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Carpal Tunnel
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something may be easy for you, difficult for others, so you sandbag to gull them into competing on your terms.


#123572 02/27/04 11:43 PM
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see also "Red Sox"

Hard to believe you got away with that so easily, Max!


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How about a new eponym for making the easy look difficult.
To Scotty it. "Captain, it'll take at least 6 hours to recombobulate the widget drive!" "You've got 3 hours, Scotty." and he invariably finished in 2 hours and 59 minutes, just before detonation.



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wwh Offline
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Dear Zed: I'll see your "Scotty" and raise you one "Spock".
Mr. Spock is the epitome of "sprezzatura" - he was never excited, impolite, or angry. A perfect courtier.


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But somehow lacking the sence of enjoyment and fizz that sprezzatura has.


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wwh Offline
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Dear Zed: you make "sprezzatura" sound like in-expertly
opening a bottle of champagne.


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you make "sprezzatura" sound like in-expertly
opening a bottle of champagne


There is no sprezzatura way to open a bottle of champagne, wwh, unless you use it to christen a ship.

The more you struggle with it, the less chance your celebrations will fizzle out.

The art of opening a champagne bottle turns conventional wisdom upside down. The more adroitless the effort, the more felicitous the result.

You only get one "pop", so you'd better make it good!



#123578 02/28/04 04:06 PM
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This turned up while I was looking around for a word for Faldage:

Perhaps it was right to dissemble your love, But -- why did you kick me down stairs?

-- J. P. Kemble.



#123579 02/28/04 04:14 PM
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I was looking around for a word for Faldage

How about "Faldo"? All his male-bonding buds call him "Faldo".

I have this on the highest authority ... at least, the highest authority around here.

Or perhaps you were looking around for something less familiar ... in which case you might open it up to the board for suggestions.

I have forsaken such temptations myself ... as everyone can plainly see.



#123580 02/28/04 04:31 PM
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wwh Offline
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Just a paternal display of affection:
1"You are old, father William," the young man said,
2 "And your hair has become very white;
3And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
4 Do you think, at your age, it is right?"


5"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
6 "I feared it would injure the brain;
7But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
8 Why, I do it again and again."


9"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
10 And have grown most uncommonly fat;
11Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
12 Pray, what is the reason of that?"


13"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
14 "I kept all my limbs very supple
15By the use of this ointment -- one shilling the box --
16 Allow me to sell you a couple."


17"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
18 For anything tougher than suet;
19Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
20 Pray, how did you manage to do it?"


21"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
22 And argued each case with my wife;
23And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
24 Has lasted the rest of my life."


25"You are old," said the youth; one would hardly suppose
26 That your eye was as steady as ever;
27Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose --
28 What made you so awfully clever?"


29"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
30 Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!
31Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
32 Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"



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