[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Tom Swifties ,,, question for Jim Flanagan about adverb useage
Neil Ward
neilward at dircon.co.uk
Sun Mar 11 04:32:24 UTC 2001
>From the desk of....
Theobald R Pedant
Office of the Mother Tongue
Department of Interwizarding Communications
Ministry of Magic
Internal Memo to:
Victor Appleton II
Office of Canonical Swifties
Dear Vic
In your recent owling to Mistress Doreen you stated the following:
<<A very highly rated "Swiftie" is the following (with all due humility on
the part of the author):
"Welcome to my humble stall," said Myrtle, commodiously.
In this case, the adverb "commodiously" is, in fact, a real word, and is
highly appropriate in the context of the initial statement,
since "commodiously" implies welcoming. The humourosity of the "play on
words" component is high. Finally, my 4-year old niece grasped the wordplay
in less than 0.71 seconds, a very small divisor, resulting in an extremely
high overall humourosity quotent.>>
In my capacity as Deputy Chief Neckpain, and notwithstanding the excellent
play on the word commode, I feel I should point out the reduction in
hilarity afforded by the use of the noun "stall," as this is generally
understood by the British Wizarding community to be a temporary construction
from which traders sell their wares in a market. Moaning Myrtle (deceased),
being of British extraction would most likely describe her sectioned abode
as a "cubicle". My own reaction time being rather greater than than of your
small niece, I felt it encumbent upon me to inform you of this detail.
Yours invidiously
Theo
PS - How are Mavis and the kids?
________________________________________
flying_ford_anglia
"Krum, his red robes shining with blood from his nose,
was rising gently into the air, his fist held high, a glint
of gold in his hand." ["The Quidditch World Cup", GoF]
Check out Very Frequently Asked Questions for everything
to do with this club:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/files/VFAQ.htm
More information about the HPFGU-OTChatter
archive