LEDERER’S LANGUAGE & LAUGHTER

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

February 2, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) -- Lederer’s Language and Laughter is Richard Lederer’s sixtieth book. It is full of humor from all sorts of situations from making puns about situations, to quoting signs and newspaper headings. There is humor bound to entertain everyone.

In a chapter quoting student bloopers, he states:

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a lot of music and had a great

many children. He kept an old spinster up in his attic on which

he practiced every day. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach

was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel.

Handel was half-German, half-Italian, and half-English. Ludwig

van Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so

deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even

when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and

later died for this.

In his court orders chapter, Lederer cites:

JUDGE. Well, sir. I have reviewed this case, and I’ve decided to give your wife $775 each week.

HUSBAND. That’s fair, Your Honor. I’ll try to send her a few bucks myself.

Of the English language, he says:

In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?  Why is it that when we transport something by car, it’s called a shipment, but when we transport it by ship, it’s cargo?

Why, in our crazy language, can your nose run and your feet smell?”

Richard Lederer is a San Diego resident and a lifetime member at the San Diego Writers & Editors Guild.