Into the woods

YET again the Diary is tackling the most vexing issues of our times.

For a reader recently admitted he was a tad confused by the mysterious phrase "the neck of the woods".

As he pointed out, if the woods have a neck, can we also assume they have shoulders?

Reader Robert Menzies provides some illumination on this topic, for he tells us that he has twigged what the answer must be.

”There are no shoulders in the woods,” says Robert, “because they were all taken away, and put at the side of motorways.”

Brought to book

ENGLISH teacher Rebecca Grant had a frustrated first-year pupil march up to her desk and say: “Okay, so we’ve analysed and summarised the novel you gave us. Any chance we can just read it now?”

Mind your language

GRAMMATICALLY grumpy Ian Noble from Carstairs Village says: “Nowadays everyone seems to begin sentences with ‘So’. I was taught at school not to do that. I’m sure other people were, too.

So why do they do it?”

Food for thought

HISTORY buff Don Murphy wonders if Julius Ceasar’s last words were: “Gonnie name a salad after me.”

Delayed action

WE continue celebrating nifty nicknames used in the workplace. Bryce Drummond from Kilmarnock recalls a labourer he employed.

“He was called the Weightlifter,” says Bryce, “because he always waited for someone else to lift heavy loads or equipment.”

Door drama

MANY Diary subscribers have such high IQs that they even know what the letters IQ stand for.

Our readers are generous with their vast intellects, and often use their bulging brains to devise ingenious concepts for the betterment of humanity.

For instance, Mark Sullivan from Shawlands says: “I’ve often noticed that doors have signs on them, which read: Push or Pull.

“Unfortunately the two words look very similar, which could lead to hours of needless confusion, with people pushing when they should be pulling, or pulling when they should be pushing.”

Mark has a solution to this seemingly intractable problem.

“Instead of Push and Pull,” he says, “door signs should use the words ‘Barge’ and ‘Yank’, thus providing a much clearer message.

“Also, the words Barge and Yank make the act of opening a door sound excitingly dramatic.”

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A bedtime story

FRUSTRATED Diary correspondent Chris Jones says: “I paid up-front for a carpenter to make me a double bed… and he’s only gone and done a bunk.”

Adds our irritated reader: “It’s just one thing on top of another.”