Dictionaries and Jiu Jitsu (Blog 56)

The other day I was once again looking through my dictionary, finding some words I could joke about. My favourite gag was inspired by the word ‘rabies’. It goes something like this: ‘Why must bees never train other bees to use lasers? Because if they did, they’d spread ray bees.’ However, I soon noticed a few very strange things in my book. For example, its definition of the hard to joke about ‘sirloin’ is: ‘the best part of a loin of beef’. Since when did dictionaries give opinions? Can you imagine if all the descriptions were like that? Take the word ‘pyramid’. (If you think that’s random, it is, I just opened my book without thought and pointed somewhere). Anyway, imagine if its definition was ‘the best kind of ancient building. They look really cool.’ How weird would that be? Or alternatively, imagine if ‘kebab’s’ definition was ‘if you want a really good doner, check out the kebab place in London Bridge’. It would be hard to take that kind of stuff seriously, especially if you were using the tool to write non-whacky academic papers.

Speaking of the food, why does my dictionary’s definition of ‘doner kebab’ exclude the chicken variety? Don’t believe me? Here it is: ‘Turkish dish of spiced LAMB cooked on a spit and served in slices’. I have had loads of chicken doners, but apparently they don’t exist. My book for whatever reason also has no definition of ‘sniper’, just ‘snipe’ and ‘snippet’. So if you ever get asked the question ‘what do chicken kebabs and snipers have in common?’ you will now know the answer: Simon’s dictionary. A bit of a hard question you’re unlikely to get asked? If you’re thinking that, you haven’t seen the TV show ‘Only Connect’ on BBC Two. That has some pretty hardcore queries on, I have to say. Never have I got one right and I never will, either. (Apart from the ’work out the words from the few letters that are given’ ones. They’re not so bad). Lastly on the subject of my book, you know how ‘row’ has more than one meaning? (As in ‘paddle’ and ‘argument’). One of its meanings is pronounced ‘roh’, and the other is pronounced ‘row’. Yes, my dictionary says ‘row’ is pronounced ‘row’. That’s the first thing I read on that page, so I missed the reason the pronunciation was given. Needless to say, I was confused. Why bother saying that? Only later did I read the other words, spelt the same. Arguably not hilarious, but it’s something, isn’t it?

On a completely different note, I not long ago applied for some voluntary work, where I will hopefully be writing jokes and one liners for a comedy company. In the email I got following my submission, I was asked if I was still interested in doing my various tasks. I said ‘yes’, and wanted to sound enthusiastic ASAP, so I asked if they had a website for me to look at. I shouldn’t have been in so much of hurry to send my email as if I was more composed, I would most likely have realised I was given a website at the end of the message. Whoops. Not a good start. It’s not the worst start I’ve ever had, though. Worse, was the only karate tournament I took part in, and that was when I was 11. In my first and only fight there, I was put up against a black belt. That was rather unfair as I was relatively inexperienced to say the least. It felt I was up against a human machine gun gone super crazy. I hit him once and was happy with that, however. If I remember correctly, there was a girl green belt in the contest as well. I know wanting to hit girls sounds bad, but I would have much rather had a fight with her. Needless to say, it wasn’t to be.

Just yesterday, it was time to put things right. I went to a Guildford Jiu Jitsu class with a friend, and there was a girl there to hit. Only joking. Well, joking in a way. I just tapped her in a game where you have to touch someone on the floor's head, before they get up. Not exactly hardcore, but it wasn’t long before me and the class’s other two beginners got separated from the others and got taught how to fall over properly. That was very informative, but what was really cool were the blocking of punches and the tripping of people up that followed. Very Tekken. However, what came after that was something a little more abusive. The three of us were taught how to break free from various grips and to achieve maximum results, we were told to scream in the poor aggressor’s faces. What was interesting, was that swearing in class was not allowed. Would you rather someone screeched right in your ear, or would rather hear someone around you say ‘piss’. The latter, right? But as you now know from my blog, for whatever reason not everything makes sense. Was the writer of my dictionary a Jiu Jitsu master? Quite possibly, and that’s all from me yet again… Byeybyeybyeeeeeeeeeeybbbbbb.