But Aren't

One time we were all at City Grocery enjoying a wonderful plate of oysters with various condiments - among them, what the menu called "gin-macerated fennel." I kept bellowing, "Boy, this fennel sure is macerated!" I said, "I don't think I've ever seen fennel so thoroughly macerated." I found many different ways to say the same thing. They sounded amusing, the clever things I was saying, that is, they sounded amusing and clever as I thought them in the privacy of my head. But then I said them. Some things sound funny but aren't.