Page "Colemanballs" Paragraph 7

In terms of classification of the individual examples, these fall into a number of distinct groups including: truisms such as " Stronsay is an island surrounded by sea " and Coleman's own " He's 31 this year-last year he was 30 "; unintentional juxtapositions where the viewer / listener knows what is meant such as " Brendan Foster, by himself, with 20, 000 people ", or " I am not a man of faith, but my wife is "; and complete nonsense such as " Here they come, every colour of the rainbow: black, white, brown ".

Others include addition of pointless words or non sequiturs, intended to add effect, as in: " He came in from the outfield there like an absolute rabbit ".

One category with many examples is the use of the word " literal " to mean " figurative ", as in " And he missed the goal by literally a million miles ".

In most cases it is possible to see the speaker's underlying intent, even if the delivery has left something to be desired.

Yet another group is that of unintended puns, such as " There were 150 drug-related deaths in Glasgow last year, an all-time high ", (" high " being slang for the euphoric state induced by many drugs ).