"Damn straight! I made it by
the skin of my teeth."
I
notice that Douglas has deliberately slipped in a false clue to confuse us all.
�Damn straight!� --- Indeed!
Anyone
who has the first notion of The Triangle of Forces, Young�s Modulus of
Elasticity, or who even has a copy of �The Choirboy�s Book of Co-Secant Tables�,
will recognise the glaring error. Do the
Mathematicians, �Pythagoras�, �Euclid�, and �Isosceles� mean nothing to him?
Has
he forgotten that the Redskins of North America taught the properties of a right-angle
triangle, using a pot of stinking gnu meat, and children lying on buffalo hides?
�The
Squaw on the high Pottted Gnu is equal to the Sons of the Squaws on the other
Two Hides?�
What
should have been written, of course, was not: �Damn straight�, but, �Dam
straits!�
It�s
the obvious place to build a dam, across a narrow strait! Hence, we have the expression, �The straight
and narrow!�
�I
made it by the skin of my teeth!�
Who
removed the skin from the teeth? The Dentist�s
assistant, Florence, or as she prefers to be called, �Dental Floss�.
And
what was used to remove the skin from the teeth? �Dental dam�, of course!
I
refuse to include any Dentist�s songs here, such as: �Oh the Yanks are coming!��
But
I must tell you that an Indian guru asked the Dentist to extract his tooth,
without using an anaesthetic, while music was played. Apparently, he wanted to transcend dental medication.
You
can see how, linguistically speaking, everything is connected. Indeed, a person cannot linguistically speak,
without a �lingua�, (a tongue).
As a final point, the largest dammed Lake in the world was made by beavers. And, as winter approached, what were the tools that they used to cut up the tree branches? That�s right --- they managed to finish it by the skin of their teeth!
In
every Dentist�s surgery you will see on the wall, the Dentist�s Certificate, or
as some people call it, �The Dental Plaque�.
A
newly-qualified Dentist, with no patients, was waiting in his surgery, when a
man entered. Immediately, the Dentist
picked up his new telephone and pretended to make several appointments, speaking
to his Receptionist.
He
finished and turned to the man. �Yes,
Sir. How can I help you?�
The
man replied: �I�ve come to connect the
telephone!�
Les