Literature and Grammar Howlers

Hunt's Howlers—Literature and Grammar Howlers

This page contains selected literature and grammar howlers from Cecil Hunt's classic book of Howlers, published in 1928. The selected extracts, edited and rearranged, are reproduced for readers in countries where Howlers is in the public domain, which includes Australia. For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

Vocabulary

Appendix: a part of a book for which nobody ever found a use.

Autobiography: the life of an animal written after it is dead as a moral.

Buttress: a woman who makes butter.

Consonant: a large piece of land surrounded by water.

Epigram: a man who goes from one country to another.

Excavate: means to hollow out, e.g. "our baby excavates when he gets hurt".

Fetish: applied to persons who seem to have a gay air, as if they were going to a fete.

Interjection: a sudden explosion of mind.

Mortgage: when people do not wish their diseased relatives to be buried, they send them to a mortuary to have their remains mortgaged.

Phlegmatic: one who has chronic broncitis.

Proposition: is for a country to have no alcolic drinks in it.

Rhetorical question: when a lot of questions are asked and there is no answer to it. Example: "What has the Prime Minister been doing all these years?"

Q. Give a sentence containing the word "summit". A. There is summit the matter.

Q. Write a sentence showing clearly the meaning of "posterity." A. The cat leaped about and then sat on its posterity.

Grammar

The feminine for Czar is sardine.

The feminine of "hero" is "shero".

The feminine of manager is managerie.

The masculine of dam is dash.

The masculine of Duchess is duck.

The masculine of vixen is vicar.

The plural of spouse is spice.

The plural of ox is oxygen.

The future of "I give" is "You take".

The Possessive Case is the case when somebody has got yours and won't give it up.

A relative pronoun is a family pronoun, such as "mother", "brother", "aunt".

Literature

Bacon was the man who thought he wrote Shakespeare.

Shakespeare was the author of Omlet.

Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway, who it seems lived up to her name, and had her own way and gave Shakespeare a hot time of it.

Tom Sawyer was a smart looking boy, very fond of fighting, and he was always sharp at this kind of job. His character was always good sometimes.

Oliver Twist had a very good effect, for people saw the workhouses in a different limelight.

Samuel Johnson was known as the Doctor of Difinity because he wrote the first dictionary.

After twice committing suicide Cowper lived till 1800 when he died a natural death.

Miscellaneous

An Irish bull is a male cow.

The Augustan era was a mistake of Augustus.