Think about it:
- If a megaphone makes your voice bigger, what does a microphone do?
- If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry?
- If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress?
- If your nose can run, can your feet smell?
- If olive oil is made from olives, corn oil from corn, and vegetable oil from vegetables, what do they make baby oil from?
- If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?
- If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
- If people can be disgruntled, discombobulated, and disheveled, why can’t they be gruntled, combobulated and sheveled?
- If you don’t pay your exorcist, do you get repossessed?
- If a dentist and a manicurist get married, will they fight tooth and nail?
- If you board a nonstop flight, when will you ever get off?
- If, during deer season and duck season, you can shoot deer and ducks, what can you shoot during tourist season?
- If the contents of a can of tuna are called tuna fish, why aren’t the contents of a can of salmon called salmon fish?
- If you have a bunch of odds and ends and you get rid of or sell off all but one of them, what do you call that single item you’re left with?
- If smoking marijuana causes short-term memory loss, what does smoking marijuana cause?
- If your fingers have fingertips, shouldn’t your toes have toetips? After all, you can tiptoe, but you can’t tipfinger.
- If clergymen are defrocked and lawyers are disbarred, are alcoholics delivered, hairdressers distressed, manicurists defiled, electricians delighted, cowboys deranged, models disposed, and songwriterers decomposed?
- If people with impaired eardrums are hard of hearing, are people with healthy eardrums soft of hearing?
- If “I am” is the shortest sentence in English, is “I do” the longest sentence?
- If a television is a TV, shouldn’t a telephone be a TP?
- If tomb is pronounced “toom” and womb is pronounced “woom,” shouldn’t bomb be pronounced “boom!”?
- If a man mans a station, shouldn’t a woman woman a station? If a king rules a kingdom, shouldn’t a queen rule a queendom?
- If fatty means “full of fat,” shouldn’t skinny mean “full of skin”?
- If something valuable possesses value, shouldn’t something invaluable lack value?
- If people can be discombobulated, nonchalant and uncouth, why can’t they be combobulated, chalant and couth?
- If extra-fine means “even finer than fine” and extra-large “even larger than large,” why doesn’t extraordinary mean “even more ordinary than ordinary”?
- If a person who creates art is an artist and a person who plays the harp is a harpist, shouldn’t a person who drives a race car be called a racist?
- If libraries are staffed by librarians, are hospitals staffed by hospitalarians?
- If seagulls fly over the sea, do bagels fly over the bay?
- If you know where the Big Apple is, why don’t you know where the Minneapolis?
- If a horsehair mat is made from the hair of horses, from what is a mohair coat made?
- If we get seasick on the sea, airsick in the air and carsick in a car, then why don’t we get homesick in our home?
- If you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your left one is right and your right one is left? Right?
- If a writer writes and a speaker speaks, does a grocer groce, an usher ush, and a haberdasher haberdash?
- If people ring a bell today and rang a bell yesterday, why don’t we say that they flang a ball? If they wrote a letter, perhaps they also bote their tongue. If the teacher taught, why isn’t it also true that the preacher praught?
- If people get debunked, detested, and demoralized, does that mean that they were once bunked, tested, and moralized?
- And if I wind up my watch to start it, why do I wind up this column to end it?