So I'm busy writing these Eventual Practical Services Letters to Santa for the Office Party tonight. One of the people we're razzing is Ginjur, the administrative assistant to the office athiest (the devout one). Ginjur is very short and petite and people are always kicking her out of bars because at first glance they think she's 12. No kidding.
So for Ginjur's letter to Santa, I had her asking Santa to make her a tall elderly woman for one day--but with a good liver so she could still party like a rock star.
I gave the draft to Mr. Archibald and it came back with the word "elderly" circled.
"I think," he said, "that people might find the word 'elderly' offensive. How about...'sophisticated'?"
That's funny. I thought we called old people elderly to keep from offending them. And now "elderly" is offensive. Or maybe what this is really about is people are afraid of anything that reminds them that life is fleeting and sooner or later we'll all be pushin' up daisies.
It's much too difficult for me to pinpoint. So to make it easy, I have a modest proposal: Let's get rid of adjectives!
Who's with me?! This will be a time! A time!
3 comments:
Funny, when we were kids, "elderly" was a kindly way of saying "old." I love a good euphemism as much as the next gal, but "sophisticated" and "elderly" mean nowhere near the same thing. I know plenty of elderly rubes.
I'm glad I don't work for Eventual Practical Services.
Maybe you should throw in a few other euphemisms such as "euthanasia" and "no longer useful to society" and "burden" and "where's my freakin' inheritance." I would think the "elderly" people at Eventual would roar in approval at your quick wit and deft sense of irony! It is supposed to be...what's the word... oh, yeah... funny, after all.
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