EXERCISES IN TOPSY-TURVEYDOM
1. Invert the following commonplaces humorously:
Honesty is the best policy.
The cup that cheers but not inebriates.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Like a child in its mother's arms.
(Not so easy, you see!)
2. Invert the following motifs humorously:
(a) A parted husband and wife reconciled by their little child. (Stock Poetry.)
(b) A patient marrying his nurse on recovery. (Stock Story.)
(c) A mother-in-law who comes to stay six months. (The Old Humour.)
Inversion may be applied, you see, both to ideas and to phrases. Let me contribute a specimen of either sort to the literary primer of the future: