Anti-Climacus

REAL IM CONVERSATION:

notbyrondorgan: did you ever hear Mark Twain's joke about German sentences?
RoseBriarD: I don't think so
notbyrondorgan: want to hear it?
RoseBriarD: I suppose you mean read it...
notbyrondorgan: I suppose I do
RoseBriarD: well that would be fine too then
notbyrondorgan: so he's at an opera, and some people want to leave in the middle of it
notbyrondorgan: and he says "thanks, no
notbyrondorgan: I'd like to stick around for the verb"
RoseBriarD: hehehe
notbyrondorgan: not quite as good as the Benjamin Franklin pick-up line I learned last night
notbyrondorgan: but always good for a linguistics laugh
RoseBriarD: *l* yes indeed. What's the Ben Franklin one?
notbyrondorgan: most people are of the opinion there are only 10 commandments
notbyrondorgan: I believe there to be 12
notbyrondorgan: the eleventh being that we should increase and multiply
notbyrondorgan: and the twelfth being that we should love our neighbor (he was sending this in a letter to his neighbor's wife when he was in France)
notbyrondorgan: now, I am curious as to what you would think about my religiously keeping these last two
notbyrondorgan: if it should cause me to break one of the previous ten, that I should not covet my neighbor's wife
notbyrondorgan: which, I must confess, I do constantly
notbyrondorgan: ---end quote---
notbyrondorgan: I thought it was pretty smooth myself
RoseBriarD: wow, what a freakish bastard! ....*giggle*
notbyrondorgan: hehehe
notbyrondorgan: yeah
notbyrondorgan: and he was 66 when he wrote that
notbyrondorgan: writing to a 32 year-old woman, by the way
notbyrondorgan: who absolutely loved it
RoseBriarD: augh! Scary scary scary scary!!!!!!!!!
notbyrondorgan: that's the French for you
RoseBriarD: Yes. Yes, it is.
RoseBriarD: *shudder*....*giggle*....
notbyrondorgan: hehehe
RoseBriarD: I remember we just trashed Ben Franklin in my AP history class for doing this kind of stuff...but we never read what he wrote...
notbyrondorgan: oh, I've come to the conclusion he's great
RoseBriarD: ah, he was a punk
notbyrondorgan: no kidding!
notbyrondorgan: that's why he was great
notbyrondorgan: and intelligent, and smooth with the ladies
RoseBriarD: *l* well he wasn't boring, that's for sure
notbyrondorgan: sort of like an old-timey Notorious B.I.G.
notbyrondorgan: hehehe
notbyrondorgan: just kidding
RoseBriarD: *shakes head while supressing giggles because they hurt*