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Home: Garden: Ornament: Gnome
Garden Noam   (+20, -3)  [vote for, against]

Too long have our backyard grassy knolls been home to dim witted thick sculled plaster replicas of Dopey. Why not elect to select a lawn implement with intellect? Noam Chomsky in miniature beside the begonias, amongst the azaleas, atop the illicit crop. A suitable replacement for Dopey, flamingos and little urinating boys.
-- grackle, May 10 2001

(???) Garden Noam http://www.renewal....fionak/gallery.html
Third one down; they're all worth a laugh. [globaltourniquet, May 10 2001, last modified Oct 04 2004]

Gnome Chomsky http://www.justsayg...cts---ordering.html
[tatterdemalion, Dec 07 2009]

A bit late, pal. Half-Baked by the inimitable Fiona Katauskas. See link.
-- globaltourniquet, May 10 2001


Rods Tiger, that is hilarious.

[A "garden path sentence" is a sentence one misreads at first, due to a wrong decision in an ambiguous grammatical situation. Example: "The landlord painted all the walls with cracks." Such sentences are important examples in psycholinguistics, in which Chomsky has been a major influence.]
-- jutta, May 11 2001


Okay, but I'll bet he keeps you up all night talking about the Residents Association exerting hegemony over everyone in the neighborhood. . . . I'm getting a Garden Norman Mailer, myself. And a Garden Richard Feynman and a Garden Stephen Hawking (seated).
-- deacon, May 12 2001


Hegemony deacon...or "hedge"-emony?

The Stephen Hawking reference gutted me.
-- grackle, May 13 2001


[jutta, care to explain the reference? what is it that garden paths are so well known to do that matches the misdirection in poor grammar?]
-- absterge, May 14 2001


[Ah, thanks, PotatoStew, that makes perfect sense now.]

Be long and winding, and leave you not quite where you wanted to go.
-- jutta, May 14 2001


There are "garden path" paragraphs, as well:

"Time flies? They go too fast!"
-- deacon, May 14 2001


jutta: I think absterge is asking why they're called "garden path" sentences, as opposed to say "dirt trail" sentences, or "four-lane highway" sentences.
-- PotatoStew, May 14 2001


From _Heavens to Betsy_ by Charles Earle Funk (1955): "To lead one up (or down) the garden (or garden path) - This expression, in frequent use by English writers, has not yet gained much currency in the United States. It is relatively new, dating probably no further back than around the end of World War I. When I wrote to Sir St. Vincent Troubridge, whom I have quoted variously elsewhere, to inquire whether he could suggest a possible origin, I advanced the theory that seduction might have been the aim in the 'leading.' He did not agree with that view, though he was not able to offer anything more plausible. Nevertheless, to quote the _Supplement (1933) to The English Oxford Dictionary,_ the saying means 'to lead on - mislead,' and the earliest printed quotation that is cited in from Ethel Mannin's _Sounding Brass_ (1926): 'They're cheats, that's wot women are! Lead you up the garden and then go snivellin' around 'cos wot's natcheral 'as 'appened to 'em.' If that doesn't imply seduction, then what does it imply? Be that as it may, current usage rarely, if ever, carries other meaning than to bamboozle, to hoax, to blarney, to pull one's leg, to deceive."
-- egnor, May 14 2001


I've been told that 'the garden path' was a polite term for the path to the outhouse. Since the outhouse was screened from the house as well as possible, it seemed like a nice walk until the last smelly minute.
Seduction seems likely too. Love has pitched his mansion in the place of excrement.
-- hello_c, May 15 2001


um you spelled gnome wrong its not spelled noam its spelled gnome. fish bones baby
-- gnome ruler, Feb 22 2004


No 'A' in reading comprehension for you, gnome.
-- krelnik, Feb 22 2004


<grackle!> Put Dopey on a Greyhound bus to Grand Haven, MI. and I will pick him up. My parents brought Sleepy back from Italy in 1968 and he's a permanent fixture on my front steps. I see a holiday reunion here.
-- outloud, Dec 09 2009



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