Join Mike Thomas, author of the young adult adventure novel, The Mysterious Treasure of Jerry Lee Thorton, as he tours the blogosphere  August 5 through September 27, 2013 on his first virtual book tour with Pump Up Your Book!

ABOUT THE MYSTERIOUS TREASURE OF JERRY LEE THORTON

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 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18144806-the-mysterious-treasure-of-jerry-lee-thorton

ABOUT MIKE THOMAS

Mike Thomas is a southern writer. He grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina where he learned a lot about family, traditions, and the genteel lifestyle most southerners enjoy. The richly eccentric folks of his youth have become his characters in today’s books and stories.

Mike began as a newswriter, editor, columnist, reporter, and speechwriter before switching to the role of Critical Care Registered Nurse. He traveled nearly every corner of the world as a vagabond contract nurse before resettling in North Carolina a few years ago.
He lives with Bobby, his desktop computer, and Rachel his laptop, in Halifax County, NC.

“That’s all I need,” He says, “Just my computers and a bit of focus. Then we can make up worlds we could only have dreamed of last week.”

You can visit him at www.mikethomas-writer.com 

Words and Words and Words

(Guest Post by the Author)

There is a new product on the market that advertises that with their DVD, you can learn any language in ninety days or less.
Just send them hundreds and hundreds of dollars and you will be speaking like a native in no time. Money back if you order a truck tire in a restaurant!
I figure learning Hebrew might be fun, and there are several dialects of Serbo-Croatian I wouldn’t mind boning up on. As I sat pondering this investment though, I wondered how much it would cost for the Serbs to learn my beloved English.
The basics of nouns might be pretty easy… a door is a door is a door right? At least if you don’t get it messed up with adore or ardor… Verbs aren’t as easy, especially if you run down the stairs and get a run in your stockings. Forget adverbs being quite quiet in a sentence.
Gee – this could run into some money. Perhaps I can save them a few bucks.
The only way I could conquer solidarity with the peoples of the world is to give them a supplemental primer to the English lessons.

Things like:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting; I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language
-There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger, neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
-English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France.
-Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
– If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth?
– One goose, two geese. So one moose, two meese?
– One index, two indices?
– Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
– If you have a bunch of odds and ends, and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
– If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
– If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
– In what other language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?
– Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
– Have noses that run, and feet that smell?
– How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down.
– Where you fill in a form by filling it out.
– Or an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all …
– That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
– By the way – Why doesn’t ‘Buick’ rhyme with ‘quick’?
– Or tough rhyme with dough?
Or how about other dysfunctional rhymers like:
– good and food
– most and cost
– stove, move and love
– said and paid
And the list just goes on and on….

Some other random oddities of the language…
– Their car is over there, and they’re going to use it!
– If you are using dye to change your favorite T-shirt from white to blue you are dyeing it; but if you don’t breathe for so long that your face turns blue, you may be dying.
– I give you my assurance that he will ensure the insurance.
– Sit your butt down after you set the tray down.
– The lightning knocked forty pounds of laundry out of his hands, thus lightening his load.

– You’re going to have to give me your dinner tonight.
– Look Momma! She’s bare nekkid out chonder! She’s only covered by her Teddy bear.

– The grizzly bear attack resulted in a grisly scene.
– “What ever are you doing?” she demanded… “Whatever I wish,” he replied.
– Unhuman is possessing no human traits, as opposed to inhuman, which means cruel.
– Actions are immoral, people are amoral.

On the surface English looks simple. Yet when we dig a bit we find it not so easy…
I shood no two, because I speeks an rights it reel good.

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