A new letter to Sis
Tony Cooper
It's time to bring you up-to-date on the goings-on in aue. Actually,
it's more going-away of recent. The group has thinned out a bit.
Charles Riggs purchased a mechanical jaunting cart and is swanning about
Ireland dressed (by his own description) as Charles Boyer in a camp
version of "The Quiet American". He's bought a custom-fitted beret
(Lord knows where he found a beret fitter in the Wesht of Ireland) and
is sporting a silk pocket handkerchief. I'm sure the Gardai are keeping
a close eye on him.
Richard Fontana has all but disappeared and was no more than a blip on
Mr Cunningham's monthly posting volume charts for July. There's been no
explanation for his absence, so I can but conjecture that he's doing
field research on things-that-are-called-what-they-should-not-be -called
or things-that-are-said-as-they-should-not-be-said.
Donna Richoux is on a long holiday, so things just have not been
researched properly of late. Oh, there's the usual postings on the
origins of words and phrases, but it's been largely pedestrian stuff
from commonly accessible sources. Donna always seems to have sources to
hand that others don't.
Simon Hughes has also done a bunk. Perhaps it's reindeer branding time
or Yak shearing season.
There's been a trickle-down effect because of these absences. Padraig
Breathnac, for example, has been an infrequent poster. Evidently, the
heart has gone out of him with Charles a non-starter. Richard's absence
has not shut down the pronunciation threads, but they've become a bit
lifeless without references to "Happy Days" and their time-line position
in the Pre-Airline-Controller's Strike and Post-UN-Shoe-Waving.
The major threads have been rather listless. "Bimmers", as a term for
swimming suits, ran somewhat long. It would have been a two-posting run
if Donna and her research skills had been with us. "Cluedo" got a
decent play without - strange as it may seem - a single reference to
varieties of mustard and the pondian mustard preferences.
"Da Planes" flew along for a while and had some interesting bits of
contributions of personal anecdotes of the white silk scarf type. There
was a "Nicht Wahr" thread, but it was "es ist nicht wichtig" for me so I
didn't follow it. Likewise, several threads about words with Yiddish
origin. My only interest in the Yiddish origin of words is that these
words so frequently sound like what they mean. The word "complainer" is
a blah sounding word that you could take to mean anything from a type of
wildflower to a structural part in an airplane if you'd never come
across it before. But, "kvetcher" sounds like an irritating person that
whines and moans about things.
"The length of vowels" thread got a play, but the very title of it
caused me to skip it. Somehow, I knew that merry Mary would appear by
the third posting. "Less than 100 verbs" was another yawner. "Naked
and Ashamed" got some exposure.
"Paleooology" generated some interest (to some) with postings that
contained observations like "Smith-Trager has /k&t/ and /kart/, and you
r-droppers would state the rule as to when /r/ --> [:] and when it
surfaces as [r] (compare e.g. "bar" and "barrier" -- the first r-final
morpheme that came to mind)." Which reminds me, there was also a thread
on forms of algebraic formula formats.
There was a thread on "Spam" in which I managed to irritate Truly
Donovan. Now there's a trick. Speaking of cakewalks, the dominant
thread was "High Tea" and dealt with food, food, food, and more food.
I'm doing a show-and-tell (or, show-and-smell) on the subject and
experimenting with beans on toast this weekend. Proper beans on toast,
of course, with the green can that is now a bluish-green can.
That about wraps up July, Sis, and ends one of my trademark letters.
The heinz beans are committing a violation, so I'm off.
--
Tony Cooper aka: Tony_Co...@Yahoo.com
Provider of Jots & Tittles
Bob Cunningham
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> said:
[ . . . ]
> Richard Fontana has all but disappeared and was no more than a blip on
> Mr Cunningham's monthly posting volume charts for July.
Lest someone be misled, let me hasten to say that I have no such thing as
a monthly posting of individual-poster volumes.
Tony Cooper
"Bob Cunningham" <exw...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:npvrkugvvg06q8263...@4ax.com...
Sorry, Bob, it's Richie Cunningham that keeps the montly charts on
Fontana. If you don't know who Richie Cunningham is, then it just shows
how much Richard Fontana is missed.
Bob Cunningham
<tony_co...@yahoo.com> said:
[ . . . ]
>If you don't know who Richie Cunningham is, [...]
I know who Richie was, also Allan, Glenn, Imogen, Sam, and Merce.
Sam was from the southern branch of the family. Those boys always did get
a hell of a nice tan.
Apurbva Chandra Senray
> That about wraps up July, Sis, and ends one of my trademark letters.
> The heinz beans are committing a violation, so I'm off.
I got a shout-out! Woo-hoo!
Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
>
> The group has thinned out a bit.
It's always about the hair, isn't it?
Thickeningly,
Dennis
Padraig Breathnach
>Tony Cooper wrote:
>>
>> The group has thinned out a bit.
>
>It's always about the hair, isn't it?
>
I thought that it was about carrots.
PB
Murray Arnow
It's about both -- Bugs Bunny.