Saturday, September 21, 2002 |
22:41 - Hah! Chortle, giggle, guffaw and other such utterances
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I was listening to the ever-amusing "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR on the way to the store just now. Usually the hosts manage not to let their political leanings and/or cheap-shottery bleed through into the discourse. But this time, well...
Peter, the lead guy, posed one question (the obvious answer was "Bush") in which he related, in a thick Texan accent, the recent occasion where Dubya tried to recite the old "Fool me once/fool me twice" aphorism, but mangled it rather badly. He said, apparently, "Y'know, there's an old saying down around where I'm from: 'Fool me once, shame on me... fool me-- er, fool... you can't get fooled again.'"
The hosts all guffawed, as one might imagine. Peter explained how the press has been loath to gleefully broadcast Bush's malapropisms in the course of the past year, because hey, there's a war on and all. Word is that Bush's on-camera appearances have been intentionally brief, often rebroadcast only after editing, and written transcripts of his extemporaneous speeches have been cleaned of verbal flubs.
You could just hear the scorn dripping from Peter's expertly clipped and waxed voice when he smugly tried to finish up the segment as follows:
"Of course, as we all know, the actual saying is: 'Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me... er... wait...'"
The laughter that rocked the studio was louder than it had been before. As it was from inside my car. Yeah, take that, you sneering so-and-so. But the best part of all, what got the biggest belly-laugh out of everybody involved, was the next line out of Peter's mouth, delivered through a mortified, self-conscious giggle:
"I guess that just goes to show, I shouldn't criticize the Predisen--aaagh!"
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