Watch out Below!

I love this very evil, politically incorrect story which I owe to Mitch Friedman and our friends at Tarzan's Tripes Forever.
________________________________________
Fellow checks into a Vegas hotel. Bellman hands him his key, and he gives the bellman a big tip and says, "Listen, can you get me some Italian prostitutes, and send them up to the room?"

Bellman, says, "Oh, yes, Sir. Right away, Sir."

Guy says, "Now, they HAVE to be Italian prostitutes, understand? And, send lots of them."

"Yessir".

Little later, girls start appearing at the door of his room. He invites them in. Turns out he's a vampire. He drinks their blood and, then, pushes them off the balcony. The bellman is going out to get luggage and is hit several times by the falling bodies. He tells the manager who calls the police. The police arrive and question the bellman, asking him "What's going on?"

He says, "All I know is DRAINED WOPS KEEP FALLING ON MY HEAD."

The Ultimate Rejection Letter

Now, this is obviously a parody, but I LOVE its directness and literary charm. This is vernaculary trickery at its very best! Enjoy.

The Ultimate Rejection Letter
________________________________________
Herbert A. Millington
Chair - Search Committee
412A Clarkson Hall, Whitson University
College Hill, MA 34109

Dear Professor Millington,

Thank you for your letter of March 16. After careful consideration, I
regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department.

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually
large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Whitson's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in
rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the position of assistant professor in your department this August. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,

Chris L. Jensen

Groaner

There's this inflatable boy, see, and he goes to this inflatable school and, while there, finds himself having a really bad day. Bored with the lesson, he gets up and walks out of the inflatable classroom but, while walking down the corridor, he sees the inflatable headmaster approaching him.

The inflatable boy pulls out a pin and punctures the inflatable headmaster before running out of the inflatable school gates. Just as he gets past the gates, he thinks again, "I hate school", and once more pulls out his pin and pokes it into the inflatable school. He then runs as fast as his inflatable legs allow, all the way home and races into his inflatable bedroom.

A couple of hours later, his inflatable mother is knocking at his bedroom door and with her are the inflatable Police. Panicking, our inflatable boy yet again pulls out the pin and jabs it into himself. Later on that evening, he wakes up in an inflatable hospital and, in the bed next to him, he sees the inflatable headmaster.

Shaking his deflated head - more in sorrow than in anger - the Headmaster gravely intones:

"You've let me down; you've let the school down, but worst of all, you've let yourself down."

Why is the G Clef symbol used in sentences? Or, AND the beat goes on

While I was in line at an ice cream stand one hot summer day, I overheard a little girl ask her dad the above question. Puzzled, of course I wondered what the hell she was talking about! I heard her dad explain that it wasn't a G Clef, but rather a symbol for the word "And". Smart beyond her precocious years, the girl replied "With all the time it takes to draw the symbol, it would be easier to write the word out." Her dad did not mention that the word for the "G Clef" symbol used in sentences is "ampersand", and that got me to delving...as a cunning linguist is want to do; exactly what is the story behind the ampersand?

Found and paraphrased from businessballs.com:

ampersand - the 'amp' symbol (&), meaning 'and'. The word ampersand appeared in the English language around 1835. It is a corrupted (confused) derivation of the term "And per se", which was the original formal name of the 'amp' symbol(&) in glossaries, alphabets, and official reference works.

'Per se' is Latin and means 'by itself', as it still does today. Traditionally all letters were referenced formally in the same way. The letter A would have been 'A per se', B would have been called 'B per se', just as the 'amp' symbol (&) was 'And per se'. The ampersand symbol itself is a combination - originally a ligature (literally, a joining) - of the letters E and t, or E and T, that being the Latin word 'et' meaning 'and'. Also, it was common practice to add at the end of the alphabet the "&" sign, pronounced "and". Thus, the recitation of the alphabet would end in: "X, Y, Z and per se and." This last phrase was routinely slurred to "ampersand" and the term crept into common English usage by around 1837.

The earliest representations of the ampersand symbol are found in Roman scriptures dating back nearly 2,000 years. If you inspect various ampersand symbols you'll see the interpretation of the root ET or Et letters.

The symbol has provided font designers more scope for artistic impression than any other character, and ironically while it evolved from hand-written script, few people use it in modern hand-writing, which means that most of us have difficulty in reproducing a good-looking ampersand by hand without having practiced first.

So, there you have it...attempt to include the most ancient of ligatures in your vernacular, and get your ampersand on...because cunning linguists do it with the mouth :-)

Vernacular Trickery

I Told You He Was A Moron!

Here at Vernacular Trickery, we love to poke fun at the "Little Engine That Can't"...that's right, "W", the man who put the "w" in "WOW...WHAT THE FUCK'D HE JUST SAY?"

Here's a look back at some of the vernacular trickery of the Commander -in-Chef (put a fork in him--he's done).

"This business about graceful exit just simply has no realism to it at all."—responding to speculation that American forces could be called back from Iraq, Amman, Jordan, Nov. 30, 2006

"No doubt in my mind, with your help, Dave Lamberti will be the next United States congressman."—speaking at a campaign rally for Jeff Lamberti, Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006.

"You know, when I campaigned here in 2000, I said, I want to be a war President. No President wants to be a war President, but I am one."—Des Moines, Iowa, Oct. 26, 2006

"This morning my administration released the budget numbers for fiscal 2006. These budget numbers are not just estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended February the 30th."—referring to the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006.

"One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards."—Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 2006

"You're one of the outstanding leaders in a very important part of the world. I want to thank you for strategizing our discussions."—Meeting with the prime minister of Malaysia, New York, Sept. 18, 2006



"The goals of this country is to enhance prosperity and peace."—Speaking at the White House Conference on Global Literacy, New York, Sept. 18, 2006

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."—Interview with CBS News, Washington D.C., Sept. 6, 2006

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good."—Strelna, Russia, July 15, 2006

"We shouldn't fear a world that is more interacted."—Washington, D.C., June 27, 2006.

"I've reminded the prime minister—the American people, Mr. Prime Minister, over the past months that it was not always a given that the United States and America would have a close relationship."—Washington, D.C., June 29, 2006

"I tell people, let's don't fear the future, let's shape it."—Omaha, Neb., June 7,
"I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it's easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?"—Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

This Guy's a Moron!

Who: President George Bush, two days before Hurricane Katrina made landfall.
What He Said: "A State of Emergency exists in Louisiana beginning yesterday."
What He Meant: "But since I'm still on vacation, I need to stage a few photo-ops strumming a guitar and playing golf first."

Who: Representative Dennis Hastert.
What He Said: "I don't know about that [rebuilding New Orleans.] That doesn't make sense to me."
What He Meant: "It's just poor people, right?"

Who: President Bush.
What He Said: "We want to make sure that we can respond properly if there's a WMD attack or another major storm."
What He Meant: "It was Al Qaeda again."

Who: Barbara Bush at the Houston Astrodome.
What She Said: "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."
What She Meant: "It's just poor people, right?"

Who: President Bush, in Alabama four days after the hurricane.
What He Said: "Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch."
What He Meant: "If you expect help, you better move to a state run by Republicans. Even better, a state run by my brother."

Who: Homeland Secretary Michael Chertoff.
What He Said: "The conditions at the New Orleans Superdome were nowhere near as bad as the TV images suggested."
What He Meant: "Lying next to dead people in toxic waste without food and water while terrorized by thugs ain't such a bad thing."

Who: President Bush, Sept. 1, 2005.
What He Said: "I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
What He Meant: "I don't think anyone imagined people would fly airplanes into buildings."

Who: Senator Rick Santorum
What He Said: "You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk. ... There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out."
What He Meant: "And when I say tough penalties, I mean worse than drowning in your attic."

Who: President Bush, speaking about FEMA chairman Michael Brown.
What He Said: "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."
What He Meant: "For a former head of the Arabian Horse Association."

Who: Barbara Bush, at the Houston Astrodome
What She Said: "What I am hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay here in Texas."
What She Meant: "For crum's sake, I live in Texas."

Who: President Bush.
What He Said: "What I intend to do is to lead an investigation to find out what went right and what went wrong."
What He Meant: "We will track down these evildoing hurricanes. They can run but they can't hide. We will liberate the brave, freedom-loving Hurricanians."

Who: President Bush.
What He Said: "I remember New Orleans as a great town where I used to enjoy myself -- occasionally too much."
What He Meant: "I could use a drink."

Who: President Bush.What He Said: "If things went wrong, we'll correct them, and when things went right, we'll duplicate them."
What He Meant: "One list is going to be longer than the other."

Vernacular Trickery For The Office

I wonder if "W" has added these words to his vernacular...tricky as it is. And I wonder if these things are said and done up on Capitol Hill. Vernacular Trickery at its finest.

NEW WORDS FOR 2006: Essential vocabulary additions for the workplace (and elsewhere)
1. BLAMESTORMING : Sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadlinewas missed or a project failed, and who was responsible.
2. SEAGULL MANAGER: A manager, who flies in, makes a lot of noise, crapson everything, and then leaves.
3. ASSMOSIS : The process by which some people seem to absorb successand advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.
4. SALMON DAY: The experience of spending an entire day swimmingupstream only to get screwed and die in the end.
5. CUBE FARM: An office filled with cubicles
6. PRAIRIE DOGGING: When someone yells or drops something loudly in acube farm, and people's heads pop up over the walls to seewhat's going on.
7. MOUSE POTATO: The on-line, wired generation's answer to the couchpotato.
8. SITCOMS: Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage. Whatyuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stopsworking to stay home with the kids.
9. STRESS PUPPY: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out andwhiny.
10. SWIPEOUT: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered uselessbecause the magnetic strip is worn away from extensive use.
11. XEROX SUBSIDY: Euphemism for swiping free photocopies from one'sworkplace.
12. IRRITAINMENT: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoyingbut you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The J-Lo andBen wedding (or not) was a prime example - Michael Jackson, another.
13. PERCUSSIVE MAINTENANCE: The fine art of whacking the crap out of anelectronic device to get it to work again.
14. ADMINISPHERE : The rarefied organizational layers beginning justabove the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere
are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to theproblems they were designed to solve.
15. 404 : Someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error Message"404 Not Found," meaning that the requested site could not belocated.
16. GENERICA : Features of the American landscape that are exactly thesame no matter where one is, such as fast food joints, stripmalls, and subdivisions.
17. OHNOSECOND : That minuscule fraction of time in which you realizethat you've just made a BIG mistake. (Like after hitting send onan email by mistake)
18. WOOFS : Well-Off Older Folks.
19. CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously passing gas while passing through aCube Farm.