In last week’s column, nine punctuation marks and various figures of speech walked into a bar. We followed them in with great delight.

This week we follow nine more, each contained in a sentence that illuminates in witty fashion the usefulness of punctuation marks and figures of speech in our language.

I’m not ashamed to admit I had to go old-school from time to time and break out one of my old writing textbooks to help explain some things. OK, maybe I’m a little ashamed. (And as for my use of the textbook, well, sometimes I just feel like leafing through a real, physical book.)

So here’s this week’s offering, straight from my modern laptop (with the help of a writer’s guide from 1978).

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.

Good stuff, eh? As with last week’s column, if you didn’t get them all — or just want a refresher — here are the explanations with help from my trusty, dusty home library.

1.  An allusion is often a word or words meant to conjure an image. Hopefully that image is more powerful and clearer than using more literal language. In this case, instead of saying “Alcohol is the allusion’s weakness,” the sentence used “Achilles heel” as an allusion for “weakness” to give the sentence a leg up.

2.  The subjunctive form — or “mood,” according to many references (because it indicates the mood of the person) — expresses a hypothetical situation, often dealing with someone’s wish, desire, demand or suggestion. (It took me forever to figure this one out. If only I had known…)

3.  Our misplaced modifier walked into the right bar for this one. A misplaced modifier is a word or words that are put in the wrong place in a sentence, sometimes with humorous results. In this case, “named Ralph” should have modified “a man” not the glass eye. (I’ll bet you a cold one if the owner of the bar was going to give his glass eye a name, it would be Seymour, not Ralph.)

4.  To keep things from getting tense in the present or future, avoid using odd forms of the past tense: You know . . . words like “had went” (which signals the past twice) and “drawed.” But you knowed that already.

5.  This one tries, and I think succeeds, in being light about an otherwise serious topic: dyslexia. According to the International Dyslexia Association, dyslexia is a neurobiological learning disability that’s characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition. Fortunately, once diagnosed, strategies can be employed to assist those with dyslexia. When life hands you melons . . .

6.  I’m particularly fond of this one. Conjugating means making sure the verb and noun match: A comma orders beer; commas order beer. When the verb suggested to the noun that they conjugate, clearly the noun thought the verb wanted the noun to change, and therefore declined out of self respect. But what if the verb was willing to change for the noun? I are sad just thinking about it.

7.  If we remember anything from the English classes of our school days (and we don’t), it’s that a simile is a comparison that uses the words “like” or “as.” It is also an example of figurative language, which is when we take a word often used in one context and use it in a different way, such as something being “as dry as my wife’s dessert . . . er . . . as a desert.”

8.  This one shows off the great flexibility of verbs. A gerund is nothing more than adding “ing” to a verb and using it as a noun. For instance, the verb in “I feel …” becomes the noun in “… a strange feeling.” An “infinitive” is a verb with the word “to” before it, and can then be used as a noun, adjective or adverb. The verb in “I forgot …” becomes the noun in “… to drink to forget.” (I’ll probably forget all this in a day regardless of what I’m imbibing.)

9.  Finally, another of my favorites. Usually humorous, “irony” is something opposite or contrary to what is normal or expected. In this case the bartender’s mind is blown because the word “hyphenated” isn’t hyphenated and “non-hyphenated” is hyphenated. It’s enough to drive a fellow back to drinking.

Jim Witherell of Lewiston is a writer and lover of words whose work includes “L.L. Bean: The Man and His Company” and “Ed Muskie: Made in Maine.” He can be reached at [email protected].