The average Southerner has the speech patterns of someone slipping in and out of consciousness. I can change my shoes and socks fa...ster than most people in Mississippi can speak a sentence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
You can always tell a Midwestern couple in Europe because they will be standing in the middle of a busy intersection looking at a ...wind-blown map and arguing over which way is west. European cities, with their wandering streets and undisciplined alleys, drive Midwesterners practically insane.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn't come from anyw...here else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to ...see you, and you can't go home again.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the e...ndless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
English grammar is so complex and confusing for the one very simple reason that its rules and terminology are based on Latin--a la...nguage with which it has precious little in common. In Latin, to take one example, it is not possible to split an infinitive. So in English, the early authorities decided, it should not be possible to split an infinitive either. But there is no reason why we shouldn't, any more than we should forsake instant coffee and air travel because they weren't available to the Romans. Making English grammar conform to Latin rules is like asking people to play baseball using the rules of football. It is a patent absurdity. But once this insane notion became established, grammarians found themselves having to draw up ever more complicated and circular arguments to accommodate the inconsistencies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »