Whether a full 19-day assault & battery test or a tiny testicle in passing, or a series of pop quizzes somewhere in between, we all rely on testing, from odd odors to strange text, even experts. Eventually, text from the following titles may be added for you to test for yourself, though for now, a few of the ideas distilled from them in a backyard still will have to do.
IQ 4 Experts by I. M. Novice
The Incomprehension Quotient Revisited by Dr. U. R. Tutu
Where Questions Come From by the Disconnectady Academy Faculty Trust
Testing is one of the most important “second-order” human activities, second only to things like breathing, eating, and (for some) sex. Even these usually require testing, however, as when checking the quality of air, food or a prospective mate, for which humans, like dogs, often call on the nose.
Though fingers & toes, eyes & ears, pre-frontal cortex & certainly the tongue are also sometimes involved, the nose remains central to most human testing, according to Dr. Gert Shnozzle at Institute for Runaway Self-reference, who swears “I wouldn’t ride an elevator without one.”
An expert on Sniff Tests generally, Dr. Shnozzle has even developed a specific one of her own, the Shnozzle Sniff Test (usually just called the Shnoz). Never been more popular–or more needed, say those in the business of offering it–the Shnoz has served many satisfied customers grateful to discover they’d been living in the downwind shadow of toxic chemical plants, hazardous waste incinerators & towering super-giant manure piles used in the manufacture of industrial-strength Super-poop without realizing it.
“Of course it’s impractical to test every breath, at least consciously,” explains Dr. Shnozzle, “which could be why the Shnoz is in such demand. Others are not so sure, or so quick to attribute cause. Some think it’s the preponderance of political, religious & commercial manure dominating our media, with more ‘BS’ to test from official sources than ever every day.
Experts argue over whether the Sniff Test is earliest in human experience or that honor belongs to the infant’s first Taste It Tests. The uncle of evolution, Charles Downwind, in his seminal ABCD-Scent of Species, claimed taste & smell are essentially the same sense to start with, and more or less may remain so in liquid.
The adult analyst Sigmoid Floyd found “a close kinship between scents & tastes” of “patient nipples,” which he often found hard to distinguish–“whether taste or scent, right or left, & if so, whose?” Floyd was also dyslexic, however, which he called diklixic, as well as a great tease, & often treated testing & tasting as if they were the same word.
According to some embryonic contemporary micro-psychologists, the origin of all forms of testing, from sniffing & tasting on, can be found in the urge to question–possibly going all the way back to a primal huh? We’re questioning all the time, mostly without realizing it, as part of our program, what the eyes, ears, skin, nose, mouth, & furrowed brow are doing even when we’re not paying attention.
When it comes to a creature’s environment, questioning & testing amount to the same thing, and sometimes tasting. On some exams, miss a question & you get eaten. No education may be more important, then, than what questions to ask, unless it’s how to question.
What good does it do, for example, to “look both ways before crossing the street” if all you do is look? You have to ask, “Is anything coming this way? how close? how far?: how fast? Did something slip in at the left while I was looking to the right, or vice versa? Is it safe?” And only when the you’ve satisfied such questions, in a millisecond or 10 minutes, should you cross.
At first mum’s there holding your hand, or pop, big sister, auntie, but the aim is to turn more & more control over to you just as soon as you’re able to handle it, which means taken charge of your own questions. You then follow the same principle in school & at work on any job-site–learning what questions to be asking. (And we don’t mean just “will that be on the test?”) It’s the questions experts learn to ask that keys their focus to the specifics they notice, making them experts.
It may, with some good reasons, seem to many students that it makes less difference what you know than how well you test, at least for academic success. In professional life, this translates into, “It’s less important what you know than what you seem to know.” In practice, the truth may be just the reverse–it can be an advantage to know more than you seem to, and be smarter than you look. (It rarely pays to be less.)
Encouraging students to seem smarter than they are may or may not be the best strategy for the world, lives & work ahead. Pretty much everyone must eventually take charge & responsibility for questioning what they do & don’t know. Instead of hiding what they don’t (if they even recognize it), might students & the state of knowledge both not benefit far more by asking, answering &/or evaluating questions about what’s not known? (Huh?)
By asking questions, we not only become clearer about what we don’t yet know, but have the chance to find more out–like whether there’s traffic on the street we’re crossing. It’s no use to have the results of that “road test” filed in a data-base somewhere else, as in some professional testing facility.
Even if the questions were taught to you as a child, you need to be the one to ask them to get the immediate benefits, even on streets 50 years later. This brings us back to the original principle that gave rise to the concepts of self-testing, self-evaluation, &, indeed, all self-education in the first place,starting with those who make, give or take tests & finishing with those who ask, answer, or skip questions.
Below, you will find a variety of attention-challenging tests, most of which not only have their own questions, but multiple answers for you to choose among, whether singly or “all that apply.” They have been specially designed to be entirely self-administered, which means self-proctored, self-serving, self-explanatory, self-graded, & self-timed, so you need no one else’s permission to take a break, even a very long one.
People with a short enough attention span may take the same tests over as many times as it takes to get them right &/or skip over “en route to fresher manure,” as professional test testers call questions &/or answers not previously encountered–which is the only kind allowed below. So if you should find yourself reading over old material, skip along down the page to material you no longer remember.
Testing, like writing, even good writing, may be a little like soda pop, potentially going stale after all the bubbles have gone up your nose. How can you tell? Test it. If it makes you laugh, it’s still got some fizz in it.
FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK
The Funny You Should Ask Test:
1. Is it funny? Y___ N___
1b. On a scale of 1-10, how funny? ______________.
2b. What would be funnier?
a) a scale of 2-11 or 5 to 2?
b) a 101-pound bathroom scale?
c) a scale with weight & fortunes?
d) a pound of fish scales?
e) a scale of scabs? crabs? or scarabs?
[The following questions are called DYK’s, for their Did You Know’s.]
3. Did you know that funny testing
a) activates air follicles in your nose-hairs?
b) beats most other tests to the punch?
c) can make you smart, itch, glow &/or tingle?
d) now comes pre-canned, post-opened?
e) offers non-laughers pre-paid Guffaw Protection?
~~~~# yes; ~~~~# no.
4. Did you know that
a) DYK stands for Did You Know?
b) DUK stands for Did-U-Know?
c) DYKs & DUKs are a kind of question?
d) Only you can score your own DYK?
e) No one else knows everything you don’t?
~~~~# yes; ~~~~# no.
5. Did you not know that
a) DYNK stands for Did You Not Know?
b) DYNK tests are considered harder
~~to take; ~~to score; ~~to understand?
c) it pays to know what you know?
d) it pays more to know what you don’t?
e) DYX are also DYNKS, being Did You X (not)?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
6. DYK that
a) Did You Know questions can be abbreviated DYK
b) The first DYKs were produced by SBD Testing?
c) SBD stands for Substandard Bidet & Dyk?
d) SBD invented the L-I-Q?
e) The LIQ = your Lack of Incomprehension Quotient?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
7) DYNK that
a) Substandard Testing was first tried by the government-sponsored Alternative Bureau of Substandards, Cold-drawers & Miss-measurements?
b) The ABSCAM used to be the official source of government BS?
c) As also of Alternative Facts, Fudged News & Supra-Spun?
d) BS sourcing has since been distributed throughout?
e) ABSCAM now sponsors the annual Miss Measurements Pageant?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
8) DUNK that
a) Enough is enough usually means too much already?
b) True procrastinators don’t put off today what they can put off tomorrow?
c) A BP, Bachelor of Procrastination or equivalent in non-work experience is a pre-requisite for post-graduate programs leading to an MP, Master of Procrastination, “the one degree you can’t afford to put off”?
d) An MP degree may be used to enter parliament, in lieu of a ticket?
e) Traffic tickets may now include product placement ads paid for by degree-granting entities like for-profit driving schools?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
9. DYNK that
a) “9” is German for No?
b) Multiple negatives may (or may not) make a positive?
c) Many DYK testees also score high on drug & alcohol tests?
d) Many DUK Test testers score even higher?
e) Scoring too high can be more negative than not scoring too low?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
10. DUK that
a) There are no right or wrong answers to DUKs (Did-U-Knows)?
b) Only testees know their actual answers, &/or how honest they are?
c) You must grade your own answers for accuracy as you see fit?
d) you must grade your own grading for both honesty & accuracy?
e) true excellence exceeds all measures of evaluation?
f) no actual ducks were plucked in preparing this test?
~~~~~# Yes; ~~~~~ # No.
[Add your yess’s & no’s; multiply by the square root of an apple pie (a la mode); & subtract your 3 biggest handicaps from your locker number at the DIY Institute’s virtual summer math camp. Girls who wear glasses get extra hallway passes. Boys dressed in kilts may be asked to walk with stilts.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Test: from French teste; Latin & Indian testum;
plural = English tests or French testes;
diminutive = testicle (dim. plural = testicles).
Tickle tickle little test,
be the host or be the guest,
know the most or take a guess,
if you’re a ghost, who’ll get the jest?
& when you’re toast, who’ll get your chest?
Early forms of the word for testing had the sense of a cup or cupel (“a cup for assaying metals, or hearth for refining them”), thence any exam to determine what something’s made of, how it behaves, what it knows, how it tastes or goes down, how it changes when mixed up with this or that, whom & what, in degrees of hot & cold, etc. Among physicians, a cupped hand might mean, cough in this for testing.
Whether tracing its roots to a refined alchemist’s tedious cup test; an earthy gladiator’s Latin testicuples; or a mythic mega-marathon to show king or world what one’s made of (or which team had the best stuff), all agree that the modern quiz, exam, & test of every sort, type, size & purpose under heaven covers some considerable ground, much of it irregular, with a topography not as easily measured as commonly pretended.
Judges may sometimes have to pass a Litmus Test, while attorneys on the frontier must pass a bar, wrestle one, or hold court in one–the briefer the better. Dr. Charles Cadaver, after whom the Cadaver Test was named, once wrote (& often said), “I wish I could say I never met a Cadaver I didn’t like, but in fact, some were quite awful.” After which he was not invited to many family reunions.
Some believe this gave rise to the Apriori Test, based on the A Priori Principle, namely that most questions, like most tests, can’t be judged before being answered, or not, as the case may be. “Answering is the easy part,” swear most experts. “It’s the scoring that’s a beach.”
How do you measure a beach to give it a numerical quantity? Measurement is the name of the game & the real challenge, particularly when trying to measure something that can’t be? something with no borders? no direct physical mass, extent, or definable whatsis, parameters to its paradigms?
It’s a common ms-understanding among ordinary people that you can measure coast-lines, for example, however roughly, yet true experts know that “the shorter the measuring stick, the longer the coast,” meaning the measurement you get depends on the device or standard you choose to use. Using a mile-long string, you get one result; using a yardstick another; others still using an inch-worm, microscope or atomic kaleidoscope.
Not just that, but where does a curve in the coast end, turning into the banks of a river or dips in a delta, no longer part of the coast, but becoming a separate fold in the land? At a small enough scale, one finds this same issue everywhere, at least down to the molecular level, the actual shoreline itself constantly changing broken wave by breaking wave.
Why should intelligence–& often more critically, its lack–be any less challenging to measure than a coastline? As one soon-to-be ex-expert notes, “The challenge of testing lack of intelligence is even greater, & not just because there are so many forms, flavors, levels & types, but because the field itself lacks an appropriate standard that defines minimum threshold & Max Plank limits–without which everyone’s Lack of Intelligence Quotient is essentially the same, infinite.
In a famous test attributed to “the mythic polymath Myffmath the Pythagorean,” for example, the first question took the form of a statement to be completed: “If the proof is in the pudding, the test is in the a) pie filling; b) pantry; c) clams; d) dangle (angle of); e) triangle; f) flan; g) the spot it lights up; h) the fan the flan hits; i) taste; j) jam.
A successful candidate was expected to choose as many as applied & could be successfully defended in a bocce court, if challenged. Then the proof could be measured in the balls, by the balls & between the balls, using an agreed-upon stick, rod, rope, inch-stick or fingers, causing Judge Learned Finger to declare, in the Roman style:
“Disgustibus no disputandum est.”
(“With no dispute, this is disgusting.”)
Meanwhile, back at the math ranch (which doubled as music camp), Pythagoreans believed colors & tones could also be tasted, as well as smelled. One treatise on “Stinky Parallelograms” is now considered the father of the outhouse hole & mother of the dirty telegram. Pyth himself is said to have claimed “A myth may smell as sweet as nose allows,” a text which also carried the sense of “as deep as the knower knows how.”
Pythy himself, as Pythagoras was called by his Mythapythians friends was first to note (at least on a musical score in Mythapythian Greek) that some smells could be heard in advance of the olfaction itself, from which he postulated the hypothesis that sound travels faster than smell–but smell hangs around longer, now a fundamental theorem of sensorium studies. He later went on to test how speeds might change under water & in think-tanks, building on an idea he had gotten in the jacuzzi at Delphi.
The Mythapythy River, flowing through Pythagoras’ psychic landscape, had independent origin & a hand in naming the Mythapythian Highlands in what was then the most most remote region of the Mishugunah Peninsula. Waters claiming to be Mythapythian may be purchased today, but they should be tested by an independent lab for the presence of advertised vitamins & minerals, along with the more critical absence of contaminants.
[Pythy Waters seldom pass the test “with flying colors” as some labels claim. In fact, experts indicate that flying colors may be the result of an unwanted side effect & a seriously bad sign of rainbow disease. If experienced, consult your primary-care metaphysician ASAP.]
Digging Deeper: Never use a green banana to clean your ear.
Tickle tickle little testicle….
“From a presumed Indo-European base like tekth, or tetht– meaning to weave, knot or connect threads–, the branching root gave rise to the Sanskrit cup; the Greek tekton (carpenter, one who assembles); the Geek tekie; & the many tests we pass today (loyalty, blood, alcohol, driving & school tests, for example);along with the hard outer shell of a clam or the testa (hard outer covering) of a seed (as where you must pass the testa to get to the nut or other nutritious goodie); and thus, a jester’s testicle.”
–Dick’s Handy Random Pocket Pinhead Dictionary
[Never mind for the moment testament, testify, testimony, testimonial, testy, testudinate, testate, intestate, interstate and testiculate (“having two testicle-shaped tubers” or “to gesticulate with genital vigor”); and their cousins. For now, there’s more pressing stuff to test, or fill your cup with, like….]
a newt test: on testing
A 1-According to The Well Tested Philosophy of Testing–
The Tao of Testing claims–
a) true testing starts &/or resides in the self (T__; F__)
b) self-testing starts at home, but doesn’t stay there. (T__; F__)
c) self-grading is harder than self-testing. (T__; F__)
d) self-grading one’s grading is harder still. (T__; F__)
e) close examination can also reveal well hidden qualities (T__; F__)
f) flaws in the eye of the beholder may not be as huge as they look
—under a microscope; —through either end of the telescope;
—in a kaleidoscope; —during self-colonoscopy? (T__; F__)
g) mirrors keep you humble, if not honest. (T__; F__)
h) honesty is in the high of he beholder. (T__; F__)
i) Only you can prevent forest fires. (T__; F__)
j) all are T (including this) but “i” & “k,” which are F. (T__; F__)
k) all are T except “i” & “k,” which are F. (T__; F__)
l) self-starting is far more common than self-finishing. (T___; F___)
This where some neo-Pythagoreans got really pythed, including a leading philosopher of self-testing at the DIY Institute of Technology, where the Frigate-Bird Professor of Self-Evaluation, Dr. I. Diddit Maiwei (Diddi to friends) became quite perplexed when testing experts revealed T was correct for #j, but F was for #k.
“How can the same answer (parentheses aside) be T in one & F in the other?” he queried, as if asking himself a rhetorical question. And then the answer hit him. “To answer, you have to go to the true inner purpose (tip) of testing.”
The TIP: The True Inner Purpose of testing is:
a) to learn; b) to learn more; c) to see more; d) to discover more; e) to explore more; f) to find out what you don’t know (& sometimes even learn it); f’) to get one’s faculties functioning at a higher clip, frequency, energy-level & intensity of focus; g) to go gee, gee whizz, wow, aha!, oh, didn’t see that one coming, guffaw (surprise!); h) hi-ho, ah-so! (Humor us, said the flock, and we’ll follow you anywhere*) i) to see the i of the beholder in a more complete light; j) to give a jerk its due (i.e., check if anyone’s home); etc.
- In the King Leroy bible, Adam & Eve appear before the Lord of the Fries after eating of the fruitcake of good’n weevils, and Adam says, “Humor us, as we did not know what we were doing,” after which Adam & Eve discover each other’s elbows have funny bones (“humeri, humerus-es”), each leading to other bones in a series of electric connections all the way to Cain & Abel, Ishtar & Irving, Alicia & Cynthia, Delicious & Delerius, Pythicus & Pelucid, Lucky & Lucidity, etc.
- Discovered & named by shop-keeper John Gooden in a shipment of fruitcakes, the Gooden Weevil fueled the subsequent commercial success of Gooden Plenty, the firm that made ‘holy-fruitcake’ a household word, along with Xmas, in markets conquered “one fruitcake at a time.”
- Just because today’s maggots are considered extremely yucky, people forget what a delicacy a pocketful could be in times of scarcity, when they provided nutrition (nut, for short). No self-respecting witch or other doctor would leave home without a small nut sack, thong or dangle, along with a few leeches, peach-worms & bold ball weevils, all eventually giving rise to the modern fruitcake, with leechee nuts replacing leeches, which have long been considered a nut-less nosh & totally disgusting.
Funny You Should Ask Pre Post-Test
Before learning anything, take the following pre-postit past-tense test–& a) shove it; b) shave it; c) save it in your random access memory; d) half bake it in a fruitcake; e) do the best you can–but no better! Your score will provide a floor below which you will have f) fallen through; g) landed in the basement; h) a claim for damages; i) been deemed to have signed a disclaimer taking responsibility for all risks, having continued, despite this clear & present warning: Do not read or think about any of this while performing any task requiring divided or undivided attention.
Remember this when you: a) come to a fork in the attention path; b) post bail, or a blog; c) can-can; d) try to screw-drive a dull point home; e) evacuate; f) finagle; g) guffaw.
[The firm of Evacuate, Finagle & Guffaw has elected to expand its presence in test advertising by adding credit in brackets to its promotional package. Other advertisers & product-placement agents should contact a Test Ad Inc sales rep to explore the unique advantages.]
0. Testees may now turn
—off their pinheads;
—in their virtual answer sheets;
—up; –on; –out; –around;
–down unwanted offers;
–over.
0.1 On this test, ordinary intelligence will get
–you only so far; –in the way; –negative credit;
–half off; –double points every other odd day;
–whatever little respect it deserves.
0.3 A barrel of which of the following is funniest?
a) Moonshine & Absinthe
b) Monk’s Abbey Port & Hairy Nuns Sherry
c) Sparkling Inn Cider & Home Enema Margarita Mix
d) Hilarious Molasses & Der Glass’s Ceiling
e) Electrostatic eels & bi-polar pickles;
g) Spots, Stains & Splotches;
h) Hearty-farts; i) iBalls; j) Jellicles; l) Sicwik Likkers;
m) Molly Squabbles; n) Nippled Nougats; o) Oy Vey Shmears;
p) Potholes, Postholes, Preholes, Peepholes, & Poopholes;
q) Squidge Quibbles, Golly Squabbles & Glob Squats;
r) Rawnchy Ranch Ribbits; s) Sucker-doodles; t) Tung Twistems;
u) Huey Terns; v) Vagus Nerves; w) Itchy Bushes; x) 9 Exes;
y) Yankidroozles; z) Zzzzzippiditts, Zztzztzzs, & Ziszszszszsls.
[Since funny is as funny does, the correct answer, according to the I.P. Pre-cognition Guessed Evaluation Test Service Team Survey (a leader in quasi-predictive prognostication & obfuscation de-penetration), is “Any &/or all of the above you chuckled at, if any.” Either that or, better still, “Other,” since the Pinhead Encyclopedia claims “the funniest answer’s a barrel of laughs.”]
2. In a recent TV drama not worth mentioning, one angry partner says to the other, “Don’t lie to my face,” then turns around & walks out, slamming the door. In a better script, the other partner should have answered with another question first, “If I shouldn’t lie to your face, what should I lie to?” Then the first partner can answer, “Lie to –a) my attorney; b) my backside; c) my darling; d) my derringer; e) my absence–“; & only then walk out.
[Again the best answer isn’t offered. It should be, f) “take your pick–& shovel.” That’s according to SWAK (Script Writers Ap Kick), a Retort-&- Answer Ap given to prospective sitcom & skit writers by the Ripped Script Writers Guild (RSWG), which asserts that “to learn from our mistakes, we should admit “the humor level here has indeed gotten quite low.”]
Time to renew the well.
~~~~~~~IDIOMS FOR MORONS–“one sighs fix awl”
According to Dick’s Handy Random Pocket Pinhead Dictionary, “the idiom is to the moron what the mot juste is to the idiot, or the au jus to a French Drip Sandwich.”
In This Tangled Tongue, however, twisted linguist Margarita Oui-oui Tusuite pointed out that “the Greek idios, one’s own, peculiar, can be applied to individuals, groups, or whole languages, but may also refer to those peculiar expressions that don’t seem to mean what they say, or say what they mean, but nevertheless do.”
Such “peculiar idioms” get away with it, she says, because “it’s the usual way,” i.e., a group of language-sharing people have gotten used to saying & hearing the expression used in that way, with that meaning, meaning that idiomatic expressions are usually learned the same way all other parts of language use are, i.e., mainly without thinking about it.
More advanced new learners of the language must sometimes “think about it,” however, in order to get it. They often want to know more, like why, how, & sometimes when & with whom, so have joined the Bod Library’s More On Reading Odd Idioms Club, whose members are called “MORONS” for short–which, to those in-the-know, is a terrific honorific, meaning “a person of boundless inquiry, awareness & self-deprecation.”
Also humble. Unlike your dime-a-dozen modern jerk, who (like his superstitious forebears) thinks he knows everything important, or if he doesn’t, someone does, the Moron knows how much remains unknown, relatively speaking by everyone. “What passes for humility is no more than a glimmer of honest grading in a self-testing that doesn’t know any better,” said the Moron Club founder, himself a Harvard graduate.
[“First among equals,” the Bod Library founder knew there existed “more on every subject than was even there in the Widener Library, which could’ve been called the Narrower put up against all that wasn’t known, included or even mentioned yet. He not only introduced the first “More On This, More of That” course at Bod College, therefore, but predicted the rise in Moronic Testing, & impact of the Moron Revival on society (“its last, best hope”), as well as on SBD Testing stock, of which he kept a chunk of warrants under his mattress.]
1. Fill in the following blank____
~~~a) et
~~~b) bank-slip
~~~c) check-chit
~~~d) entry
~~~e) emptiness.
3. Now match these with their guilty associates, e.g.,
~~~a) Linus Up; b) Banana Peel Savings & Loan;
~~~c) Chechen City Library Free Chit Committee;
~~~d) Free Olly Olly Entry; ~~~e) No Exit; ~~~f) No Way Out.
2. Complete the following idiomatic expressions the way most Morons do, automatically, i.e., without thinking.
The early bird gets the_____
~~~a) alarm; b) boot; c) seed; d) suet;
~~~e) cat; f) shaft; g) gumbo.
Don’t change______ while crossing a stream.
~~~a) diapers; b) bridges; c) britches; c’) saddles;
~~~d) pesos to dollars; d’) straddles; e) hogs; e’) harleys
A fool & his _______ are soon______.
~~~a) honey; b) pastrami; ~~~a) parted; b) mustard;
~~~c) chips; ~~~c) piled, multiplied & installed.
Familiarity breeds _______.
~~~a) families; b) fleas; c) breeding;
~~~d) brand loyalty; e) embarrassment; f) contempt
Laughter is the best______.
~~~a) accupuncture; a’) aphrodizziac; b) bidet;
~~~b’) beret; c) chiropracty; c’) co-medical insurance;
~~~d) insanity defense; e) excuse for jocularity;
~~~f) possible response to humor therapy*.
~~~g) * though the value of groans & groaning has not yet been clinically established.
More Idioms for Morons
Pride goeth before the
~~~a) autumn; ~~~b) balls; ~~~c) crap;
~~~d) drop-off; ~~~e) …ellipses; ~~~f) flatulence
Pull my
–file
–finger
–weight, height & fortune
~~~~~~ wait, don’t smell me
~~chain
~~~~~~~gang
~~~~~~~letter
~~~~~~~store
~~~~~~~link fence
~~~~~~~of command
~~leg
~~~~~~~of lamb
~~~~~~~ging [legging]
~~~~~~~ume [legume]
~~~~~~~end [leg-end]
~~~~~~~o [oh-oh]
The expression “like pulling teeth” can have different meanings when spoken by a dentist; when delivered by a messenger with an ironic tone; when trying to get information from someone in an interrogation; & when written on a note to the Tooth Fairy. (See The Pull My Finger Test, Then Stand Back: the Toot Fairy through Time.) Although a pullet is a young hen, there is no such thing as a finger-licking pullet, since pullets a) have no fingers, only toes & wings; b) are more peckers than lickers. (One exception may be the pecker-licking pullet of New Papua, New Guinea, “not really so new, except to scientists.”–Pinhead Encyclopedia)
The SBD Wrong Answer Test (from Substandard Bidet & Dyckyduck)
As you may have guessed already, there are no right answers to the SBD Wrong Answer Test. All answers are wrong, therefore you can hardly keep from getting them right. The best depend entirely on what you want to say, hear, see or read, therefore, whichever comes first, multiplied by the total effect–from absence of affect to complete loss of bodily control & evaporation of all brain fluid. A good groan may deliver twice the expected credit, but a moist guffaw ten times more than that.
Speaking of which, this test should never be administered:
a) at all; b) by email or enema; c) semi-colonically; d) during rush or happy hour; e) while driving a snowplow or other moving vehicle, except by unauthorized personnel in a declared emergency; f) after its Pre Test Post Expiration Date; g) before you have signed your brain-injury waiver; h) in a hurry, or during a hurricane category III or higher; i) intravenously; j) in jail or to juries, unless soon to be hung; k) as a substitute for genuine Kvetch Therapy; l) loudly after lights out; m) without pseudo-medical supervision; n) to help the needy, at the expense of the nerdy; o) on the unsuspecting, unwitting & unwilling, without a good reason; p) in conjunction with a Placebo Overdose Program not yet approved or evaluated; whichever comes first; q) to the queasy or seasick on Princess Pools cruises in high seas; r) retroactively; s) in suspension; t) transcendentally; u) under a ship doctor’s examination table; v) vaginally, anally, nasally, orally, aurally & optically at the same time; w) wrongly; x) exponentially; y) while forking; z) during deep sleep (unless lucidly dreaming)….
Another way to say that only wrong answers are wanted, possible, or given points on a Wrong Answer Test is that a) all point-earning answers are wrong; b) wrong answers are a dime a dozen, being so common & easy to come by; c) being so common & easy to come by, we no longer need to offer more examples here–or ask more wrong questions.
[Courtesy, the Loose Id Dreamers, Mount Moron Academy Department of Admissions, & SBD’s Substandard Bidet & Duk’s Lack of Intelligence Quizzes & LIQI-tests (“Knowing your Lack of Incomprehension Quotient gives you a step up in doing something about it–as well as a bonus credit the next time you take any SBD test.”]
~~~~~~~KNOW YOUR BRANDS, BIZ & BOOKS
It looks like we’ve left FUNNY behind, into the world of complete nonsense, a stream of consciousness muddily running down hillocks, arroyos & gutters with assorted cans, bottles & package-wrappers. When Europeans first reached the clan gathering place in the outback, they mistook it for a town, which they promptly took over th emanagement of which, though kept the native name for it, Middenpile.
Now, in an era of globalization, expansion everywhere, & anthropologists trained in garbology (the study of what folks throw out), students & tourists alike flock to East, West, North, South & Central Middenpile, as well as to Old Middenpile, New Middenpile & Fort Middenpile, site of the Compost Revolution.
According to the professionals who get paid to put out the BA Humbug Business & Organization Directory, “You can never know too much about what might be for sale, especially when it comes to brands & services included in the BA Humbug BOD, winner of numerous Miss Information Awards, as designated by the directory’s editors.
WIth the ubiquity of modern test-branding & contemporary brand-testing, you’d think the idea of incorporating brand information into student testing wouldn’t have come as such a shock. Why not let brands invest in the citizens of tomorrow today? Why not test them on the items, products, tools, & artifacts that are a relevant part of their lives–like the beer & bubble-pop they drink, aps they buy, caps & t-shirts they wear to the strip mall?
All the better that the BA Humbug BOD/ Business & Organization Directory accepts suggestions for future entries, particularly when accompanied by recommended a) cash incentive; b) samples; c) check, coupons, money order; d) debit card number; or e) ebux.]
First, test yourself to see if you have what it takes to excel in the bright brand recognition field of tomorrow, sure to heap cultural & financial rewards beyond accounting on those who can:
~~~a) cut the mustard; b) brand the baloney; c) get in early;
~~~d) pass GO (or GO STONES, in Japan); e) exceed expectations.
Port Hole Brands
- The best-selling bar whiskeys in Port Hole are
a) Alky Ho Fizzy, “sold by the short shot”
b)Brass Bidet, “spittoon avec beret”
c) Al’s Corn Likker, “ear candy”
d) Disgustibus Aged, “non disputandum est.”
e) Epail, “What email is to the art of letters, Epail is to the distiller’s art.”
f) Fifth’s’n Quarks, “Filth & Corks” (formerly Cocken Bull)
g) Lightning Bug, “in a jub”
h) Hole Light, Hole Dark & Down the hatch
i) Idiot Rye, “bacon in a bottle” - Mobile refrigerator magnet magnate & STicket Inn founder Willy Sticket’s auto-biography is called, Driving
a) A Holes Crazy; b) a Hard Bargain; c) Chihuahuas to Acapulco;
d) Dogies to Throw-a-Hula-han; e) Counter-clockwise Exits Top-heavy;
f) Fleas to the Circus; g) NIght Spots to Absinthe; h) Hugos in U-turns
i) Your Arguments Home After; j) Pundits Wild–confounding predictions!
[“Prediction: Something that comes before articulate speech.” —Dick’s Pre-dictionary]
3.. In Down the Up Escalator, Reverse reporters Juan Pinyones & Molly Coddle Bonkers debunk:
a) the idea that Great Mimes Think Alike, coming to opposite conclusions;
b) the idiotic premise that morons don’t think at all, let alone alike;
c) the ridiculous claim that the odd often try to get even (usually in pairs);
d) Brewskis Theorem; Law; Rathskeller; Bunkhouse; Bunk & Bidet Emporium;
e) the Empty Space Hypothesis (a.k.a. the Void Between the Ears Premise, as in “I don’t think I think; I drink, therefor I am.”)
f) the BIG PHALLUS Fallacy;
g) the “where did it all go” conundrums (now a snare drum ensemble appearing weekly at Gigi’s G-spot, call for reservations);
h) What was the question?
~~~~~~~Brigadier General Knowledge
4. Did you know that the world’s coldest recorded temperature was -135 degrees, in Witches Treat, Wisconsin, 2010?
a) yes; b) no; c) maybe; d) I don’t know. e) who cares?
5. Did you know that after the Great Mustard Runoff from the Old Krapshaft Mine, the name of the Animas River was changed to the Enemas?
a) I used to, but not any more. b) I’m afraid so, though trying to forget.
c) a bad joke countless morons must’ve considered & rejected.
d) Nein.
6. Fill in the blank with the best available choice based on recent reporting.
~~The police evacuated
~~~~# the building
~~~~# their bowels
~~~~# the toilet bowl
~~~ # the cotton bowl
[Cotton makes a poor bowl, & so is no longer recommended for non-dehydrated soups.]
7. Pick one of the following
~~~slogans; ~~~mottoes; ~~~logos; ~~ noses
a) “Your witch is my command.” –Hogfarts Academy of Wishcrapt
b) “A motto a day keeps the mildew away.” –Manny Mota’s Motto Monthly
c) “The lower you go, the higher you score.” –The Limbo Bar Guide to Lawyers
d) “Take your pick–& shovel.” –Shovit Excavations, Inc.
[a) Hogfarts is a leading pre-doctorate academy.
b) Manny Mota’s Motto Monthly is the Motto Master’s Bible.
c) The Limbo Bar is a dimly lit basement bimbo bistro in Soso.
d) Shovit Enterprises is the legacy of acerbic comic John Shovitz.
==========================================
This has been just a poor sample of the tests reported recently in The Mirror Times Mirror Testes Monitor, a More-Or-Less-Annual-Review (MOLAR) covering both questions & answers, right & wrong, better & worser, but representative of the wider self-examination community. Some of the companies whose better tests will be covered in future issues include:
Substandard & Bidet–the Peninsula’s leading teacher-&-student evaluation company, in the business of ranking schools, their inhabitants, & their neighbors since the days of dice, wine & roses; trial by fire; penny-a-point (when points were still just a penny each, pre-shaviong).
Their most well known offerings include the SLIQ, the SBUQ & the UBIQ.
~~~~~ = the Substandard Lack of Incomprehension Query, given to all 2nd time 3rd graders (& bi-annually ever after);
~~~~~= the Substandard & Bidet Unintelligence Quotient, which must be passed to get a) a birth certificate; b) a driver’s license; c) a certificate of incompetence; d) a death certificate; e) extra-large-capacity magazines (with qualifying weapons purchase);
~~~~~= the Ubiquitous Bidet (Brand & Business) Information Questionnaire, given to all available consumers to assess their knowledge of brands & bolster businesses the company recommends “patronizing.”
Funk & Thunker–specialists in clunker engineering assessment aptitudes & pre-medical terminology re-uptake potentials, generally required of applicants in fields as varied as Anatomical Degunk Assistance, Pre-Hygiene Mechanics, & valet parking management.
The Undictionary Company–a cloud-based word-entry check cashing service that offers credit scores to high fliers, based on knowledge of words & ability to access them in misspelling lexicons & non-alphabetical collections, e.g., Dick’s Handy Random Virtual Pocket Pinhead Non-alphabetical Dictionary Encyclopedia Atlas Directory Thesaurus.
The Fakakta Medical & Psychiatric Dysfunction Guide to Billing Codes, when Morse is less, & common terms for different kinds of nuts are inadequate, the Fakakta’s “Enigma Variations” kick in, to offer clinical personnel proven shortcuts to agency reimbursement circuits, including unusual conditions not previously described in emergency- or waiting-room literature.
The Stay Tuned Short Attention Span Bridge Detour & Scenic By-Pass Administration’s Speed Reading Map Test ….
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~