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MESSIN' WITH THE LANGUAGE
November 5, 2009
 
More euphemisms. Well, they’re not really euphemisms, or at least not all of them are. We’re just messin’ with the language again.

“I love the signs on the back of local school buses,” Abigail Lockwood writes from Pennsylvania: “STOP State Law.” Lizann Hardy of Cincinnati sent that one in, too. I agree: state law is getting completely out of hand.

Ruth Kearley in Wisconsin found two door signs that tickled her. One, on the door of a local hardware store, reads: "Only service dogs allowed." No people, I guess, just dogs. And another says "This door must remain closed at all times." Don’t even think of opening it to enter the building. And New York’s Tom Margrave writes, “OK, Barbara. Here are two of my favorites. Sign on the Post Office door: ‘No pets allowed except seeing eye dogs.” Seeing eye dogs are service animals and my service iguana resents not being allowed in. Second sign at a polling station: ‘If you are blind or cannot read or do not understand English, someone will assist you.’” That should help.

Ellanor Pruitt of Pensacola and her mother nearly got put out of a high school graduation years ago when the MC asked that we "all stand in our seats for the benediction." Her extremely lady-like mother muttered under her breath,"Well, it'll be dangerous, but we'll try."

Not evasive actually, but signs along the Merritt Parkway warning of “depressed storm drains” make priests Brenda Husson and Kathleen Liles of New York and Rita Nelson of Delaware laugh. Well, who can blame the poor things, I say? It can’t be easy, being a storm drain. Seems to me that the clergy could be a little more compassionate.

“After my ordination,” writes Dorothée Caulfield of Rye, NY, “I was installed as the Regional Deacon. Like a refrigerator.”

Arlene Pickard has learned the hard way that people only say “You can’t miss it” when they have just delivered driving or walking directions that aren’t going to get you there, and Meredith Fife Day of Massachsetts has noticed that the term "young lady" when someone is speaking to a woman older than, let's say over 60 (as in "What can I do for you, young lady?"), is a euphemism for "old lady".

John Hanbury in New Jersey likes “I died laughing.” And lived to tell the tale?

“And how about the anouncement for Sunday’s book signing: ‘Book Party for Jesus Wept?’" says Kathy Demuth of Mississippi. Yeah. Don’t miss that one. Should be a million laughs.
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In the postscript to yesterday's eMo, I wrote that the names of the fallen are on the Presidential Prayer Team website. Actually, they're not: you can find them on Honor the Fallen at http://www.militarycity.com/valor/honor.html. But the PPT site is wonderful if you want to pray for for those who serve us in government in many different ways, and I commend it to you. http://presidentialprayerteam.com/
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