Roy Exum: Floralorix & Other Words

  • Wednesday, August 3, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

I had just finished reading that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued an unprecedented travel warning for an area within the borders of the United States for the first time in history yesterday when I got the shock of my life. You should know that at least 14 cases of the dreaded Zika virus, transmitted by mosquitoes, have been reported just south of Miami and the CDC is warning people to stay away lest they, too, come in contact with the infectious disease.

So, in the way I do, I’m absent-mindedly looking for funny news, which should always precede any political election, when this headline jumped off my computer monitor – FLORALORIX BREAKS OUT AT CLYDE’S ON MAIN.

Oh, my gracious -- I thought I would have a heart attack. I ate dinner there Sunday night! Then I finally read the story by Mark Herndon on Chattanoogan.com and found Floralorix is actually a great reggae band out of Nashville.

Man, we gotta’ start writing better headlines.

So help me I had already started to itch.

* * *

ANOTHER WORD THAT MAKES ME NERVOUS

Don’t go to Erlanger Hospital if you come down with a case of lexophilia because it is not a bad disease. It has nothing to do with blood … Actually it is a delightful way to love words. A lexophile is one who wonderfully adapts the double meaning. I got a dandy list from an email friend that we need to share in honor of those politicians that talk out of both sides of their mouth:

* -- Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!
* -- How does Moses make tea? Hebrews it.
* -- England has no kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
* -- I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
* -- They told me I had type-A blood, but it was a Typo.
* -- I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now.
* -- Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
* -- I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid, but he says he can stop any time.
* -- I stayed up all night to see where the sun went, and then it dawned on me.
* -- This girl said she recognized me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.
* -- When chemists die, they barium.
* -- I'm reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can't put it down.
* -- I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words.
* -- Why were the Indians here first? They had reservations.
* -- I didn't like my beard at first. Then it grew on me.
* --Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job because she couldn't control her pupils?
* -- When you get a bladder infection, urine trouble.
* -- You can’t write with a broken pencils because it is pointless.
* -- What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary?  A thesaurus.
* -- I dropped out of communism class because of lousy Marx.
* -- I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
* -- Velcro - what a rip off!
* -- Don’t worry about old age; it doesn’t last.
* -- I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.
* -- Police were called to a day care where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
* -- Did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all right now.
* -- The roundest knight at King Arthur's round table was Sir Cumference.
* -- The butcher backed up into the meat grinder and got a little behind in his work. 
* -- When fish are in schools they sometimes take debate.
* -- The short fortune teller who escaped from prison was a small medium at large.
* -- A thief who stole a calendar got twelve months.
* -- A thief fell and broke his leg in wet cement. He became a hardened criminal.
* -- Thieves who steal corn from a garden could be charged with stalking.
* -- We'll never run out of math teachers because they always multiply.
* -- When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.
* --The math professor went crazy with the blackboard. He did a number on it.
* -- The professor discovered that her theory of earthquakes was on shaky ground.
* -- The dead batteries were given out free of charge.
* -- If you take a laptop computer for a run you could jog your memory.
* -- A dentist and a manicurist fought tooth and nail.
* -- A bicycle can't stand alone; it is two tired.
* -- A will is a dead giveaway.
* -- Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
* -- A backward poet writes inverse.
* -- In a democracy it's your vote that counts; in feudalism, it's your Count that votes. 
* -- A chicken crossing the road: poultry in motion.
* -- If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.
* -- With her marriage she got a new name and a dress.
* -- Show me a piano falling down a mine shaft and I'll show you A-flat miner.
* -- When a clock is hungry it goes back four seconds.
* -- A grenade fell onto a kitchen floor in France, resulted in Linoleum Blownapart.
* -- You are stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.
* -- He broke into song because he couldn't find the key.
* -- A lot of money is tainted: 'Taint yours, and 'taint mine.
* -- He had a photographic memory which was never developed.
* -- A plateau is a high form of flattery.
* -- When you've seen one shopping center you've seen a mall.
* -- If you jump off a Paris bridge, you are in Seine.
* -- When she saw her first strands of gray hair, she thought she'd dye.
* -- Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Royexum@aol.com

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