“That makes no sense at all,” Cabal had said. “You can’t exorcise ghosts with a rifle. I have some practical experience in the area, and that simply isn’t going to work.” Mr. Lintel had thought about it for a moment. Then he said, “Tink.” Mr. Scree said, “Dakuoof,” or something very like it, and they had returned to their work.
Metamorphopsychosis — a stage illusion that allows objects and persons to transform while in full sight of the audience, a variation of the more famous Pepper’s Ghost so obscure that even most magicians haven’t heard of it. Try mentioning it to any that you may encounter. It baffles them.
The classical example of a sentence that is grammatically correct yet semantically meaningless. I’m sure you knew that.
Several of the waxworks, studied closely, could be seen to breathe, blink, and appear rather nervous. This was because they were the real things. A strawberry-picking expedition for the serial-killer wing of Laidstone Prison had proved a sad disappointment for the progressive governor. The carnival just happened to be nearby at the time, and in return for a place to hide, the escaped convicts had naturally been required to fill in a few forms. Fair’s fair, after all. Cabal had somehow neglected to mention that their bolthole was going to vanish within the year. Ah well.
The worrying thing was that every one of Mimble’s oaths and curses actually meant something, and every one was far, far worse than anything cleared for release into the world of men. “There are limits, you know,” Satan had said.