The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1870-04-08
yERBAL AMBIGUrTrEs.

The ambiguity of words and phrases
! is the OCCASION of numerous misappre-
| tensions, puzzles and absurdities in cur
rent literature, few examples of which
may be entertaining.
Referring first to puzzles, we may
mention the case of man who had six
children, and had never seen one ofthem.
The mind is misled here, by supposing
| that s9one of them means any OF them,
and if it had been said, never saw a sim
gle one of them, it would have been still
more likely to be misunderstood. The
answer to this puzzle is, that one ofthem
| had been born while the man was on q
| journey, and he had not seen it.
There is puzzle well known to the
rising generation, which runs nearly III
this fashion: tsThere was a poor blind
beggar who had brother; the brother
died, but the man who died had no
brother. What relation was the beggar
| to the man who died % Here we are
misled by taking it for granted that the
beggar must have been a man, but the
clew being given that the beggar was
girl, it becomes quite plain that the beg
gar was sister of the man who died.
There are number. of these riddles
on the subject of relationships. We are
told of two men who met at an inn, and
greeted each other affcctionately. The
innkeeper asked one ofthem if the other
was kin of his, and received the fol-
lowing enigmatical reply:
Brother and sister have none.
Yetthis mans father was my fathers SON.
Now this is a perfectly plain PROPOSE
ton, and yet have known a company
to delye at it for an hour, and finally
gave it up, only to marvel at their stu
pidity in not seeing that this form of
words was not an ambiguous way of
saying that ''thisman" was the speakers
son. Again, two brothers were walking
down the street, and one stopped at a
door, remarking: Il have niece who
is ILL.," s.Thank heaven" said the other.
81 have no niece" How could that be:
The only difficulty in guessing this is the
tendency of the mind to move in a rut.
Having got the idea of niece fixed, the
mind refuses to think of anything else
but different kinds of nieces, and never
once looks to one side sufficiently to see
that the sick girl was the daughter of the
man who said he had no niece. 1t is
very true that the expression, 'Fhank
Heaven! !" seems somewhat uncalled for
when the true fact appears, but then
riddle must not be made too easy.
There is something quite fascinating
to the Juvenile mind in that peculiar eff
feet in words which is called a catch.
Thus youngster with very serious
face enters the room with piece of
news. "Beecher," says he, SCOT shot to-
day" SIS that SOP says one; and,
"Where !" asks another. He got shot
in hardware store down town. says
the youngster. 'tHewas going hunting"
In the same way, with Justification of
accent and the omission of the hyphen,
he says that he has seen q horse fly,
garden walk, kettle drum, a hat box,
etc. He is delighted to annoy the COM
pany with the question, "How many
hairs are there in dogs tail -, and to
assure them with much nonchalance al
last that there are none, the hairs being
all on the outside.
In the same spirit a man Endorsed his
companion who wanted to get trusted
for bottle of wine, with the remarlS,
eff he refuses to pay for it, l Will" The
man refused to pay for it, and so did his
friend, as he said he would. For such
person / have no sympathy, but must
admit lurking admiration of that di-
lapidated student of the subtle distinc-
tons of words, who, when trying to cf-
feet free entrance to the theater, was
roughly told by the doorkeeper, ''Here,
l can't pass you" and who replied with
dignity as he walked in, :" \ OH need not
pass me, my dear sir. just You stand
where you are and will pass you"
What is known as the white lie is rem
dered possible by the uncertainty in
Language ofwhich / am speaking. Thus,
when the sheriff asked the wife of a
Quaker, against whom he had writ, II
her husband was at home, she replied,
eyes, he will see thee in moment
The sheriff waited some time. and then
suggested to the lady that she had prom
ised that he might see her husband.
'.No, friend" replied the Quakcress, AZ
only promised that he would see thee
He had seen thee. He did not like thy
Looks; therefore he avoided thee, and
has left the house by another path. =
1ppleton's Journal