Amos: A view from under the pew

link Amos the Church Mouse

Illustrated by Gary Mitchell

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

learning english ain t easy

boss you may think that

speaking writing and learning

the english language is the

most natural thing in the

world but that it ain t for

those of us in the church

pew underworld

two recent events highlighted

the reason i ve pointed that out

boss

one is the arrival of jordy the

japanese beetle who s been

trying to learn english for

his naturalization test

the second concerns my

stumbling across a strange

paper in the office of dr judy

brandon a ladybug professor

at wayland bugtussle university

here in the church pew

underworld

i was looking for some help

in tutoring my friend jordy

but this paper stopped me

dead in my tracks

boss

it was titled – the crazy

english language – author

unknown – it was chock full

of one-liners studded with

homonyms – same sound and

spelling but different meaning

homophones – same sound but

different meaning

homographs – same spelling but

different meaning

and heteronyms – same spelling

but different sound and meaning

it included such confusing

word gems as –

we polish the –capital p – polish

furniture

he could lead if he would

get the lead out

a farm can produce produce

the dump was so full it had

to refuse refuse

the soldier decided to desert

in the desert

see how this works boss question

mark here – here are some more

brain twisters

the present is a good time to

present the present

at the army base a bass was painted

on the head of a bass drum

the dove dove into the bushes

i did not object to the object

the insurance was invalid for

the invalid

the bandage was wound around

the wound

there was a row among the oarsmen

about how to row

they were too close to the door

to close it

the buck does funny things when

the does are present

they sent a sewer down to stitch

the tear in the sewer line

after a number of novocain injections

my jaw got number

i shed a tear when i saw the tear in

my clothes

we had to subject the subject to a

series of tests

we spent last evening evening out

a pile of dirt

so you see boss how confusing our

english language is – it s no wonder

it s so difficult to learn

and as your professor in seminary

always quipped – people need to learn

hebrew before they get to heaven

because that s the

language god speaks

amos