One of the guys in the mainframe group where I work is leaving for greener pastures, after 20 years at this job. As is customary and proper on such occasions, there will be a llittle get-together for the guy. The get-together is announced via an e-mail with a To: list the size of the universe.
And so it was in this case; I’m quoting a little snippet of the mail-o-gram as best as my sometimes erratic memory will allow:
We will be getting together at the Outback, to celebrate mainframe guy’s years of loyal service. We’ll have some drinks from the bar and a selection of light ordure’s ,,,,
Now the guy that wrote the e-mail seems to be engaged with George W, Bush in a daily tag-team ritualistic mauling of the English language, so it wasn’t much of a stretch to replace ordure’s with hors d’oeuvre in the preceding, and all was well. Until one of the group looked up the definition of ordure. Wow. Just wow. I have a new word du’jour for the ages. I can now say, for example, bull ordure, and still be accepted in the finest circles.
We wouldn’t be at this point, had the e-mailer simply used the proper term for such party snackage; that term is known throughout the world as whores de ovaries.
-k-
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3 Comments
I am going to remain on topic in two different ways:
My favorite funny line from a movie is from “Moscow on the Hudson.” Robin Williams’s character Ivanov is hiding behind the perfume counter Bloomingdale’s. A guard finds him, and asks him what he is doing. Ivanov says “I want to defect.” The guard replies “Not here, you don’t. There’s a men’s room down the hall.”
And congratulations on mainframe guy’s succesful defection!
See, I told you it would be all on topic.
Oh, and by the way, you and email guy both seem to be on the war path to destroy the French language. There’s no apostrophe in du jour.
It must be pay back for the whole “Freedom fries” thing, I guess.
I’ve been to Outback before. I don’t think he was that far off base.