FFWD Weekly
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Mr. Smutty by James Martin As a special post-holiday treat for you, belt-loosening reader, what follows are some thoughts collected whilst waiting for the paramedics to revive me from a turkey-induced coma. (I went towards the light, but I came back for the gravy. Praise the lard!) So yeah, considering we’re just a buncha risen apes w/ thick tongues, us humans manage to fumble along just fine. (Non-humans may wish to take this opportunity to read something else.) Throw any two of us (from wherever, it don’t matter one lick) into the same cage, and chances are goodish that some sorta communication will ensue: hand gestures, merciful buckets of butchered pronunciation, snorts, grunts, headpats, footrubs, et ceteria. Eventually, one of the Great Themes of Civilization will emerge (e.g. "I’m hungry/tired/cold/horny") and the "process" is chalked up as a success. That’s the beauty of communication. Even if we don’t "know," per se, exactly what’s being said, we can basically figger out the lowdown. When the late, grate P.E. Trudeau once uttered the epithet "fuddle duddle," an entire nation knew what he really meant: namely, "fugoff – and yr old man, too." (A single middle finger is as bilingual as things come.) Nobody knows what the heck "obladee oblada" (sp? exactly my point!) means, but life does indeed go on. Coffees are ordered, directions to the subway are received, and everything’s jake. What makes this whole routine even weirder (a.k.a. "miraculous," for all you pumpkin pie-eyed lovers of life still reveling in the wonders of bright leaves & dark meat), is that language is constantly on the move. Like continents slowly creeping across oceans, meaning/usage/spelling shift before our very eyes. And don’t even get me started on those mercurial contractions (no, this isn’t an aside about childbirth) – I was still saying "’Sup?" ("What is up?" reduced to "Whassup?" then reduced yet again) when the cool kids at school had already moved onto the more time-efficient "P?" That’s why, as a Student of the World (w/ the detentions to prove it), I’m always innerested in the everyday talk of other cultures. N_g__ia is a good e.g., altho I might have it confused w/ Arg____na. (Altho I read at a Grade 8 level, I have the retention capabilities of a gnat.) Anyhoo, the people who live in that place (N_g__ians or Arg____nians, depending) really like to absorb current events into their vernacular chatter. A particularly good one concerns some politico hotshot who lied on his c.v. about having a degree from the University of Toronto, thinking it was an exotic enuff locale that nobody would check up on his claim. Of course, buddy thought wrong, and his ruse was exposed. (People also found out about his lie. Ba-dum-dum!) The happy fallout, howev, is that "Toronto" is now a widespread synonym for baloney, as in "We’ll have none of yr Toronto in here, young man" or "Spare me the Toronto" or "Yer so full of Toronto." The U of T has not commented on this development, but a spokesperson for the rival University of Bullshit bitterly complained that "Toronto always gets all the attention." I suggest you try this process at home, and then take it to the streets. Here’s one to get you started. Let’s say you scribbled some nasty graffiti about a friend (say, on the side of their car), and it really took them off guard. You could offer up an olive branch and say, "Sorry I McSorley’d ya, man." Or, if verbs ain’t yer thing, "Sorry about the McSorley." Eventually, in the spirit of whassup/’sup, this could be shortened to simply "I’m very McSorry." (Wait a sec, I thought "McSorry" was what you get for ordering the McSushi...ah, language is an unforgiving beast.) Next week: how to swear like a sailor in six different languages.

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