I have a habit of collecting records of confusing statements, verbal oddities, and displays or expressions of apparent impossibilities.  I present some of them here, for your amusement, for the second year-end in a row.  I call my notes the “Huh? File,” because when I read, see or hear these things that is the word that comes to mind – “Huh?”

Being a head of state, our dear President Bush should go first.  Talking about his nomination to head the Department of Homeland Security, he said, “He understood immediately that the strategy in the war on terror is to prevent attacks before they occur.”  Well there you go, all this time others had been trying to prevent them after they occurred.  Damn.  For those who worry because Bush said, “I hear the voices,” don’t be concerned.  He also said at a news conference, “I can only speak to myself,” proving at least he doesn’t answer the voices.

Television is a treasure trove of conflicting ideas.  I like the ads for schools that say, “Financial aid available for those who qualify.”  Hell, that ruins my plans.  I thought I could get some dough even though I don’t qualify.  Another ad on Fox had Captain Kirk, on the Enterprise spaceship, talking about television service, saying, “Settling for cable would be illogical.”  Hmmmmmm, is the very idea of having cable TV on a space ship reasonable, then? 

An announcer on our local Channel 34 said, “He jumped on a man-made boat.”  Well, is there another kind?  Maybe monkeys can build a boat if you give them wood, hammers, nails, and leave them alone long enough -- who knows?

I don’t watch cop shows much, but caught the following dialogue on one:

 

            Detective: Were you here alone?

            Suspect: Yes.

            Detective:  Can anyone verify that?

 

Maybe script writing like that is the reason I haven’t watched cop shows since the days of Hill Street Blues.  An announcer on CBS-TV did a promo for an upcoming show, exclaiming it was, “Two heart-stopping hours!”  That’s just what I want to watch – a show that could kill me!

Radio provides ample material too.  A Phoenix AM station newscaster was reporting a story about a train crash and the resultant ammonia leak that killed eight people.  “If you live in that town, don’t breathe the air,” he said.  Okay, but you’ll probably only live a minute or two longer, holding your breath.  I would think, “Get outta town.”  A talk show guest on another AM station was talking about making money.  “Make sure you only take a sure risk,” he told us.  He failed to name any of these no-risk risks, however.  KTAR radio has a website, too.  A headline on it one day was: “Pilots eject after F-16 from Luke AFB crashes.”  They lived too, which I thought was amazing, since I thought they would have preferred to eject before the crash.

Like most folks these days, I get a lot of information from the Internet.  A CNN headline once stated, “Weakened Dam Stable but Extremely Volatile.”  Huh?  MSNBC had a headline, too:  “Study: Drowsy drivers are four times more likely to crash.”  Did we need a study to prove this?  I hope I didn’t help pay for that one.  They had another beauty with this:  “Man who killed sons, self, was troubled.”  Gee, do you think?

Abcnews.com is a site I skim for news, too.  I found this one day:  “Ship, Vessel Crash on Mississippi River.”  One of those involved was 712 feet long, the other was 737 feet.  After twenty years as an officer in the merchant marine, including sailing up and down the Mississippi, I can’t tell you what the difference between a ship and a vessel is, although I know a boat when I see one.  The good folks at ABC have figured it out however, as somewhere between 712 and 737 feet. 

 Sports provide enough misstatements to fill a book, but I’ll just list a few from the past year.  An oft-repeated phrase during a football game is “forward progress,” as in, “The referee marked his forward progress at the 30-yard line.”  Okey dokey, but is there such a thing as “backward progress?”  Maybe that would be like a “successful retreat.”  

Numerous NFL announcers use the phrase “possession receiver,” to describe a player who is paid to catch footballs.  Would you pay a receiver who does not want possession of the ball?  No wonder we think some athletes make too much.

            A Major League Baseball website this year stated that, “Koyie Hill has his eye set on becoming the Diamondbacks’ starting catcher.”  I would think he would do better with both eyes open, but what do I know?  It’s like that old baseball maxim, “Keep your eye on the ball,” which I think restricts one’s depth perception.  ESPN carried a baseball game with a rain delay, during which the announcer said, “The rain has subsided completely.”  I think he meant, “stopped,” perhaps.

            The Arizona Republic newspaper, in an article about the ASU women’s basketball team, said they “played man-on-man defense.”  This would seem impossible, but who knows?  Maybe it was “woman-on-woman.”  No wait, that sounds funny; let’s try “one-on-one defense.”

             People are a good source for these items, too.  My friend, Larry, asked his seven-year-old what the capital of Arizona was.  “A,” replied the boy, being, of course, correct.  Another associate, Lee, loves it when he is listening to a football game on his car radio and the announcer says that the team with the ball “is moving left to right across your radio dial.”  Can you imagine how small they would have to be?  Wow.

            I make my own contributions to the world of absurdity as well.  One day at work, I walked by a shared printer and looked at a page that had just come out of it.  There was nothing on it.  “One of you guys just printed a blank page,” I remarked to my coworkers, helpfully.  At my local, Safeway food store I bought an item in the Deli section described on the barcode as, “Anti-pasta pasta.”  It was a miracle!

                When I was eleven, our family moved from New England to Florida, throwing me into a drastic culture shift, not to mention the new fear of the alligators they found out behind my new school.  The good, new thing was going to the beach.  I learned to swim in the ocean, but there were occasional shark warnings.  One I’ll never forget was an article in the paper on what to do if a shark attacked you.  One thing was to hit it in the snout with a blunt object, “like a hammer.”  I looked for years and never saw anybody go swimming with a hammer, but I still have relatives there on the lookout for this.  I recall immediately trying to use the new-to-me word, “Y’all,” which stands for “You all.”  What I still can’t understand, after all these years, though, is that there is a plural of this, which is “All Y’all.”

            I could go on, but I have errands to do, as it is Saturday, a.k.a. Chore Day, and it’s right before Christmas, too.  One place I need to go is Safeway.  They have a Christmas tree lot set up in the parking lot, you know, with a trailer and temporary fencing.  They have some large signs, too, one of which says, “Big Xmas Trees – 3 ft. to 14 ft.”  I’m picturing a three-foot tall tree that is maybe ten feet wide, and wondering how many they sell, so I’m off to get a few things at the store and see the amazing trees.  All y’all take care.         

           

 

Note: I first posted this under "Jokes/Funnies" then realized that does not list it as an article at all (I think that's the way it works); I do think it is an "article," at least in length, structure and originality (as opposed to a joke one copies off the Internet) so I am also posting it under "Miscellaneous."  You can tell from the ending that I intended to post it before Christmas but didn't quite make it . . . I liked the ending anyway, so I left it in . . . Also I say it is second year-end I have written this, and that is true . . .  but I did not join this site until October of this year, when I threw in last year's effort . . . anyway . . .

Write on.

--KZ