Name-dropping is no more
PRESIDENT Zuma has spoken. Name-dropping is now verboten. The ruling threatens to cause chaos in our day-to-day existence.
How do you jump the queue in the supermarket if you can't let it drop that you go 10-pin bowling every weekend with the Ethekwini city manager?
Would the petrol jockeys treat you with quite the promptness and attention they do, were it not made known that you're going huntin' and fishin' next month with action man Vladimir Putin, of Russia?.
Would you get the same courtesy and attention in the public libraries if you were to fail to let it be known that you're in a regular poker school with the Archbishop of Canterbury?
What's the point of speaking regularly on Skype to Barack Obama if it doesn't automatically get you the best tickets at the Playhouse?
No, JZ must think again. In this life it's not what you know, it's who you know.
Consistent
SPOT the consistency. President Zuma waxed eloquent on the evils of name-dropping.
One name he did not drop was … Gupta.
Irony
The Food Stamp Programme, administered by the US Department of Agriculture, last year distributed the greatest number of free meals and food stamps ever - to 46 million people.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service, administered by the US Department of the Interior, asks: "Please do not feed the animals." The reason is that "the animals will grow dependent on hand-outs and will not learn to take care of themselves".
This ends today's lesson in irony.
Pythons, bears
A BURMESE python measuring 5.7m – the largest yet recorded – has been killed in the American state of Florida.
It happened in Miami-Dade County where a group of youngsters driving by spotted it disappearing into bush, caught it and killed it with a knife after a fierce struggle.
Burmese pythons are an invasive species that are threatening indigenous wildlife in Florida. The authorities have mounted an extermination campaign against them.
Meanwhile, also in Florida, wildlife officials had to dart and tranquilise a black bear that had climbed a tree in a suburban garden.
It was probably just trying to get away from the pythons.
Service award
OVERHEARD at the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "After 10 years with the firm, I was at last handed the keys to the executive bathrooms. Then after I'd given them a good clean, I handed them back."
Linguistic pitfalls
A READER sends in the classic lament by American comedian/satirist/philosopher George Carlin on the pitfalls of the English language. It's worth another squint:
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes;
One fowl is a goose but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese;
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth ?
Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose;
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!
Yep. But that's what you get when you mix languages like Saxon, Danish and Norman-French and allow dialects to grow all over the place. Vive la mengelmoes!
Confucianism
THE WISDOM of Confucius: "Eagles may soar but weasel not sucked into jet engine."
Tailpiece
"ARE those flowers for your wife?"
"Yes, I need to mend fences. Last night as I climbed into the new bed I bought for us, she snarled and turned away. I think she's jealous that I got the top bunk."
Last word
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.
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