. 
        9. Every article which coruscates is not fashioned from aureate metal. 
        10. Freedom from guile or fraud constitutes the most excellent principle of procedure. 
        11. Consolidated, you and I maintain ourselves erect; separated, we defer to the law of gravity. 
        12. Each canine passes through his own period of preeminence. 
        13. You cannot estimate the value of the contents of a  ound, printed 
narrative or record from its exterior vesture. 
        14. Folks deficient in ordinary judgement scurry to enter areas into which celestial beings are dreadful to set foot. 
        15. Liquid relish for the femal anserine fowl is the prescribed condiment for the male as well. 
        16. A feathered creature clasped firmly in the manual member is equal in value to a brace in the bosky growth. 
        17. The individual member of the class ``aves,'' arriving before the appointed time, seizes the invertebrate animal of the group ``vermes.'' 
        18. Socially oriented individuals show a tendency toward congregating in gregariously homogeneous groupings. 
        19. One may address a member of the ``equidae'' family toward aqueous liquid, but one is incapable of compelling him to quaff. 

        Now, here are some for you to try. Make them as fancy as you can without totally losing the meaning. Send them to one of the addresses below. The most interesting ones will appear in a future column. 
        1. You win some; you lose some. 
        2. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. 
        3. Penny wise; pound foolish. 

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