[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?
________________________________________

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