From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (James Woodyatt)
Subject: No more nickname suggestions please (and other stuff)
Followup-To: can you not control yourself?
Organization: Space Systems/Loral
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 03:37:59 GMT

In article <MJD.92Apr10122356@saul.cis.upenn.edu>, mjd@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Not The Son of God in disguise) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr10.141250.15323@wdl.loral.com> bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (James Woodyatt) writes:
|>    In article <57131@cup.portal.com>, lordSnooty@cup.portal.com (Andrew - Palfreyman) writes:
|>    |> wooden yacht vomits:
|>    |> : I'm sure she does. She must be a veritable fount of wisdom.
|>    |> 
|>    |> Get A Clue.
|>    |> that's "font", lakeworm.
|>    |> accents may vary, except where prohibited.
|> 
|>    [flame!]
|> 
|> Since you didn't bring it up, Mr. Woodyatt, I'd like to point out that
|> Andrew, Baronet Snooty, is wrong.  Again.

Oh, I checked -- and believe me, I would have loved to austemper him for
making an erroneous word choice flame, but unfortunately, my dictionary
backed him up on it.

It says:
	fount. n. 1. A fountain. 2. A source.

	font. n. 1. A basin holding baptismal water in a church. 2. A
	receptacle for holy water; stoup. 3. The oil reservoir in an oil-
	burning lamp. 4. A source of abundance; fount: `a font of knowl-
	edge.

Technically, I wasn't wrong, but neither, did it seem, was he. I had to
admit, `font' does seem to me to be the better choice of the two words.

Had I known about this trivial difference in meaning, I would have used
`font', but I didn't... and so, His Oleaginousness, the Snooty Armiger
Hisself, chose to enlighten me -- which wouldn't have irritated me (why
he even demonstrated that he knows how my surname is properly
pronounced) -- except he used the wrong verb tense with the word
`vomits'.

So I flamed. And flamed. And flamed some more. I flamed too much.
I've been flaming a lot lately. Way too much in fact. So, I think I'll
tone it down a little.

I gotta stop visiting the future in-laws so often.

-----

I have over fifty suggestions for a new nickname now and at least twenty
of them are better than the one I was trying to replace. My favorite is
`Dr. Strychnine.' because it reminds me of `Dr. Caligari'. (Of course,
`Dr. Calimari' would have been even better, but nobody suggested it.)

I'm probably going to take the good ones and feed them to a shell script
(I have yet to write) that will cycle through them for me in some amusing
fashion (put them into my gcos, or my .sig, or something every other day
or so).

-----

My latest new toy: I found a copy of Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual,
Obscure and Preposterous words at a Palo Alto flea market (it contains
`omphaloskepsis' but seems to have a marginal definition -- `meditation
while gazing at one's own navel', rather than `contemplation of one's own
navel' as I would have had it), and it's pretty damned amusing. All of
the -mancy words alone are worth the purchase price. The -phobia words
are icing, and there's all those weird Welsh and Scottish crimes-against-
nature, -- the list goes on and on.

Some favorites:

	`hydrophobophobia' - fear of hydrophobia

	`venust' - Venus-like

-----

Don't mind me. I'm just a ruminant. (Watch your step -- those things are
valuable!)

-- 
*\ James `Dr. Strychnine' Woodyatt  . ``You asked talk.bizarre to suggest
**\ bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com       . a new nickname for yourself?'' ``Yeah,
***\ Space Systems/Loral            . I thought it would be funny.'' ``Your
****\ Palo Alto, CA                 . sense of humor needs work.''
Xref: sparky talk.bizarre:10373 alt.tasteless:4355