A Morning With Richard Lederer

You might not be familiar with his name, but Richard Lederer is someone you should know about.  If you take the UT, you can read his American Trivia Quizzes in the UT (page 2) everyday, and on Saturday you can read Lederer on Language in the "Local" section.  He's a linguist and a history buff, and the one hour talk he gave at the Cole Library in Carlsbad to promote his new book "Monsters Unchained," enticed me to purchase one of his books.  He has written over 30 books on everything from American Trivia, to books on aging (that's the one I bought), to puns, riddles, and other plays on words for children, age 8 and up.  He's funny, witty and totally engaging.  I loved listening to him.  He has such a way with words.

I did not know that the English language has four times as many words as any other language.  This makes it ideal for limericks, poems, palindromes, homophones, and other word riddles that I can't remember.  Richard was constantly using play on words, which I found quite witty.  He opened his talk by putting on a clip on bow tie, which he called a "beau ties," because means both beauty and male, and when you connect beau and ties, you have the word beauties.  Pretty clever.  He talked about poetry, and the first few letter of the word spelling POE, one of our great poets.  He talked about our the upcoming election, and called it "electile dysfunction."  He asked the question, "When is enough not enough?"  The first three letters of the word are eno, which when shuffled around spells one, and the last three words, ugh, spell hug when turned around.  The answer to his question is, "One hug is never enough."  Word play like this went on and on, and Richard remembers it all!

Richard says we are pattern makers, that's why we like limericks, poems that follow a particular pattern, and other plays on words.  Heteronyms (spelled the same, pronounced differently and with a different meaning) are voluminous in our language.  Bow, bow, row, row, entrance, entrance are just a few heteronyms that Richard uses with which to make funny rhymes.  He also loves anagrams (two different words using the same letters).  He has a poem called Daniel Nailed (anagram).  He talked about Donald Sterling (former owner of the Clippers) and Adam Silver (commissioner of the NBA) and the coincidence of the their last names.

His final reading was the story of Cinderella.  He took two words that were placed together in a sentence and switched the beginning sound of each one.  For example, the handsome prince, became the pandsome hrince, and the four horses became the hour forces.  He recited the story with many changes in every sentence from memory, and the audience loved it.  Next time you see his article in the UT or hear is coming to speak somewhere near you, try to get there.  You won't be disappointed.