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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