THE ART OF QUALIFICATION
At last, after week upon week of ranging far and wide along the streets of E________ searching for scraps, slips, and the general detritus of daily human activity, my eye can return to its path leading to the signs of the city. And already this morning that eye has been rewarded:
"With all due respect, you are a royal arse."
"You can be such a total douche-nozzle. I'm just saying."
NO PARKING. polite notice.
I have always loved this subtle art of mitigation, of bluntness – and often crudeness itself – purportedly rendered gentile by a little attachment, a small phrase meant to reassure the listener that all is well, that no, I the speaker, am not really completely tactless; I have your own best interests at heart; it is not as bad as it sounds.
Have we – and by we I mean us, humans – really let the boundaries between, things, actions, and words become such a diaphanous veil, one that allows such fluid slippage? I know all the PostModerns – yes I used the word, dear reader – would say it is so. Heck, I'm normally right there with them, but somehow this one sticks in my craw; it needles me so.
Thus, I felt compelled to stand in front of this sign in the moderately frigid E________ morning air for about fifteen minutes imagining the car that is in my garage some 3,202 miles away parked right here in front of this very sign. There I stood, cup of coffee in hand, smiling to myself perhaps inanely – or at least in the eyes of the general passersby. Damn your polite notice; there's nothing polite about the threat to tow away my shiny blue car. Show some conviction and maybe I'll listen to you Mr. and/or Ms. SignMaker, but as is I laugh at your notice and it patently false attempt at civility...
I'm just saying.
"With all due respect, you are a royal arse."
"You can be such a total douche-nozzle. I'm just saying."
NO PARKING. polite notice.
I have always loved this subtle art of mitigation, of bluntness – and often crudeness itself – purportedly rendered gentile by a little attachment, a small phrase meant to reassure the listener that all is well, that no, I the speaker, am not really completely tactless; I have your own best interests at heart; it is not as bad as it sounds.
Have we – and by we I mean us, humans – really let the boundaries between, things, actions, and words become such a diaphanous veil, one that allows such fluid slippage? I know all the PostModerns – yes I used the word, dear reader – would say it is so. Heck, I'm normally right there with them, but somehow this one sticks in my craw; it needles me so.
Thus, I felt compelled to stand in front of this sign in the moderately frigid E________ morning air for about fifteen minutes imagining the car that is in my garage some 3,202 miles away parked right here in front of this very sign. There I stood, cup of coffee in hand, smiling to myself perhaps inanely – or at least in the eyes of the general passersby. Damn your polite notice; there's nothing polite about the threat to tow away my shiny blue car. Show some conviction and maybe I'll listen to you Mr. and/or Ms. SignMaker, but as is I laugh at your notice and it patently false attempt at civility...
I'm just saying.
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