So I call Arbutus and leave the message: "I need the word that means the study of words.. Damn it. Epistomology, epidemiology... what the?! It's dropped out of my head and Google is thwarting me. Call me back."
Three days later the phone rings: "Etymology," she says. No hello.
"Day late and a dollar short," I say, "but thanks for having been the cause of my disastrous loss of the Facebook argument."
"Krista Detor, do not attempt to elicit my culpability in your quest to leave a trail of drool across the whole of the internet," she remarks, levelly.
"This is not drool! This is passionate discourse on the issues of the day! This is the meat and matter of the thing - the push and pull of ideas - the friction and fire that lights the synapses and alters the course of the world! Debate!," I counter.
"And what, pray tell, lit the fire of this particular world-altering exchange?"
"Oh, some kid posting comments in acronyms and shit. You know '4' to mean 'for' and 2 to mean 'to' and LOL and crap spelling, and no grammar or punctuation. Started every sentence with no capitals. He was really pissing me off."
"Goodbye." Click.
"Er..."
What came first? Indignation or Sanctimony?
I'm going with sanctimony. Because I'm always indignant in response to it, and, when I'm sanctimonious, I generally incur an indignant response from somebody.
I think they're equally powerful. Sanctimony being a resounding bonk on the head, and Indignation being a resounding jab to the solar plexus. Both are aggressive maneuvers intended to throw off the balance of the opponent, though, admittedly, indignation is slightly less powerful as it tends to be of a more defensive and er, whiny nature and your opponent absolutely sees it coming. But still, you can potentially cause your opponent to double over, so... it's worth the whine. [In my last life, I think I was a boxer... but that's another story for another time. Although if anyone would care to debate reincarnation, I'm in! No, no I'm not. I really should get some work done.]
We're funny monkey creatures. Banging our chests and showing our teeth... I keep thinking that the on-line trend of chest-banging and spinachy-teeth showing will go the way of the Macarena and the McCarthy Trials any day now... Any day now... Any...
Oook.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
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I would leave a pithy comment (WHAT? I know..."pithy" is definitely not my thing!), but I'm still laughing too hard. Started laughing out loud when I read the Arbutus phone call and never stopped. Oh, Lord, I have to go to work. Laughing. Reading your blog is like being in on a wonderful secret! Casts a spell over the whole day!
ReplyDeleteLMAO
ReplyDelete(And I second Willa's sentiments. Can you develop a KD patch for us to wear and have slow-release KD highs all-day and all-night...?)
Loved this! I can be sanctimoniously indignant with the best of them! In discussions and debates I can also be as righteously strident as those on the other side of society's see-saw. Isn't our species laughable? ;-)
ReplyDeleteRT: @all kdetor haz blog 4 u 2 reed lotsa big wurds #good
ReplyDeleteAs the librarian would say "OOOOk, ook, OOOK! They say that language is in a constant state of evolution, Biff Rose suggest we will reach a point where we will sound like R2D2, all beeps and buzzes, punctuation is having the hardest time of it, in my humble opinion, as people are more separated from their own inner voice, or that their inner voice is on meth and has no stops and pauses. Etymology is a hobby of mine, but of greater interest are phrases; "The whole nine yards" is a reference to the length of a Gattling guns rounds for instance. One day I was saying something my mother said often and stopped with the realization that the root of the phrase "Cotton-Picking hands" was a raciest one rooted in slavery......... Reflection falls from every word we utter, the world is formed from words to know what we mean to ourselves, and each other, we must, as T.R. once inshrined in song, "Take big long suck off the fat of the land." Chessley
ReplyDeleteHa! You should see all the monkeys chest banging and teeth gnashing in the course of my workday! And I promise you, it has always been this way, and it will always be this way. I would so much rather be baking cookies.
ReplyDelete@Jim - LMAO!
ReplyDelete