or ‘Curious ways in which the English Language may be made to convey Ideas or obscure them’. This is the title of a humorous American book from 1883 which is a companion to ‘English as She is Spoke’ and brings us back to the topic of ambiguity in language. There are some wonderful clangers in this one, so I thought I’d share a few here. The whole text can be found on the Gutenberg website here. I hope these bring a wry smile to your face for the day and not too much of a groan!
I’ve taken a couple of examples from each of the sections presented in the book, so here goes with English as she is wrote…
By the Inaccurate:
“I saw a man digging a well with a Roman nose.”
‘A gushing but ungrammatical editor says: “We have received a basket of fine grapes from our friend ——, for which he will please accept our compliments, some of which are nearly one inch in diameter.”‘
Here’s to heartily sized compliments!
By Advertisers and on Sign-Boards
‘”Babies taken and finished in ten minutes by a country photographer.”‘ Is he not wanted by the police?
‘”A large Spanish blue gentleman’s cloak lost in the neighborhood of the market.”‘ Perhaps he’s a smurf.
For Epitaphs:
Of a fate we are often warned about when procrastinating about life:
‘”Killed by an omnibus why not?
So quick a death a boon is
Let not his friends lament his lot
For mors omnibus communis.”‘
‘”Here lies, cut down like unripe fruit
The wife of Deacon Amos Shute;
She died of drinking too much coffee,
Anny dominy eighteen forty.”‘
By Correspondents:
“Benevolent Sir: The wolf of sickness has laid hold on the flock of my health.”‘
‘The school committee in Massachusetts recommend exercises in English composition in these terms:
“Next to the pleasure that pervades the corridors of the soul when it is entranced by the whiling witchery that presides over it consequent upon the almost divine productions of Mozart, Haydn, and Handel, whether these are executed by magician concert parts in [58]deep and highly matured melody from artistic modulated intonations of the finely cultured human voice, or played by some fairy-fingered musician upon the trembling strings of the harp or piano, comes the charming delight we experience from the mastery of English prose, and the spell-binding wizards of song who by their art of divination through their magic wand, the pen, have transformed scenes hitherto unknown and made them as immortal as those spots of the Orient and mountain haunts of the gods, whether of sunny Italy or of tuneful, heroic Greece.”‘
‘The following specimens from scholars’ examinations in making sentences to illustrate the definitions of words, found in their small dictionaries, will have a familiar sound to some of our readers:
A great warning for over-zealous use of the dictionary without awareness of context and collocation! When I was first learning German I remember a friend reading out a piece of work in which she talked about going to a ‘Fussballstreichholz’ or a football 
So, there you have it: ‘English as She is Wrote’ or was wrote in 1883. I am sure times have not changed so much when it comes to the absurdities of language…