Tom Swifties ,,, question for Jim Flanagan about adverb useage

[Jim Flanagan]

A.P.Lardbhottom, Chief
Office of Canonical Swifties
Department of Magical Humour
Ministry of Magic

Internal Memo to:

Theobald R Pedant
Office of the Mother Tongue

Dear Theo

Thanks for setting young Appleby straight while I was out of the 
office. I generally detest funerals, but it is difficult to avoid 
one's own...

As you recall, he is on exchange from the States, which explains his 
confusion about "stalls" and "cubicles". I told him one more error 
like that, and I'd have him transferred to Spoonerisms. (I didn't 
even mention the complaint from the Norwegians about the 
word "commode"!)

At any rate, Appleby's out of sight, reviewing some "double Swifties" 
that were submited last week, and should cause no more embarassment 
to the Ministry.

Arthur's boy is his counterpart at the Department of Magic in 
Washington. I expect he'll have the Yanks all sorted out inside of 
six months!

Posthumously yours,
A.P.L.


--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> wrote:
> 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