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OP
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My high school English teacher, way back when, started us on a great game once - you have Tom say something, and tack on an adverb that relates more to Tom's sentence than to the way he said it. Eg:
"I can't find the apples I bought in the market," said Tom fruitlessly.
"I can beat anyone at Scrabble," said Tom winningly.
"I've eaten enough of these bitter herbs," said Tom ruefully.
"This knife is like a razor," said Tom sharply.
Anyone else wanna have a go?!
A few the teacher gave us were quite rude...."I see nothing wrong with homosexuality," said Tom in ernest [sic]; and "I'm a fan of necrophilia," said Tom in dead ernest. The first one can also be changed to, "I haven't made up my mind about homosexuality," said Tom, half in ernest[sic].
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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OP
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oooohhhhhkaaaaaay! Someone has kindly brought to light an old thread about this (I YARTed again! - but it was quite an old thread - about a year old). See "Tom Swifties" in Misc.
However, I do wish someone would explain some of those contributions to me.....Some of them were either very cunning, as cunning as a very cunning fox who has just been appointed professor of cunning at cunning university, or they are actually not Tom Swifties in the true sense (ie, the adverb doesn't play on the content of the sentence). Such wordies here - I'm pretty sure it ain't the latter - although one person, can't remember who, was consistently confusing with his/her offerings, so maybe that person didn't get it? or maybe that person is just too deep for me....!
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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newbie
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We'll go in my rocket ship, said Tom swiftly.
I used to read all the Tom Swift books I could get my hands on. Did you know there were three generations of Tom Swifts?
Robert
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OP
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We'll go in my rocket ship, said Tom swiftly.
Shouldn't that be:
We'll go in my rocket ship, said Major Tom swiftly (to ground control, of course).
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Lots of very clever poeple have worked out some Very Clever Tom Swifties. Maybe a New York Magazine contest, or possibly Games Magazine five or ten years ago, in which case they may be copyrighted, but they sparkled. The only one I can recall at the moment went something like
"I really don't care who stole the flower from my bouquet," said Tom lackadaisically...
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enthusiast
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"I'd like you to meet my Siamese-twin brother," said Tom half-heartedly.
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an old thread about thisHere it is, MG: http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=miscellany&Number=19605Some blinders in this new thread, though, folks.  Much scope for the slightly surreal, which is right up my street.. "I'm taking today off" said Tom, absently. "HO HO HO!" said Tom, presently.  "ylevitcelfer, moT dias" said Tom, reflectively. "That's all folks!" said Tom, presciently.
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Fish, I am confused - and some posts in t'other Swiftlies thread confused me, too.
I thought the point of the exercise was that the adverb didn't necessarily convey the meaning of what Tom said? so to my mind, a better sentence for
"ylevitcelfer, moT dias" said Tom, reflectively.
would be something like
"This mirror needs a good cleaning," said Tom, reflectively.
Or am I way out to lunch? For presently, I would have had something like, "Aunt Mae gave me socks for Christmas again," said Tom presently.
"Will someone please help my poor fuddled brain out here?" said Mary, mentally.
Let us go in peace to love and serve the board.
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Or am I way out to lunch? I think it's vastly more likely that I'm missing the point of the exercise, MG! Just having fun, really, and perhaps bending the rules to fit my purposes.
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I'm afraid I don't know the rules, said Robert ruefully. (Ok, that was lame!) I didn't figure out what adding "Major" did to improve the one I posted either, so clearly I need to be enlightened, said Robert darkly.  Robert
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