For those of you who, like me, enjoy language and word-usage study, here is an interesting find to add to this week of Christmas posts.
(It's not quite the Night Before Christmas yet; but we'll say it's close enough!)
The Write Group of New Zealand has a website with a link called Humor in the English Language. Very interesting. In a sub-link called "Free Stuff" they included a humorous version of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas written in pseudo-legal style. Here are selected portions. It begins:
Whereas, on or about the night prior to Christmas, there did occur at a certain improved piece of real property (hereinafter "the House") a general lack of stirring by all creatures therein, including, but not limited to a mouse.
Another good part:
Suddenly, and without prior notice or warning, there did occur upon the unimproved real property adjacent and appurtenant to said House, i.e., the lawn, a certain disruption of unknown nature, cause and/or circumstance. The party of the first part did immediately rush to a window in the House to investigate the cause of such disturbance.
Read the full text here.
See a similar satire of legalese posted on December 19th at The Super's Blog.
1 comment:
What a hoot! It reminds of the politically correct fairy tales. I always think those are funny. It also reminds me of a thesaurus activity I used to do with my 5th graders. Their assignment was to use a thesaurus to replace words in a nursery rhyme. They'd work on them for a week, present them to the class, we'd try to guess which nursery rhyme they were reading. I always had a ball listening to them, and I think the kids did, too. Thanks for sharing this site!
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