When I was a kid, I read the phrase “never use a big word when a minuscule one will do” somewhere and claimed it as my own, dropping it constantly, as I personally thought it was one of the most ludicrously clever things I’d ever heard. This, as one might expect, often resulted in my ass being kicked by the usual suspects – i.e. the kids whose involuntary response to any word with more than two syllables was brutal violence (ironic, given that these kids would seem likely to agree with the sentiment expressed, if not the obnoxious nerdy way I delivered it.)
Originally the punchline for this was the woman going off on the guy for clearly planning this conversation. That didn’t quite work, so I threw in some gratuitous icky parental sex instead. Blah blah punchline whatever, I just wanted to mention moisture-wads (“wet-nuggets” in the original draft.)
MRS. SHOEBOX’S ASSESSMENT OF TODAY’S STRIP: Pretty funny.
-=ShoEboX=-
Very true and very Funny.
Wouldn’t “Never use a big word when a small one will do,” be better?
if you say ‘rain or snow’ it begs the question ‘which one, egghead?’ if you say precipitation, THEY feel bad for not knowing which kind.
monsterzero: THAT’S THE JOKE.
My father told me to eschew obfuscation.
It makes me a little more crazy every time I hear, “Sixty percent chance of precipitation,” when it is currently raining. There is no percent chance! It is raining already!
Tanglebones: technically ‘percent chance’ is weather jargon for ‘percentage of days in history, basically indistinguishable from today in terms of conditions, where it happened’ so if it’s raining on a day when there was 10 percent chance, that’s not ‘beating the odds’ that’s ‘these conditions usually aren’t enough to make that happen’
Also, the fact that it is raining where you are at that moment does not mean the rest of the area and time period is experiencing the same condition.
@ColdFusion: He said “‘rain’ or ‘snow’,” not “‘rain or snow’.” The whole point is that the meteorologist should be specific. Also, while we’re all being pedantic: “begs the question” does NOT mean “raises the question.”
An El Paso newscaster claims that 60% chance of rain means that 60% of the area will get rain. Pure genius.