Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Variation on an Idiom

As the two frogs sat on a lily pad, one commented to the other,

“Time sure is fun when you’re having flies.”



Of course it is also true that...

Time flies when you're having fun.

And viewing these idioms concurrently presents a perfect example of why lexical categorizations should not rely on semantic definitions.

In the first sentence "fun" is an adjective and "flies" is a noun.

In the second sentence "fun" is a noun and "flies" is a verb.

Thanks for the laugh Mike.

2 comments:

JCR said...

Time flies like an arrow.

Fruit flies like a banana!


(Thanks to the late, great, Soupy Sales!)

8-)

Laura Payne said...

JCR - That is a great one; though I always heard it was attributed to Groucho Marx. Either way, thanks for sharing and commenting.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...