More on scribbling

So, I made some hopefully-not-too-snarky remarks on the Other Blog on some public writing in my neighborhood. That response concerned an A-frame sign on a sidewalk, but there is a growing and nigh-ubiquitous (at least on Facebook) idiom: the occasionally-clever and frequently-flat e-card aphorism. Any number of DIY sites allow you to create these; here's the example at hand today:

This showed up in some stream or other of mine, probably Facebook. It's mildly clever, in that ain't-I-naughty kind of way. But a lack of parallel structure throws it off.

The prose couplet starts off with two distinct singulars being made equivalent: childhood punishment and adult pleasure. Nice opposition there, on two levels. But these two singular concepts are modified by the same plural possessive: our. I guess I can go with that, perhaps, if we conceive of each of these as representing a universal or an ideal; but this universal is then given two plural manifestations - naps and spankings - and the introductory phrase for example leads us to believe there are even more. This is not a case of a Platonic ideal, then.  So let's revise to get some parallelism:

It's funny how our childhood punishments are now our adult pleasures. For example, taking naps and spankings.

Okay, but I think we can polish even more. "To be" - in the original is and in the revision are - as the main verb can almost always be improved upon. How about we take are now and make it become, a slightly more active verb, adding a nuance of process to the meaning at the same time:

It's funny how our childhood punishments become our adult pleasures. For example, taking naps and spankings.

Okay, one more thing: the gerunds (the -ing verb form acting as a noun) in the short list of examples are mismatched. In the first, the person doing the taking is the one getting punished or experiencing pleasure; in the second, the person doing the spanking is an outside agent - not the experiencing party we are most concerned with. If we modify the last element, we can clear this up and get another nice two-word opposition to close with:

It's funny how our childhood punishments become our adult pleasures. For example, taking naps and getting spanked.

The taking-getting opposition is not just a fillip; it clears up the concept and creates a more consistent rhythm as well: two anapests with a beat between.

Demonstrably better.

With that, it's time for this pest to take a nap.