Amos: A view from under the pew

link Amos the Church Mouse

Illustrated by Gary Mitchell

By: Gary Mitchell

Editor’s note: Amos is a churchmouse, who types by hurling himself at the computer keyboard, but he can’t operate the capital shift, and he shuns punctuation marks – except hyphens and dashes.

the malaprop mouse editor

boss i may have mentioned

this once before but life

ain t easy under a

cushionless church pew

and especially so if

you re a newspaper editor

in the church pew

underworld community

of bugtussle

one of the editors on

the world-renown

bugtussle gazette has a

bit of a headline problem

boss – he tends to create

headlines with ambiguous

statements

shifted meaning and

malapropisms

i m sure you already know

but a malapropism is the

substitution of an incorrect

word for a word with a similar

sound – and it often comes

across with a humorous

effect – much to the delight

of gazette readers

for example in a headline

about a recent court case that

finally came to court after a

long delayed wait mickey the

malaprop editor penned this

defendant cites

statue of limitations

in another headline

instance mickey wrote

about a lecturer delving

into forbidden topics

university professor

addresses tattoo subject

in yet another classic example

defendant says he s innocent –

claims to be an escape goat

mickey s mind runs

the gamut of illogical

constructions from

ambiguity to shifted

meanings to stating the

obvious

here are a few gems

from his headline folder

man kills self before shooting

wife and daughter

something went wrong in

jet crash expert says

police begin campaign to

run down jaywalkers

panda mating fails

veterinarian takes over

miners refuse to work

after death

juvenile court to try

shooting defendant

war dims hope for peace

if strike isn t settled quickly

it may last awhile

cold wave linked to temperatures

red tape holds up new bridges

man struck by lightning

faces battery charge

new study of obesity looks

for larger test group

astronaut takes blame for

gas in spacecraft

kids make nutritious snacks

local high school dropouts

cut in half

hospitals are sued by 7 foot doctors

typhoon rips through cemetery –

hundreds dead

although we may snicker at

mickey s headlines boss he still

communicates the truth – at times

in more than one way – and

still gets the story to us –

with a little joie de vivre

on the side

amos