Everything I need to know about life I learned from the Easter Bunny:
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
- There’s no such thing as too much candy.
- All work and no play can make you a basket case.
- A cute tail attracts a lot of attention.
- The grass is always greener in someone else’s Easter basket.
- Hip-hop is the best music.
- Anyone can have a bad hare day.
- Sometimes you have to hunt for the good things in life.
- Keep your paws off other people’s jelly beans.
- An Easter bonnet can tame even the wildest hare.
- Let happy thoughts multiply like rabbits.
- To show your true colors, you need to come out of your shell.
- The inside is more important than the outside.
- The best things in life are sweet and gooey.
- Walk softly but carry a big carrot.
- Everyone needs a friend who is all ears.
- A true friend is someone who thinks that you’re a good egg, even if you are slightly cracked.
Here’s a little poem I made up about the Easter Bunny. Please note the spoonerisms
throughout, that is, the reversals of initial consonant sounds:
The Easter Bunny’s a funny beast,
Gobbling down his bunny feast.
Gaze upon this heeding rabbit
Who’s acquired a reading habit,
He sits on his money bags,
Reading all his bunny mags,
Which tickle hard his funny bone,
As he talks on his bunny phone.
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Earlier this month, a House of Representatives unanimously approved a bill that could ban the wildly popular video app TikTok from all U.S. phones and tablets. Notice that it’s TikTok, not Tok Tik.
TikTok is a compound word that’s called (take a deep breath) an ablaut-shift reduplication because only the internal vowel changes.
Have you ever wondered why clocks go tick tock, not tock tick; why bells go ding dong and jingle jangle, not dong ding and jangle jingle; why horses’ hooves go clip clop, not clop clip; and why little feet go pitter patter, not patter pitter. Why do we dilly dally and shilly shally as we exchange idle chit chat, not chat chit about hip-hop, not hop-hip; flip flops, not flop flips; knickknacks, not knackknicks; and ping-pong, not pong-ping?
For most of us, language is like the air we breathe. Like air, language is invisible and all around us. We need it to live, yet we take it for granted. If, however, we pause and examine our language thoughtfully, we discover patterns and rules that we didn’t learn in school and didn’t know we knew.
The pattern of these reduplicative twins appears to be that the first word almost always contains an i that usually sounds like ih, and the second vowel is always an a that sounds like the a in cat or an o that usually sounds like ah. In addition to the examples I’ve already supplied, here are more for you to analyze: mish-mash, jibber jabber, flimflam, wishy washy, ticky tacky, riffraff, sing-song, crisscross, and tip top.
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On Friday, April 26, starting at 9 a.m., I’ll be emceeing at the ninth annual Healthy Aging Conference at Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, 15200 San Deguito Road, 8:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Sponsored by the Rancho Santa Fe Senior Center, 858 756 3041. www.rsfseniorcenter.org/hac2024. Attendees must reserve their spots.
Please send your questions and comments about language to [email protected] website: www.verbivore.com.
