Journal Entry 1 by catsalive from Rooty Hill, New South Wales Australia on Tuesday, January 08, 2008

cover:
David Crystal examines why we devote so much time and energy to language games, how professionals make a career of them, and how young children instinctively take to them. Crystal makes a simple argument - that since playing with language is so natural, a natural way to learn language is to play with it - while he discusses puns, crosswords, lipograms, comic alphabets, rhymes, funny voices taken from dialect and popular culture, limericks, anagrams, scat singing and much more. 

Journal Entry 2 by catsalive at Rooty Hill, New South Wales Australia on Monday, January 30, 2012

I enjoy playing with language and, while this went into more detail than I really needed, I did enjoy it. I also discovered where the term 'berk', as in 'stupid berk', comes from - good old rhyming slang for berk(eley hunt) - & I hadn't even known that I wanted to know that. Also, good old cobblers awls (balls), Charley Ronce (ponce), goose & duck (you know!), bottle & glass (arse), Hampton Wick (prick), and, drat from God rot & Jiminy Cricket from Jesus Christ to name a couple more euphemisms.