TWISTS AND TURNS OF PHRASE FROM READERS

SEPTEMBER 1945

◆ Planes pigeoning home.

◆ A conscience as clear as good-flying weather.

◆ That ceaseless reconnaissance known as childhood.

◆ A woodpecker, telegrapher of the forest.

◆ Eschewing meat is not so tough as chewing it.

◆ I’m about as fit as a fizzle.

◆ As the evening wore on her face wore off.

◆ He’s strong in the courage of his connections.

◆ He fell into her eyes up to his heart.

◆ The pretzel-posture of day coach slumber.

◆ Mahogany-faced sea captains.

◆ Fanning his interest with her long eye-lashes.

◆ I’m half Scotch and half soda.

◆ As naked as a concert solo.

◆ He wore his pants patched with flesh.

My interest is in the future because I’m going to spend the rest of my life there.

JANUARY 1946

◆ Mother, introducing her newly married son’s wife: “And this is my daughter-in-love.”

◆ The odds and endlesses of housekeeping.

◆ The moaning after the night before.

◆ The jury came to the conclusion that the fire was caused by friction between the insurance policy and the mortgage.

◆ Twilight sowing stars in the sky.

◆ Like a ballet dancer, a dried leaf twirled across the road.

◆ A dress designed with an ulterior motif.

SEPTEMBER 1953

◆ The cicadas buzzing the doorbell of autumn.

◆ Wheat fields with crew cuts.

◆ Summer rusting into autumn.

◆ The sunset gift-wrapped the day.

◆ We were eating corn from ear to ear.

◆ When she says she has a boyish figure, that’s straight from the shoulder.

◆ She is blessed with a sympathetic disposition, but she wastes it on herself.

◆ Our toaster is the kind that doesn’t ring a bell when the toast is done – it sends up smoke signals.

◆ A man will always pay a fancy figure for checking his hat.

JUNE 1964

◆ Golf is a game where the ball lies poorly and the player well.

◆ Peering above, probing beneath, curling her lashes, brushing her teeth, daubing her face with every new mixture, the teenage daughter’s a bathroom fixture.

◆ In maternity shop window: “You should have danced all night.”

◆ The contents of a woman’s purse prove that she can take it with her.

◆ In a hardware store: “We sell window glass (and footballs).”

◆ Above tobacco counter: “Cigars, cigarettes, X-rays”.

By soft-drink stand: “Thirst come, thirst served.”

The sky wearing a necklace of wild geese.

Direct dialling has given us a new ailment – cauliflower finger.