- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK by Dr. Ced Riley
A BABY BOY WAS BORN: Sometimes the staff at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired gets terribly picky. An occupational hazard.
Watching the news of an evening in the Fowler Lounge, and hearing the talking head announce the birth of a baby boy, a therapist will look up from his flagon and growl, "It would be news if a teenage boy were born!"
That therapist would never be I, of course.
We - rather, they - also wait for someone to remark, "Look at that rain falling down!"
Someone will retort, "It sure would look funny falling up!"
Actually, we like "rain falling down," in a perverse way, because it's a double redundancy. Falling down is, redundant, and even to say rain falling is redundant. We know what rain does, thank you.
Just say, "Boy, look at it rain!"
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