Some people, when they have a pain or a sore spot, always go to a doctor. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Here are the answers by doctors to some questions about ailments:

"Dear Doc: Our son is growing like a weed. Every time we measure him he seems to have grown another foot. Is this normal?" --Bill N. Loo.

Doc: "Not unless your son is an octopus."

"Dear Doc: I used to enjoy excellent health. Now, every time I turn around, there seems to be something wrong with me. What would you advise?" --Mort Alive.

Doc: "I advise to you stop turning around."

"Dear Doc: Recently, when expecting a long distance call, I arrived at my office building to find the elevators out of order. I ran up twenty-seven flights of steps in two-and-a-half minutes, and got the call, but found myself suffering from shortness of breath and seeing spots in front of my eyes. Any suggestions?"

Doc: "Maybe you shoe laces are too tight."

At the turn of the century--before the era of yoga and jogging--a reporter asked New York Senator Chauncey Depew how he kept in shape.

Came the dour reply:

"I get my exercise acting as a pallbearer to my friends who exercise."

Price is no object

Sam Goldwyn came to Hollywood from Warsaw, Poland, early in the nineteenth century and made himself a legendary business success. But his dubious command of the English language plagued him all the years he was there, and made some of Hollywood's funniest stories.

One time Goldwyn became set on having Dorothy Parker come to Hollywood to write for him. His assistant advised against it.

"But don't you think she's rather caustic?" the assistant asked.

Goldwyn flew into a rage:

"What do I care how much she costs? Get her!"

Never one to mince words, Groucho Marx endured a very dull dinner party for several hours, then rose to leave.

"I've had a wonderful evening," he announced to his host. "But this wasn't it!"

A just punishment

Reports of Winston Churchill's nimble wit abound in the annals of the House of Commons. One exchange at the end of a day's session was with Lady Nancy Astor, the outspoken first woman member of Parliament.

After a heated discussion, Lady Astor remarked caustically to Churchill, "Winston, if you were my husband, I would poison you."

"If you were my wife, Nancy," Churchill quipped, "I would surely drink it."

Hints about the stock market

A "bull market" is Wall Street's term for a state of affairs in which the investor can't possibly lose. It derives from financial wizard, O. Leo Margin, who, when tipped on a supposedly sure thing, said, "That's a lot of bull!"

Dr. A.O. Goldsmith of Kennett is a retired director of the School of Journalism, Louisiana State University.