The Big Book of Boy Stuff

by Bart King

  30. In a town in ancient Atlantis, they had a law that said all men must shave every day. The barber in the town shaved all the men’s faces, but nobody shaved the barber’s face. The barber was a healthy, normal, 40-year-old person. Why wasn’t the barber breaking the law?

  31. Tim went to the movies with his only sister’s husband’s mother-in-law’s only daughter-in-law. So who did he go to the movies with?

  32. A man carrying three croquet balls comes to a bridge. The bridge has a sign that says, “Bridge can only hold 200 pounds.” The man stops and thinks. He knows that he weighs 195 pounds. Each of the croquet balls he is carrying weighs two pounds each. Assuming that this man is very well coordinated, how can he cross the bridge without having it collapse underneath him?

  33. What gets wetter and wetter the more it dries?

  34. A man stands in front of a painting of a relative. The man says, “Brothers and sisters, I have none. But this man’s father is my father’s son.” (In other words, “I am an only child, but the father of this person is my father’s son.) Who’s the picture of?

  35. In heavy fog on a highway, there was a serious road crash that involved 2 trucks and 6 cars. All the vehicles were severely damaged. Police and emergency workers found both of the truck drivers and took them to the hospital. Strangely, no drivers from any of the cars could be found at the scene of the accident. Even more strangely, the police didn’t seem to care! Why not?

  36. You throw away the outside and cook the inside.

  Then you eat the outside and throw away the inside.

  What did you eat?

  37. What is at the beginning of eternity, the end of time, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?

  38. What is the one crime that everyone tries to prevent if they see it about to be committed, but if the crime is committed, the person is not punished?

  39. I have a bow and exactly 60 arrows. If I shoot one arrow at a tree at exactly noon, and then shoot another arrow every minute after that, what time will it be when I run out of arrows?

  40. My friend calls me up and says, “I’ve invented a liquid that dissolves everything it touches. Do you want to invest in my discovery?”

  I say, “Maybe, let me examine it.”

  “Okay, I’ll bring a liter over right now,” he replies.

  “Never mind, I’m not interested anymore,” I tell him. Why did I lose interest?

  41. A man drives his truck under an overpass, and he comes to a screeching halt. The overpass was just a little lower than the truck, and now the truck is wedged in so tightly that it can’t go backward or forward. What’s the easiest way to get the truck out?

  42. Is it legal for a man to marry his widow’s sister?

  43. Is it cheaper to take 1 friend to the movies twice or 2 friends to the movies once, if you are paying for the tickets?

  44. Professor vanderSommen’s head lay on the desk surrounded by a pool of blood. On the floor to his right lay a handgun. There were powder burns on the right side of the professor’s head, showing that he had been shot at close range. The professor’s right hand still held the pen that wrote his suicide note, which was coated in blood. The police recorded the time of death as 2:00 a.m. Suddenly, the professor’s best friend, Count Feely burst into the room.

  “He killed himself!” the Count cries. Then he sees the bloody note. “Why would he want to kill himself?” he asks. You don’t care about the note, because you know it was murder. How do you know?

  45. What 5-letter word becomes shorter when you add 2 letters to it?

  46. Look at the following pattern:

  AEFHIKLMNTVWXY

  BCDGJOPQRSU

  Does the letter “Z” belong on the top row or on the bottom? Why?

  47. If 3 dogs can catch 3 cats in 3 minutes, how many dogs would it take to catch 100 cats in 100 minutes?

  48. While exploring the Amazon rainforest, Professor vanderSommen was seized by hostile natives. These natives told the professor that they were going to kill him unless he could solve his way out of the following problem.

  The professor had a choice of how they would kill him. Here’s how it worked: The professor had to say something. It could be any sentence that wasn’t a question. If the professor made a false statement, he would be hit with a wet noodle till dead. If he made a true statement, he would be forced to drink prune juice till dead.

  What is the only statement that Professor vanderSommen can make which will save his life?

  49. There is only one place where the U.S. flag is flying all day and all night. It is never taken down. It is never flown at half-mast. Where is it?

  50. What is the greatest book ever written?

  Answers!

  1. O H I O

  2. President Grover Cleveland was our only president who served two different terms at two different times (1885–1889, 1893–1897). Benjamin Harrison was the “in-between” president.

  3.One hour.

  4. Go in with the lions. If they haven’t eaten in a year, they’re dead.

  5. A sponge.

  6. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

  7. Meat.

  8. Fifteen: 1 George Washington head, 1 eagle head, and 13 arrowheads.

  9. A breath.

  10. The doctor is the boy’s mother.

  11. I go to bed during the day.

  12. Three.

  13. The two sons go first. One son brings back the canoe and the mother rows over. Then the other son returns for his brother.

  14. An umpire and a catcher.

  15. You pick the barber with the bad haircut. The bad barber has been cutting his hair, which means he is the good haircutter!

  16. 9 and 6.

  17. They are 2/3 of a group of triplets.

  18.The flat tire was the spare tire.

  19. The next number is “0.” This is a listing of the numbers in alphabetical order. Eight, Five, Four, Nine, One, Seven, Six, Three, Two, Zero.

  20. A penguin. The only place this house could exist is on the South Pole.

  21. It’s a coin.

  22. A shadow.

  23. The parrot was deaf.

  24. A fan.

  25. The rope isn’t tied to anything.

  26. The river was frozen.

  27.“Squeeze through the fence, kill one of us, tear us to pieces, and then take the pieces through to the other side of the fence. Then you can eat in peace!”

  28. A thousand.

  29. Girls scored the goals.

  30. She was a woman.

  31. His wife.

  32. He juggles the balls; that way, one of the balls is always in the air! If you don’t know how to juggle, see the “Juggling!” chapter. It’s time to learn!

  33. A towel.

  34. His own son!

  35. One of the trucks was carrying a load of cars.

  36. An ear of corn.

  37. The letter “E.”

  38. Suicide.

  39. 12:59.

  40. If it dissolves everything, he can’t bring it over. It must be a fake!

  41. Let some air out of the tires and drive it on through.

  42. It is both illegal and impossible, since the man would have to be dead to have a widow.

  43. It’s cheaper to take 2 friends once. Otherwise, you’d end up paying for 4 people instead of 3!

  44. If the professor has the pen in his right hand, that means he shot himself in the head and then wrote his suicide note. Since this is not possible, it must be murder!

  45. Short.

  46. The letter “Z” belongs on the top row because it is made of straight lines, unlike the letters on the bottom, which all have a curve somewhere in them.

  47. Since the 3 dogs are already averaging 1 cat a minute, you just need 3!

  48. He must say, “You will kill me with a wet noodle.” If the natives then kill him with a wet noodle, that would make his statement TRUE, which means they should have made him drink prune juice. If they make him drink prune juice
, this makes his statement FALSE, which means they should have hit him with a wet noodle!

  49. The Moon.

  50. You’re holding it in your hands!

  Slang!

  One special category of words is “slang” words. These are the casual, colorful words that we like to use, like “cool,” as in “This book is very cool.” There are all sorts of different slang speech that you can use to make your words more interesting. Instead of throwing away something, you can “chuck” it or “deep-six” it. Instead of jokingly threatening to beat up your friend, tell him that you will “drop him like a bag of dirt.” If he gives you any back talk, tell him, “You write the check, and I’ll cash it.” (Nobody knows what this means, but it sounds great!)

  Different countries have different slang. For example, they sure know how to speak colorfully in Australia. Here are just a few of their slang terms for “nerd” in the land Down Under: boofhead, dag, dill, dipstick, droob, duffer, goose, and nong.

  One great source of slang is money. Money is something that everyone likes, and most people just call it “money” or “cash.” But there are other great slang terms for money: scratch, mazuma, bling-bling, shekels, dinero, greenbacks, bank, cha-ching, moolah, sawbucks, or clams.

  There are other ways to name money. Each type of paper money in the United States has a different important American on it. A good way to memorize them is to name the bill by who is on it! George Washington is on the one-dollar bill, so instead of calling a dollar a “dollar,” call it a “George Washington” or a “George.”

  The $5 bill has Abraham Lincoln, so it can be called an “Abe.” It’s also sometimes called a five-spot or a fiver. Likewise, the $10 and the $20 bills can be called ten-spots and twenty-spots. I like to call the $50 bill a “fitty.”

  The $100 bill has Benjamin Franklin on it. (He was the author of Fart Proudly!) It’s also called a “C- note” and a “bill.” The U.S. Mint does not print any larger bills than that, although they used to. The biggest bill ever printed was the $100,000 bill. In slang, we call that “a lot of money.”

  The buck stops here...and STAYS here! When it comes to having the heaviest money in the world, the people of the Yap Islands in the Pacific Ocean take the piggy bank. There, the people use stones that can be 12 feet across and weigh more than 500 pounds! “Hey Timmy, can I borrow...oh, never mind.”

  When the Greenback Breaks, the Bling-Bling Will Fall! Speaking of heavy money, take a crisp dollar bill. Fold it twice lengthwise so it looks like a “W” from the end. Rest each end of the bill on a support such as two drinking glasses. Now start putting change in the folds. You should be able to get at least $2 in quarters on it. Keep going!

  Follow-Up Activity

  Learn a foreign language. Start with the slang and “bad words” and take it from there.

  Extra Special Feature: Pig Latin

  Maybe you have heard someone speaking in Pig Latin before and didn’t know what it was. It is an easy way to speak in a “secret” code!

  Here’s how it works: Any word that starts with a vowel (A, E, I, O, U) gets a “— WAY” stuck onto the end of the word. (Example: “Owl” becomes “Owl-way.”) Words that start with a consonant (the 21 letters that aren’t vowels) have their beginning moved to the end of the word, with “— AY” added on. It is not that hard! (Translated into Pig Latin, this becomes “It-way is-way ot-nay at-thay ard-hay!”)

  Let’s try some other phrases:

  “You smell like monkey cheese” becomes “Ou-yay ell-smay ike-lay onkey-may eese-chay!”

  “Your voice could peel scales off a donkey’s butt” becomes “Or-yay oice-vay ould-cay eel-pay ales-scay off-way a-way onkey’s-day utt-bay!”

  See how great it is? Whoohoo! (“Oohoo-way!”)

  Special Feature: Talk Like a Pirate

  Being able to talk like a pirate is a valuable skill that may save your life someday. For example, let’s say you were kidnapped by pirates, and they were making you walk the plank in your pajamas. You could turn to them and bellow, “Avast, ye scurvy, chicken-livered landlubbers. If ye send me to Davey Jones’ locker in these here pajamas, I’ll come back and keelhaul the lot of ye!” The bloodthirsty pirates will be so impressed, they will make you the honorary captain of the ship!

  One good way to learn how to talk like a pirate is to see pirate movies, even the ones rated “Arrr!” Another way is to read the list below.

  Now That’s One Tough Pirate! Blackbeard (his real name was Edward Teach) was a real pirate who once shot one of his sailors without any warning. His only explanation was that if he did not kill one of his men every now and then, they would forget who he was. Blackbeard was attacked by pirate hunters in 1718. Supposedly, the corsair shouted, “Damnation seize my soul if I give any quarter or take any from you!” He later died of 20 cutlass wounds and 5 gunshot wounds. After his death, his head was cut off, and then both head and body were thrown overboard. According to legend, Blackbeard’s headless body then swam several times around the ship before sinking.

  ahoy: “Hey! Hello! Yo-yo-yo!”

  avast: “Pay attention!” or “Knock it off!” or “What the heck are you doing?”

  arrr: Good all-purpose word that can show anger, disgust, or happiness.

  bilge: “Baloney!” The bilges are the lowest parts of the ship that fill with bilgewater. They stink.

  blimey: “Wow!” or “Good grief!” or “Holy Toledo!”

  booty: Treasure or riches. If you take a bag of treasure and shake it, you are “shaking your booty.”

  buccaneer: A pirate from the Caribbean.

  bucko: Friend. “Me bucko” is the same as “my friend.”

  corsair: A nice word for “pirate.”

  crikey: A good curse to use. “By crikey, I told ye lubbers to get me a fig newton!”

  cutlass: A pirate’s sword. It has a curved blade.

  Davey Jones’ locker: The bottom of the sea.

  deadlights: Eyes.

  Dead men tell no tales: A good thing to say when you’re not taking prisoners. Pirates flying a red flag would kill everyone aboard any ship they fought; this was a favorite saying of theirs.

  doubloon: A gold coin. Doubloons are worth more than “pieces of eight.”

  piece of eight: A silver coin.

  gangway: “Get out of my way!” as in “Gangway, I’ve got to get to the poop deck!”

  grog: Usually this was watered-down rum.

  (anything) ho: The word “ho” means “I see it!” The word is used for spotting ships (“Sail ho!”), land (“Land ho!”), and even tools (“Shovels ho!”).

  Jolly Roger: The pirates’ skull-and-crossbones flag. Why is Roger so jolly? Because he’s about to rob you!

  keelhaul: This was a nasty punishment. A person was tied to a rope and dragged underneath the ship. Since the sides of the ship were covered with barnacles, this would lead to nasty cuts and near-drowning.

  lad: Call anyone your age or younger this.

  landlubber or lubber: A person who doesn’t know the sea; they “lub” the land.

  Long John Silver: One of the most famous fictional pirates, he is a one-legged character with a parrot in the book Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

  maroon: Leaving a victim in a deserted area.

  me: “My.”

  me hearties: Good way to address a large group of people.

  matey: A friend. “I do not hatey me matey.”

  poop deck: Not a place to bust a grumpy. This is the high deck at the back end of a ship.

  quarter: Mercy. As in, “Show me some quarter, me hearties. I really need 25 cents.”

  scurvy: This is both a disease and an insult. Mean captain: Why are ye movin’ so slow, you scurvy dog? Sailor: Beg your pardon, Cap’n, but I actually do have scurvy. Mean captain: Oh. Sorry about that. Sailor: Ruff!

  shiver me timbers: This means that you are so surprised, your timbers are shivering. The timbers of a ship are the lumber that the ship is made of. If the
y shiver, it means that you just ran into a reef, or a cannonball hit you, or the ship is just cold.

  sink me: See “blimey.”

  smartly: Fast or quickly. “Step smartly there, ye miserable swabs!”

  swab: A worthless sailor who is only good for swabbing the deck.

  swag: Booty or riches.

  walk the plank: Forcing a blindfolded victim to walk along a board that extends over the ship’s side. Then they drown. It apparently never was used by pirates, but that shouldn’t stop us from using the cool expression!

  weigh anchor: To haul the anchor up and get ready to haul your butt somewhere else.

  yo-ho-ho: This is a good all-around expression to use when singing about dead men’s chests and bottles of rum.

  Storytelling!

  There is an ancient belief called Zoroastrianism. (Try saying that fast!) In this belief, it was considered a sin to be a boring person. Unfortunately, many people today are very boring. They have been entertained all their lives, but they have never learned how to be entertaining. These people definitely never learned how to tell a story. Good storytelling is the opposite of electronic entertainment. It is a live performance. It is the classic “you had to be there” experience. Without someone right there listening, it’s not storytelling.

  There is a good reason to tell stories: They can save your life! Did you know 28 children were crushed to death by falling television sets in the last 10 years? It’s much safer to stay away from the television. Being able to speak interestingly is a very valuable skill, and everyone loves stories.

  Where can you find stories to tell?

  The most obvious place to get a story is from a storyteller. If you think you don’t know a storyteller, you’re wrong; we are all storytellers, whether we realize it or not.

  What are the basics of how to tell a story?