Grammarians at Play

Because of his name, Santa can join the grammar joke club: What do you call Santa's little helpers? Subordinate clauses! Here are the Grammar Walks into a Bar Jokes A pun, a play on words, and a limerick walk into a bar. No joke. Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They Drink. They Leave A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves. A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave. A question mark walks into a bar? Two quotation marks "walk into" a bar. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking a drink. The bar was walked into by the passive voice. The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense. A synoynm ambles into a pub. A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink. A hyperbole totally ripped into this bar and destroyed everything. A run on sentence walks into a bar it is thirsty. Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapsed to the bar floor. A group of homophones wok inn two a bar.  Our pictures today show our visit to rainy Chama to see the trains in the yard.

Spoons and Spoons

Spoons have been around a long time. Spoons with handles were used in ancient Egypt for religious purposes as early as 1000 BC.  When it came to consuming food, the most common material was wood, which was easily available.  The wealthy had spoons made of bronze and silver during the Greek and Roman empires and on into the Middle Ages.   Spoons have also always been ceremonial.  Before the coronation of every British king,  the monarch would be anointed by a ceremonial spoon.  There were apostle spoons during the Tudor and Stuart periods.  The practice of giving christening spoons started then.  The spoons we use today took on their form in the 18th century. There is a famous rude spoon in the restaurant joke.  You can check it out by clicking on the link.  As spoons are so common, I thought there would be many spoon jokes, but that doesn't turn out to be the case, and spoon quotes are mostly about the 'silver spoon' metaphor, so seemed a bit tedious to me to read famous people claiming they weren't born with a silver spoon... Edward Lear's 'runcible' spoon popped up on my searches.  It turns out that "runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat. I guess one could use a runcible spoon to eat "the frim fram sauce with oss-en-fay with sha fafa on the side." Today's train layout has the most remarkable trees.  I know you will enjoy them too.

Maine Live Steam

Here's the drive-by at the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad.  The idea is for the crowd to form a line so that everyone has a clear view of the train for pictures.  We don't want lurkers in the background or creepers in the foreground.  This is particularly important for those capturing the scene on video.  We are all to remain silent, too.  The train drives by with the whistle blowing and the bell ringing.  Once that's done, the train backed up, we all got back on and went to the Roundhouse for the look around and another photo shoot.