Never before have I literally laughed out loud twice in one thread.
My entry:
“I’ll never quit smoking,” Tom said gravely.
Yes I know what they are, but in which volume of the original Tom Swift series do they begin to be used. I have read the first two, Tom Swift and His Motorcycle and Tom Swift and His Motorboat, and they aren’t in there, and I glanced through Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders, and didn’t notice any. I’m curious when the Stratton Syndicate started putting them in.
Apparently never, according to this page, which features the following paragraph:
The “narrative mannerism” that the Random House Dictionary mentions was not the Tom Swifty as such, but merely the labored avoidance of the unadorned use of the word “said”. Tom never merely “said” anything; he asserted, asseverated, averred, chuckled, declared, ejaculated, expostulated, grinned (plainly or mischievously), groaned, quipped, or smiled. In particular, sentences of the form:
“—”, Tom said —ly.
were used ad nauseam. Then one day someone decided to satirize the mannerism by using puns, and the Tom Swifty was born.
“Ejaculated?” Aw man, there’s a softball pitch if ever I’ve seen one.
“Aww, it looks like I’m stuck with the queen of spades” Tom said brokenheartedly.
“I’m trying to put the unraveled toilet paper back together” Tom replied.
“You know I called it first, but I’ll let you ride shotgun!” Tom exclaimed.
“So is he straight or what?” Tom queried.
“I’m from Missouri” Tom stated.
“May we begin our next journey tonight?” Tom requested.
“That was a bad pen so I signed it again with this one” Tom remarked.
“What do you mean they are whale steaks?” inquired Tom purposefully.
“I can unclog drains with my mouth”, Tom said succinctly.
“That was the best sex ever!” Tom ejaculated.
“My wife deserved to die”, pronounced Tom ruthlessly.
“And I drilled another three oill wells lats week”, said Tom boorishly.
“What’s worse is that I got burgled and they took all the furniture”, said Tom cheerlessly.
“The engine, it … it won’t start” Tom sputtered.
“I’m coming!” Tom ejaculated.
“I agree with the feminists who say that males have caused most of the violence and suffering on this planet” Tom mentioned.
“The hampsters are slow tonight,” Tom said boredly.
“It must be the psuedoephedrine”, Tom replied speedily.
“I never learned how to snap my fingers,” tom snapped.
“You didn’t just mistake Aunt Agatha’s ashes for fertilizer!!?”, asked Tom forlornly.
“I can’t get these boots off,” Tom reported shoddily.
“I went to a foam party last night!” Tom bubbled.
“I wish my car had anti-lock brakes!” Tom screeched.
“I love electrical storms,” Tom thundered.
“This bouquet is too small; I’m going back to the florist,” Tom said morosely.
“I’m spending a week in the desert,” Tom said dryly.
“I’m not sure how I feel about homosexuality” said Tom, half in earnest.
[sub] Me too [/sub]
“My stomach feels like it is in a sauna”, Tom said abstemiously.
As offered by a fellow office worker and all round good Swifter
“I don’t like this fish,” Tom carped.
“I love quoting Louis Carroll,” Tom chortled.
“I wasn’t at work today,” Tom said absently.
“I like only pomes of a certain kind,” Tom said aptly.
“Roll me over, in the clover, roll me over, lay me down and do
it again”, said Tom soddenly.
“It’s beyond me how vulcanologists can stand those temper-
atures”, Tom added heatedly.