My humble suggestion for the evolving mother tongue:
Lawyer: v. (slang) to answer a question or inquiry in a manner which suggests or implies an answer (in a lawyer/client relationship), but which also avoids responsibility for explicitly stating or advocating the implied response. syn: obfuscate. Similar to: being cagy, or maintaining “plausible deniability.”
Used in a sentence…
Cut someone off in traffic, poke your head out the window, smile and wave… what’s up with that?
One: the gentleman was a vistor from New York City, understood my eye contact as a stipulation to yield, interpreted car lengths like we humans interpret dog years, and was thanking me for my generous nature.
Two: the gentleman knew he had cut me off and was thanking me for not making his…
Someone once told me that funerals are for the living not for the dead, and that pretty much sums up yesterday… a day that the living did their best to keep on living. Pity me not dear reader, for my loss was a pittance compared to my wife’s family. My role in this was to play back up… a role that I’m not particularly well suited, so you can imagine I was a big help.
As the…
Imagine sitting on a plane as it barrels down the runway, approaching the speed necessary to leap into the air… and the pilot hits the breaks. As it turns out our pilot was asked to abort our take-off due to some bad weather near the airport. When the plane came to the proverbial “full and complete stop,” I heard at least fifty people take a breath. Sounds like a good time…
A member of Cheryl’s side of the family came through surgery better than expected last night (or so I hear, three degrees of separation from the source), and for this we are thankful.
A coworker of mine was unexpectedly discovered dead in their apartment earlier this week (apparently of natural causes), and for this we are saddened.
Two younger members of my family woke this morning with…
Actually, Cheryl overheard this on the radio, but she’s pretty reliable. SO SAY I!
Good news coffee lovers! It seems that coffee ain’t all bad. It doesn’t just cause hypertension anymore! (… nor the occasional facial tick.) It appears that caffeine consumption may also increase a person’s capacity for critical thought… one of the bedrocks of human intelligence.
Just before the savior of the American Family took office there was a controversial drug poised to go “over the counter,” with the qualification that a doctor’s consent would be required for a minor to purchase the drug. In other words, an adult could purchase the drug but a minor would need a prescription. Then a new man was picked to head up the FDA, and the work to go forward…
Friends, today was a hurricane day. Those of you familiar with snow know a thing or two about the occasional labor liberation, courtesy of Mother Nature. My employer was in classic form yesterday, closing the office at 3p.m. – after the worst of the weather had passed. At 3 p.m. Monday, the center of Alberto’s circulation (such as it was) had passed our office, which means I got to…
“Can I call you Miss Rachael?”
“No, but you can call me Dr. Rachael if you want.”
“Wait, are you a real doctor?”
“Yes Beth, I’m a real doctor.”
“Did you go to college?”
“Yes Beth, I went to college.”
“Did you go to college AND medical school?”
“Yes Beth, I went to medical school.”
“O.K., you…