Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Me and Mark Twain Have the Same Tailor

I had a chance to be the Voice of the Employee today, but I passed. If I'm going to be crying in the wilderness, I'd like there to be some point to it. It did give me a chance to listen to my supervisor for awhile as he explained the procedure. Sometimes he came so close to using the right word that I almost flinched.
As Mark Twain said*, "The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning-bug,"
Oh, I was thinking of Mark Twain the other day when I took that ride out to Eagle River. I was wearing my leotard/bike pants. When the narrator in the Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court jousted, he wore that "simplest and comfortablest of gymnasts costumes... tights," although he had little blue silk puffings about his loins.
Later he had bicycles built and 500 mailed and belted knights rescued King Arthur. I was on a bicycle and I deliver mail! Coincidence?
*Unless it was Lincoln or FDR who together with Twain make up the triumvirate of quotable Americans. Playing second fiddle to their trio is Ambrose Bierce and on kazoo: Yogi Berra.

2 comments:

  1. What a great band, and an even greater turn of phrase.

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  2. Once again, theft-worthy language.

    Shouldn't Dorothy Parker be somewhere in the band? At very least singing back-up. Though I'm not so sure she'd stand for that.

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