Sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer see"s a car puttering along at 22 MPH.
He thinks to himself, "This driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!" So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over. Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies, two in the front seat and three in the back, wide eyed and white as ghosts. The driver, obviously confused, says to him, "Officer, I don"t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! What seems to be the problem?"
"Ma"am," the officer replies, "You weren"t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers."
"Slower than the speed limit? No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly twenty-two miles an hour!" the old woman says a bit proudly.
The State Police officer, trying to contain a chuckle, explains to her that "22" was the route number, not the speed limit.
A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error.
"But before I let you go, Ma"am, I have to ask... Is everyone in this car OK? These women seem awfully shaken and they haven"t muttered a single peep this whole time," the officer asks.
"Oh, they"ll be all right in a minute officer. We just got off Route 142."
n. (pl. -dia) membranous sac enclosing the heart. [greek kardia heart]
PERIPATETIC
—adj. - (of a teacher) working in more than one school or college etc.
- going from place to place; itinerant. —n. Peripatetic person, esp. A teacher. [greek pateo walk]
PERIPHRASIS
n. (pl. -phrases) 1 roundabout way of speaking; circumlocution.
- roundabout phrase. periphrastic adj. [greek: related to *phrase]
PERISTALSIS
n. Involuntary muscular wavelike movement by which the contents of the digestive tract are propelled along it. [greek peristello wrap around]
PERITONITIS
n. Inflammatory disease of the peritoneum.
PERMISSIBLE
adj. Allowable. permissibility n. [french or medieval latin: related to *permit]
PERMUTATION
n. - one of the possible ordered arrangements or groupings of a set of things.
- combination or selection of a specified number of things from a larger group, esp. Matches in a football pool. [latin permuto change thoroughly]
PERSONALITY
n. (pl. -ies) 1 a person's distinctive character or qualities (has a strong personality). B socially attractive qualities (was clever but had no personality).
- famous person (tv personality).
- (in pl.) Personal remarks.
PERSONALIZE
v. (also -ise) (-zing or -sing) 1 make personal, esp. By marking with one's name etc.
- personify.
PERSPECTIVE
—n. - a art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of relative positions, size, etc. B picture so drawn.
- apparent relation between visible objects as to position, distance, etc.
- mental view of the relative importance of things.
- view, esp. Stretching into the distance. —adj. Of or in perspective. in (or out of) perspective 1 drawn or viewed according (or not according) to the rules of perspective.
- correctly (or incorrectly) regarded in terms of relative importance. [latin perspicio -spect- look at]
