There are many things I would like to say, but tact, or fear or logic prevents. And although the slightly-defective conscience of mine sometimes loses the fight, it generally serves to sensor my true feelings on many occasions. Oh, so many.

The character of Clayton L. (whom I take to be fictional) as illustrated by writer JEFFREY YAMAGUCHI, has similar battles with an inner censorship committee and (to prevent sudden human explosion, I guess) he has documented the true words of reply that spring into his mind when a mass email finds its way into his inbox. Half comic, half tragic, “Deleted Lines From My Replies to Mass Mailings” stirs a mirror reaction in many who have been on the “to:” end of social spam.

To: Company All
From: Bob Smith
Subject: Wish you all well, and good luck!

Today is my last day here. I’m off to a new job and new adventures. Before I leave, I just wanted to say it was great working with all of you. I learned so much during my time here, and I have all of you to thank. Thanks so much. Keep going after it, and keep on winning, team!

Best regards,

Bob

To: Bob Smith
From: Clayton L.
Subject: RE: Wish you all well, and good luck!

Dear Bob,

Good luck with your new job. We’re really going to miss you around here.

For example, I’m going to miss how after you worked out during your lunch hour, your BO stunk up the entire office. How you always came by my office asking, “Did I leave my coffee in here?”, even though we hadn’t spoken in days. How you always made comments about the hottie you saw while getting lunch, explaining to us in dramatic fashion how you stayed out of trouble by telling yourself: “Take it easy there Bob, you’re married now.” Sure Bob. You just keep on taking it easy.

Sincerely,

Clayton L.

To read the rest of the collected story, check it out here.

Hee Hee Hee…

I found this post on the Dracoverdi Blog as part of the “Why Gallery,” a collection of very cute ruminations on modern civilisation:

When you go to the store, all they have is clothes. No Laundry. You have to make
laundry yourself. Here’s how you do it: Go to the store, a clothing store, and
buy clothes. Take them home and put them in the drawer. (still clothes) Take
them out and put them on. (still clothes) Wear them all day. (still clothes)
Take them off and put them in the hamper. They turn it to laundry! Wash it and
dry it; it’s laundry. You can even fold it, and it is still laundry. But if you
put it away, it turns back into clothes. In general, laundry is clothing in the
process of being cleaned. Although you can’t wear laundry, you can wash clothes.
It’s called laundering! They don’t have a word for washing your clothes while
you’re wearing them, which is a shame.

More cute articles from this inquisitive mind can be found on the Blog.

I just found 7 buttons in my pocket. No idea where they came from. This seems to happen to me a lot.

Deficient though I may be in the area of terrorist elimination, I think I can give Jack Bauer a run for his money when it comes to useful but unusual shoulder-bag contents. Inspired by Jamie’s post about the mysterious contents of Jack Bauer’s bag, I decided to do a little inventory myself. I’m not making this up, I swear.

Leather Journal
Three red pens (two functional)
Metallic Silver Sharpie
Make Magazine current issue
7 hair elastics
15 Beaded flower petals
(more…)

This is a great linguistics analysis from SLATE Magazine writer Kate Taylor, trying to answer the age old pronunciation situation in our neighbour nation’s capital.

“When speaking about nuclear weapons, George W. Bush invariably pronounces the word “nucular.” Is this an acceptable pronunciation? Not really. Changing “nu-clee-ar” into “nu-cu-lar” is an example of what linguists call metathesis, which is the switching of two adjacent sounds. (Think of it this way: “nook le yer” becomes “nook ye ler.”) This switching is common in English pronunciation; you might pronounce “iron” as “eye yern” rather than “eye ron.” Why do people do it? One reason, offered in a usage note in the American Heritage Dictionary, is that the “ular” ending is extremely common in English, and much more common than “lear.” Consider particular, circular, spectacular, and many science-related words like molecular, ocular, muscular.”