Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 22:58:08 EST From: spin dry tink Subject: Re: F: Odies to Men's Parts by Wolfie [may be defensive or offensive or some kind of sieve, anyway you read it...or is that as you like it?] -I think we have to accept that wherever we go or whatever we read watch -or listen to, there are going to be things that offend us..(having to -step over drunks copulating in broad daylight on the Post Office steps, -when I went to collect my mail, I found offensive). I have to admit, I first thought that this little stretch sentence meant that the mail was offensive. However, later in the same missive I found that "drunks copulating in broad daylight" is the key phrase. But I am still confused. Is it the lighting conditions that cause the offense? For example, would drunks copulating in narrow daylight, or better yet, by artificial neon light or some other fanciful lighting be just as offensive? Suppose we removed the lights and made them fumble in the dark? Would they be offensive or merely perverse? Or, perhaps, is it the state of unsobriety...inebriation by any means?...is this the offense? Would someone on drugs, stone-cold sober, or just lightly and socially lit up result in the same label of offensive? Suppose they were out cold, snoozing madly...well, I suppose the copulation rests in that case, so we can move along. Or is it the copulation that is offensive? Those drunks, connecting coordinate words or clauses right out there in public! or were they a copula, verbing away in front of your very nouns? (or is the copulation how many cops there are in the region?) So in your area, there are inebriates (distinct from the ebriates, as the invertebrates are separated from those with backbones) busily parsing and joining grammar in wide, glowing shafts of sunshine? And you find these lolligagging wags on the steps of your post office, waiting for you to try to pick up your mail? it's a jolly holiday with you wolf... what an amazing part of the world, with grammaticians taking their leisure on the steps of the Post Office, plying each other with verbs, conjunctions, and other terms of their interactions! or could it be that the offense lies in having to step over these activities, passing over them with a high step and a jump now and then? *wink* be mused tink