FOURPLAY

By Bill Rausch

In a world filled with lusty romance novels, spellbinding mysteries, and soulful poetry why would you spend a couple of your hard-earned bucks on a silly book of wordplay? I'll tell you why. Because all of those lusty romance novels, spellbinding mysteries, and soulful poems are constructed with words from our silly English language. Words that love to be exploited. Played with.English, perhaps more than any other language in the world, is fraught with complex and oftentimes illogical spelling and grammatical rules known as syntax (When your brother-in-law buys a six-pack he also deals with sin tax). And we can't ignore definitions. Those crazy definitions which, as we shall see in Double-Talk, defy logic.In this little book, we will explore various vexing variations of wordplay. Our dissection of the English language will include:FLIP-FLOPSThese are variations on Spoonerisms that were inadvertently created by Rev. William Archibald Spooner who was notoriously prone to random vowel and consonant loquacious dislocations. But anyone with a name like Archibald has to be quite a cut-up. My shot at Spoonerisms will have you doing mental flip-flops. As an added bonus, let's make them rhyme.TRIPLE-PLAYWe're not talking about baseball here. We're talking about the nearly impossible phonetic pheat of using the same-sounding word consecutively three times in one sentence. You get that? Same word...three times...consecutively. Can't be done you say? Have your cousin Reid read them. Watch closely as he and aunt Marvel marvel at them. Somewhere in the Triple-Play section we will use old cousin Reid three times... consecutively! Aunt Marvel has to wait for her turn in Volume Two.DOUBLE-TALKHow many times, in a late-night James Cagney movie did you hear him accuse some dirty rat of double-talk? As a word nerd I commit double-talk at least once every day. Your Funk & Wagnall's defines double-talk as "speech using nonsense syllables along with words in a rapid patter." I have the "nonsense" part down pretty good. Mr. Cagney and I have cornered some of the more egregious culprits and put them in a police lineup for your inspection.FUNETICSI've saved the best for last. My personal favorite. Funetics. They are nothing more (or less) than phun with phonetics. Phonetic words, with their phreaky phonic sonics, are some of the most difficult concepts to grasp for those new to our language (and some of us veteran users as well!). Try explaining to a not-so-fluent student of the English language that you were late for class this morning because you spent all night out in your garden guardin' your peas and carrots. Or invite her for a sunrise breakfast on some beach south of San Diego to enjoy a sandy Eggo. Prior to publication, I mailed copies of this book to several friends around the country. If my buddy in Decatur is an indicator--you're going to love these!

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1521406936
• ISBN13: 9781521406939
• Release Date: June 2017
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 56 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"