How can a chance be both fat and slim?
How can things burn up and burn down?
How can you both fill out and fill in a form?
How can you overlook something you’re supposed to oversee?
How come a wise man is respected but a wise guy is not?
If a tin horn is made of tin, and a brass horn is made of brass, what’s a fog horn made of?
If it makes sense that a person who handles cash is a cashier, why is a person who handles your investments called abroker?
If musicians have a practice to get better, why do doctors have a practice?
When you pack, why do you put your suits in a garment bag, but your garments in a suit case?
Why are they called apartments when they’re all together?
Why do people recite their lines in a play, but play at a recital?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?
Why do you have to turn off an alarm that already went off?
Why does an alarm clock “go off” when it begins ringing?
Why does night fall, but day breaks?
Why is it that your feet smell but your nose runs?
Why is something sent on a ship called cargo, but something sent in a car called a shipment?
© John G. Harris 2017