Page:The Comic English Grammar.djvu/119

Rh "Do you like pine-apple rum?" is an enquiry as to whether you like that kind of rum in particular.

And lastly, "Do you like pine-apple rum?" is equivalent to asking if you think that the flavor of the pine-apple improves that especial form of alcohol.

A well-known instance of an emphasis improperly placed was furnished by a certain Parson, who read a passage in the Old Testament in the following unlucky manner: "And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass; and they saddled him."

Young ladies are usually very emphatic in ordinary discourse. "What a little dear! Oh! how sweetly pretty! Well! I never did, I declare! So nice, and so innocent, and so good-tempered, and so affectionate, and such a color! And oh! such lovely eyes! and such hair! He was a little duck! he was, he was, he was. Tzig a tzig, tzig, tzig, tzig, tzig!" &c. &c. &c.

This emphatic way of speaking is indicative of two very amiable feelings implanted by nature in the female occiput, and called by the Phrenologists Adhesiveness and Philoprogenitivenes. Those who attempt to imitate it will be conscious, while forcing out their words, of a peculiar mental motion, which we cannot explain otherwise than by saying, that it is analogous to that which attends the act of pressing or squeezing; as when, with the thumb of the right hand, we knead one lump of putty to another, in the palm of the left. Perhaps we might also instance, sucking an orange. In all these cases, the organ of Weight, according to Phrenology, is also active; and this, perhaps, is one of the faculties which induce young ladies to lay a stress upon their words. Nevertheless, we fear that a