Wednesday, December 21, 2011

DEAR PRESIDENT CLINTON

After reading a columnist who used some really big words in his essay, I wrote this "Letter to the Editor" in which I used his vocabulary. It drew a lot of favorable comments. 1/1/2017

DEAR PRESIDENT CLINTON
I regret that I must spurn your offer to assist your speech writing team for the upcoming presidential campaign. The C.I.A. has employed me to decipher William J. Buckley’s most recent essay whose meaning is at present unfathomable. This assignment will occupy all my time and energy for the foreseeable future. I commend you for thinking of me. With insouciance do I join the chorus of other encomiasts who admire your preciosity. I found you not the least bit disingenuous when you said you lacked an omniscient knowledge of simple English words. You must not be disheartened by this manqué; nor should you be naif enough to think your language skills will ever rise to the level exhibited daily by Mr. Buckley, whose vertiginous prose will forever keep us in a whirl. Your spinning may be a gene thing. Have them check for a lacuna the next time you get a CAT scan.
However, there I go again, in my fissiparous way, splitting participles, infinitives and hairs. As Judge Ito remarked, obiter dicta, he is worried that American lawyers changed the meaning of the word, guilty, into innocent.
Strangely, cis-Atlantic, I worry about the King's English, whereas in Britain, they worry about the King's Irish. Despite the panegyrics that Prime Minister Major hears in Parliament regarding his government's policy toward Northern Ireland, irredentism is still close to the heart of every Dubliner. It is a bit of a ‘bete curiens.’
So is trying to understand lovable Bill.
                           Sincerely,
                           Joe Finnerty

P.S. Here is a Top Secret translation of my message:
Insouciance: lighthearted unconcern; nonchalance.
Encomiasts: those who praise; to eulogize, give high or glowing praise (an encomium).
Preciosity: fastidious refinement.
Disingenuous: lacking in candor; giving a false impression of simple frankness.
Omniscient: having infinite awareness, understanding and insight.
Manqué: short of or frustrated in the fulfillment of ones aspirations or talents.
Naïf: naive.
Vertiginous: (vertigo) giddy, inconstant; dizzy; rotary motion.
Lacuna: gap or missing part, cavity, pit or discontinuity in anatomical structure.
Fissiparous: tendency to split apart (Yugoslavia).
Obiter dicta: incidental opinion of a judge; casually interjected remark, not to be considered in any legal sense.
Cis-Atlantic: cis means this side of --- whatever is added on.
Panegyrics: public assembly; encomia or laudatory.
Irredentism: desire of political factions to retain control over geographic areas that have been split off (Northern Ireland).
Bete curiense: bugbear, or strange beast.
WARNING! DO NOT LET THESE WORDS FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE IS A DANGEROUS THING.




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