Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Ag-ing Poorly

Silver bails. Silver bails. It’s amiss time in the city.
Ding-a-ling, here’s the thing: Soon it will be dismiss gray. ♫

Why did silver leave? If that shade has abandoned us, gray will surely follow.

Sliver, in the sentence pictured below, is anything but sterling. When you want to spell the metal whose symbol on the periodic table is Ag, no gray area exists; silver is the gold standard.


The sentence lacks what every cloud has. If silver were deposited in sliver’s place, the sentence would have a “silver lining,” which is something good that can be found in a bad situation. John Milton may have originated this phrase in his 1634 poem Comus, which included the following lines:

Was I deceived, or did a sable cloud
Turn forth her silver lining on the night?

A cloud, even one described as dark or gloomy, may have a hint of the shining sun behind it. This can give the cloud’s lining, or edge, a silvery complexion. A dark cloud reveals signs of brightness, just as dark times may hold a hopeful prospect.

In the spirit of silver linings, the writer should look on the bright side: At least he went with the anagram sliver instead of the anagram livers. Of course, silver, a hot commodity, would have been most useful in this instance. 

You may not care about this malaprop, but silver minds. (When it comes to silver, I am a mother lode of awful puns. I serve them on a platter. You know what kind of platter.)

Polish that sliver. All this struggling editor wants for Christmas is silver.

And gold. Lots and lots of gold.

4 comments:

  1. Hey Owen, it is Chris again, from college. I don't think those are the proper lyrics to the song? Can you please do more fact checking before hitting "Publish"? Thanks!

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  2. My source for this post was a guy named Al. He was weird. Anyway, he assured me those lyrics were accurate.

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  3. Hey Owen, it is Chris again, from college. I would like to speak with this Strange Al and have a discussion with him concerning, but not limited to, why his lyrics are so weird.

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    1. I lost Al's number, which is weird, but I do know that he lives in an Amish Paradise. You should look for him there. He's a Fat guy, with a Polka Face, and he Smells Like Nirvana. He's hard to miss. If you do find him, don't bring up his stint on "Jeopardy." It sets him off.

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