Why do the French need only one egg to make an omelet?

Because in France, one egg is un oeuf.

Have you stayed at the new luxury hotel in town?

It's a site for soirées.

Have you heard about the student in Paris who spent too much time sitting in a hard chair studying?

She got sore buns.

Pas de deux: the father of twins

Jeanne d'Arc: a bathroom with no light.

Coup de grâce: what a French lawnmower does.

Eau de Cologne: I'll pay for the perfume later.

A company tried to manufacture prosthetic devices for feline amputees, but found there was no market for the product. You might say that they committed a faux paw.

A feline kept yacking away inappropriately. Finally, his fellow felines tied an anchor around his legs and threw him in the river. The result: Undue twaddle: cat sank.

"I hate reading Victor Hugo," said Les miserably.

Motto of the three musketeers: "En garde, we thrust."

A class of second graders inadvertently came up with a French pun. After an especially trying day, the teacher sighed aloud, "C'est la vie."

With one voice the children called out, "La vie!"

Having come into an inheritance, a snail goes to an automobile showroom to purchase a $50,000 red convertible. "One favor, please," requests the snail. " I want your body-and-paint man to paint me a capital S, for Snail, on each door of the the car,"

"Sure," says the salesman, "but why?"

The snail replies, "When I ride down the boulevard in this fancy car, I want everyone to stare and say, 'Look at the S car go!'"

A teacher at St. Mark's School in Dallas wrote me, "A student wrote quite a good paper for me but lost control of it somewhat. Near the end he wrote in pig Latin, 'Isthay Orystay Inkstay.'"

"My one-word comment was outré."

The Verbivore's Challenge for this issue is an array of letter-perfect puzzlers. The first reader to e-mail the correct answers will receive a $25 gift certificate for Borders Books and Music. All answers must be common English words.

The winner of the last Verbivore was Robert S. Thau, who correctly guessed the following answers: 1. parishioner 2. rendezvous 3. expanse, cleanse 4. rinse 5.response

When we announced the winner of the April 22 Verbivore, we never told you the correct answers to the Shakespearean anagrams.