A PANDA walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich.
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After he finishes eating the sandwich, the panda pulls out a gun, shoots the waiter, and then stands up to go.
“Hey,” shouts the manager, “Where are you going? You just shot my waiter and didn’t pay for your sandwich!” The panda yells back: “I am a panda! Look it up!”
The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition: “A tree-dwelling marsupial of Asian origin, characterised by distinct black and white colouring. Eats shoots and leaves.”
This play on words was used by Lynne Truss in her book on punctuation to show how the meaning of a sentence can be changed, depending on punctuation.
She dedicated her book “to the memory of the striking Bolshevik printers of St Petersburg who, in 1905, demanded to be paid the same rate for punctuation marks as for letters”.
And why not? What sort of meaning would their printed word have conveyed if they had omitted all punctuation?
Music also uses punctuation to add flavour and meaning to notes – metronome, dynamic, tempo, articulation, and rests.
Have you ever wondered how the entire world has a seven-day week? After creating everything in six literal 24-hour days, God designates the seventh as a rest day.
Being God, he probably could have done it all in six minutes, but one minute rest wouldn’t have been much benefit for us. And so, he gave mankind one rest day each week because being our loving Creator, he knew that would be best for us.
The figure “seven” is a really odd one. It’s not divisible by any number except itself, and one; chooks sit on eggs for 21 days, and ducks, for 28.
There is no logical explanation for it forming the basis of our world-wide weekly cycle, other than what is offered in the Bible.
It is recognised world-wide, and every week that comes and goes, is a gentle reminder that God loves us so much, he wanted what was best for us all. And so, he gave us an opportunity, each week, to rest and recuperate.