REPLY TO ALL

ohmygod. Oh my ever loving god and higher power. I didn't mean it. OMG. I would've never hit SEND. I'm screwed now. I'm fucked. I'm gonna lose my job because of one stupid email. You just can't say those things to a client, not by accident and certainly not on purpose. OMFG. I was totally joking, but no one will care and it won't matter. You don't even say those things to a friend, not unless they know you and your twisted, convoluted, hyper-ironic, self-deprecating, quasi-sarcastic so-called sense of humor, a sense of humour (for our Canadian brothers and sisters) that is rapidly degrading and vanishing as my fingers tap on the keyboard. You. Do. Not. Say. Those. Things. Full stop (for our partners in the U.K.). I ran to IT, but they said it's impossible to stop that email, to halt it, to disappear. They rolled their eyes and then guffawed. Gawd! What am I going to do now? FMH! And I don't mean "flexible metallic hose," no siree, Bob, check your Urban Dictionary. Maybe I can plead temporary insanity, a spasmodic tic of digital Tourette Syndrome coupled with Surplus Attention Impulse Disorder (SAID), which is why I "said" what I did. Anyone who knows me knows about my SAID challenges, my SAID imbroglios and stumbles. But will HR accept this? No, of course not. If we had a union, it'd be a grievance procedure, a slap on the wrist (or somewhere else hahahaha; there I go again), and that'd be the end of it. If I was lucky. If I were lucky. REPLY TO ALL. Every other time, I have been so deliberate, sure, careful, vigilant. "Do not REPLY TO ALL," I have warned myself as many times as a lap around the beads, as many times as the mala beads on my right wrist, my fake Buddhist beads, 108, if you must know. What if I say somebody else came to my desk and did it? It's worth a try! Naw. Not even in this wide-open, free-for-all, unprivatized workspace. Who am I kidding? Give me a banker's box (or bankers box or brand name Bankers Box). I'll start packing up my office now. You say we don't have an office, we have an open plan? If you say so. I'm gone. Include me out, oxymoron and all. Exeunt omnes. Stage left. Exit moi. I'm already off the network. I can't even hit REPLY TO NONE. 

'if you see something, say something'

Actually, the Department of Homeland Security has trademarked the slogan, so it is displayed as "If you see something, say somethingTM." Which may mean the U.S. government is encouraging its citizens and noncitizens alike to practice Transcendental Meditation (which is a proprietary name and is followed by a TM; maybe even TM TM, for an abbreviation followed by a trademark declaration).

If you see something, say something.

If you see injustice (verbal, physical, social, economic), say it is wrong.

If you see justice, say it is right.

If you see lies (in print, on TV, online), say something truthful.

If you see intolerance, say something tolerant.

If you see error, say something factual.

If you see something banal, say something provocative.

If you see something grammatically naked, say something syntactically dressed up with every place to go, with gerunds, participles, prepositions, ablative absolutes, infinitives, adjectives, adverbs, articles, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs, pronouns, synonymous nouns, and parenthetical asides.

If you don't see something, don't say something.

If you don't see anything, say anything but nothing.

If you see some things but not others, say something to yourself to discern why.

If you see nothing, say nothing. (But say it eloquently.)

The Subjunctive of Epiphany Eve

Were the subjunctive to speak
I doubt that
Would they
If molecular biology
Were kings to fly
Or stars to speak
Contingent desire
Breathy
Breathless
Is more
Is just plain everything
As in this daily epiphany
The bread (crumbs) of life
Ordinary
As my my morning toast
Luscious in butter
And tea
For too
Too much

Liar, Liar Pants on Spider

While on the phone attempting to make a semi-demi-quasi-para-business call, I heard a loud and frantic shriek from my daughter. It sounded as if she were [notice the subjunctive?] yelling,

"Fire! Fire!"

I hung up. I abbreviated my call, fearing incipient incendiary danger (IID).

Actually, she was yelling something about a spider, an apparently 5-inch wide, human-gobbling spider. So, it was panic over arachnid anarchic hyper-angst (AAHA).

This reminds me of a now-legendary family story.

According to my older brother, while he was at Saint Louis University in the Sixties, his friend apparently once wanted to engage in a conversation about the television show "Outer Limits," which was misheard as "Arnold Loomis," so Arnold Loomis forever became the Patron Saint of Miscommunication.

They Might Be Jints

Hope springs eternal -- as in spring training. Or at least temporarily eternal. Or maybe not at all. This unreasonable, illogical, and typically futile springtime hoping began for me sometime between the winter of 1954 and the spring of 1955. I had asked my brother, Richard, whom he rooted for. The New York Giants, was his answer. And it's been my answer from then until now. I kept a scrapbook in those Polo Grounds days; it consisted of pasted-in news clippings and baseball cards, including the card of my beloved Willie Mays and even Johnny Antonelli, who threw left and batted right and had a unibrow, all just like me. (Note the "pasted in"; that means the Willie Mays card is decidedly not worth hundreds of dollars, not that I'm selling any of it.) (Another time I'll write about my Willie Mays hero worship: trying to call him when I was 10 years old; how he influenced my attitudes toward race; how I imagined I was number 24 in the field.) I stuck with the Giants even when they left New York and abandoned me, left to listen to corny (but believable to me) re-creations of games by Les Keiter on WINS 1010, as a tickertape fed his contrived play-by-play backed up by sound effects; stuck with them despite a three-hour time difference owing to San Franciso's distance 3,000 miles away (I sent away to the Chamber of Commerce ask information about this place (they obliged by sending a brochure); remained faithful largely because of The Say Hey Kid, and all the elan and verve and reckless fun and drama he brought to the field and beyond; even remained faithful after my moving back to the NYC metro area, when the Mets were there to watch in person, or on TV, or on radio. I admit to having flirted with fan-adultery then (fantasizing an affair with the Mets), but whenever my boys came into town I could not root against them, especially after meeting Nick Harrigan on the No. 7 train after a game at Shea in 1979 or 1980 (Nick who had seen every Giants game in New York since the 1930s if memory serves); nor could I in 1978 after wearing an SF cap on my head at a game in Pittsburgh where I had a press pass and got to interview the likes of Vida Blue and Willie McCovey and John Montefusco -- with a Giants cap on for heaven's sake.

It would be easier to give it all up. Especially after the nightmare of 2002, which bears no repeating here.

The skin is thicker; the passion has waned; the naive optimism tempered -- for the Giants at least.

I rarely see them in person; it's been years. The Internet has replaced those days of dialing in games from as far away as Pittsburgh, Saint Louis, Cincinnati -- even Chicago or Atlanta on a night with a rare, good skip with little static.

The gods have left Mount Olympus, and all the seams are worn.
The hero's in the grandstands with all his memories torn.
I can hardly find the paper's box score
With all the news of war.

And as for this year's Giants, they've put me in a downright subjunctive mood. (I was indicatively captivated yesterday, browsing at Borders, by Michele Morano's winning essay on the subjunctive mood; I would check her out if I were you, before our language loses the last of this dying breed, the subjunctive.)

Might is the operative word.

Might be pretty good; might be mediocre; might even be awful.

But I most likely won't fret much, no matter which way it all goes.

After all, Willie's on the sidelines -- and he's coaching Mr. Bonds.

(See, can't help it. Just checked. The boys lost today, 10-9. Could, might, would, may be a harbinger of things to come.)


P.S. Sorry, my friend, Michael Christelman. Still can't stand the Dodgers, even though you have a better team this year. Up for a friendly wager?

What a Difference a Lettre Makest

Being on such great terms with my friend Claire Voyant, I have been made privy to these very, very clever (and humorous) results from tomorrow's Washington Post Style Invitational, and wish to share this privileged information with my loyal -- oh, what the heck -- my royal readers.

I wish I could say my internationally recognized humor (or humour) were represented here (were, because I'm using the subjunctive mood), but alas it is not. Besides, if it were, then I'd have to surrender my brand name The Laughorist for my real name. If I recall correctly, I did not even enter this contest (or did I? who can recall back that far!). No doubt I was busy blogging. (I did enter the contest to be announced next week, asking for presidential campaign slogans, so stay tuned.) (As for the subjunctive mood, that entry in Wikipedia is downright encyclopedic, but I guess it's supposed to be. It was so exhaustive, it almost made be subjunctively moody.)


(We) Give Us a Break
Sunday, February 25, 2007

The results for Week 699, one of the change-a-word-by-one-letter contests that some people think we should run every single week instead of all this other stuff with jokes and cartoons and poems and such drivel, were -- we have to admit -- so clever and so abundant that we needed two weeks' worth of columns to share the worthiest entries with you. Also, this is a convenient way for the Empress to take a day off from judging and go lounge poolside in the Imperial Hammock, taking care first to don the Imperial Parka and Earmuffs and Moon Boots.

Report From Week 699
in which we asked readers to change any word beginning with E, F, G or H by one letter and define the result. This week we'll present the best of the E's and F's, with a whole set of winner and Losers. The best of the G's and H's will appear March 18. That week, the winner will also get the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy, and the first runner-up will receive the magnetic Greek alphabet letters pictured here, brought back from Hellas itself by Kevin Dopart of Washington. (The letters are spelling out both the Greek word for "loser" and the English word phonetically.)

The rule for Week 699 was that the original word, not the result, had to begin with E, F, G or H. So, for instance, "flactate," a verb for a PR person's feeding drips of gossip to hungry reporters, couldn't go. The rules permitted a letter to be added, subtracted or substituted with another letter. Also, two letters could be transposed; several Losers realized that they didn't have to be adjacent letters. Also not qualifying: adding a number instead of a letter, as in Kevin Dopart's clever "GeiCO²: Global warming insurance," one of his 191 entries. (To answer your next question, no, Kevin is not on the federal payroll.)

For some reason, the single word that appeared on practically everyone's list was "fratulence," defined variously as a wafting from beer or kegs or college-kid dirty laundry.

4. Fuhrenheit: The temperature in Hell. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

3. Eruditz: A philosophy professor who can't figure out how to work the copying machine. (John Kupiec, Fairfax)

2. the winner of the artsy tubes of Breath Palette toothpaste: Fearcical: Ludicrous yet vaguely alarming. "There's a fearcical rumor we're going to invade Venezuela." (Martin Bancroft, Rochester, N.Y.)

And the Winner Of the Inker
Epigramp: A maxim that brands the speaker as an old codger: "If God had wanted women to wear pants . . ." (Brendan Beary)

Not Ef Bad [this week's term for Honorable Mentions]

Tedema: That jowly Kennedy look. (Kevin Dopart)

Educrate: To teach in one of the "modules" set up "temporarily" in the parking lot of an overcrowded school. (Ted Einstein, Silver Spring)

Elbrow: Extremely long underarm hair. (Ellen Raphaeli, Falls Church)

Emacidate: Go out with a fashion model. (Kevin Dopart)

Editore: Edited. (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)

Demoticon: A little symbol signifying bad news on an e-mail from the boss. (Roy Ashley, Washington)

Tempress: Today, Mistress of the Domains of Chaos; tomorrow, just another loser. (Ann Martin, Annapolis)

Zencompass: Wherever you go, there you are. (Kevin Dopart)

Unergy: A condition that strikes people on the way to work, mostly on Mondays. (Janet Alexandrow, Springfield)

Ennaui: The least exciting of the Hawaiian islands. (Brendan Beary)

Entrophy: The consequence of resting on one's laurels. (Bill Strider, Gaithersburg)

Eohoppus: A prehistoric kangaroo. (Brendan Beary)

Enguish: What elocution teachers feel when they hear the president on the radio. (Karl Koerber, Crescent Valley, B.C.)

Estchew: To stay on daylight saving time. (Bob Kopac, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.)

Stonia: A small European country with very loose drug laws. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Engin: Gasohol. (Andrew Hoenig, Rockville)

Innui: How you feel upon seeing the same landscape painting you saw in your last six hotel rooms. (Dave Komornik, Danville, Va.)

Erstwhale: The success story in the Jenny Craig ad. (Jay Shuck, Minneapolis)

Nestrogen: A hormone produced during pregnancy that produces cravings for wallpaper with matching borders and dust ruffles. (Brendan Beary)

Estrogent: Someone who asks if the fabulous pumps are available in a 13 1/2 E. (Phil Frankenfeld, Washington)

Excaliburp: Sword swallower's reflux. (Marian Carlsson, Lexington, Va.)

Excretary: The office worker who seems to spend two hours a day in the bathroom. (Jay Shuck)

Exhillaration: what Monica almost caused in Bill. (Peter Metrinko)

Experdition: The journey to Hell. (Martin Bancroft; Mae Scanlan, Washington)

Excavhate: To dredge up an old grievance during an argument. (Mike Fransella, Arlington)

Macebook.com: For warding off cyber-stalkers. (Ben Aronin, Washington)

FAQu: The response to frequently asked stupid questions. (Ira Allen, Bethesda)

Yellowship: Cowards Anonymous. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)

Fiefdome: A state capitol building. (Creigh Richert, Aldie)

Fistipuffs: Very minor squabbling. (Jim Lubell, Mechanicsville)

Flabboyant: Proudly displaying one's girth. "In his Chippendales skit on 'SNL,' Chris Farley was amazingly flabboyant." (Brendan Beary)

Fatulence: That squishing noise of thighs rubbing together. (Jim Lubell, Mechanicsville)

Flimflame: To commit arson for the insurance money. (Howard Walderman, Columbia)

Loozies: All those women who hang on Style Invitational contestants. (Kevin Dopart)

Foaly: A elderly horse who likes to bother young colts. (John Holder, Charlotte)

Foresking: The best mohel in town. (Brendan Beary)

Fortissimoo: More, more, more cowbell! (Chris Doyle, sent from vacation in Bangkok)

Farternity: An old boys' club. (David Franks, Wichita)

Forget-me-note: A Dear John letter. (Chris Doyle)

Faux pAl - When your Inker-winning gag about "Gandhi II" turns out to have already been used by some guy named Yankovic. (Andy Bassett, New Plymouth, New Zealand)

Next Week: Stump Us, or The Battle of Hustings (Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)

© 2007 The Washington Post Company