1977 School Magazine

s i i

How many of you find some lessons not quite the ful- filling experiences they ought to be? Here ari a few con- structive ways of brightening up dull lessons designed for people like you. Firstly, try replacing all the adjectives in a passage from your text book with the fourth following adjective (or any number) in the dictionary. In this way, "opaque, grey sheets" become operative and grisly, while "blank, wooden faces" become bleak and wordy. Now try writing a 26-word sentence, each word starting with a different letter and in alphabetical order. All big champion dogs eat ftgs geedily; however inno- cent jumping kangaroos like meat, never overdone, per- haps quickly roosted, salted thickly under vodka with xenon, y outhfully zealous. Or backwards alphabetical order for a change. What about a one-letter word, followed by a two-letter word and so on. I do not like using filthy napkins, although providing ponderable cleanliness, disreputable . . . Another chailenge is to write as long a sentence as possible without using the most frequently appearing letter in the English language - 'e'. Most days, I go to town and,looking through shop win- dows, think how I should not buy such things as brown clothing,but..-

Palindromes are more difficult. (Kayak and level are palin. dromes). Adam: Mtss, I'm Cain, q momomaniac, Miss, I'm - Eve: Eve mine. Denied, a jade in Eden,I'm Eve. ,A,dam: Diamond-eyed no maid! These are some parts of a dialogue between Adam and Eve by J.A. Lindon in which every line is a palindrome. Also try arbitrarily listing the words of a short poem, their rearranging them to compose a new poem with as different a meaning as possible to the original. From which poem do you think this one, entitled "World" came from? How are you, what are you? Up In the sky I wonder, a star? Iwonder... Twtnlcle, above Twinkle, high Twinkle, how? Twinkle so what? The little stsr Little,like diamond. Easy, wasn't it? Finally make up more ways to play around with words. It's an infectious pastime.

LOUELLA WILBY

24