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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
A parallel expression, with all of the same attendant problems, is "died before [his/her] time." It could be rationally argued that one dies quite precisely when one's time is up and not a nanosecond before.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Mav ~
"Let me die a young man's death" is an excellent poem. I passed it along to a large number of friends old enough to think about living because they are old enough to think about dying.
Padre
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Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2002
Posts: 7,210 |
thanks for that, mav. good stuff.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Dec 2002
Posts: 87 |
I copy and pasted to a word file for "keeping" somewhere...liked it a lot! Thanks, mav.
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -Ursula K. Le Guin, author (1929- )
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I liked it too, mav, but I'm wondering: shouldn't tumour be humour? Or am I missing something... (wouldn't be the first time)
When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
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Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500
addict
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addict
Joined: Mar 2005
Posts: 500 |
Yes, very good, mav. A friend of mine wanted to go at 93, shot by a justifiably jealous husband. I want to die at about the same age, smothered under a pile of buff, six-foot Mounties, having just bashed the current Prime Minister with my handbag, which will contain two draft horse shoes.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,379 |
I like the poem, but would not care to live the way the poet cares to die; I wonder if he isn't a kindred spirit, but only torn to be.
**
As to 'untimely,' hasn't this just become a weak epitaphic colloquialism for people we'd have gladder seen living a bit longer? But I don't really like it, either.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
> constant good tumour
Ask Fong, ASp - he understands the theory of puns if not the actual humour!
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 1,027 |
The longer I think about this, the more it seems to me that "untimely" here is what we call in German  an epitheton ornans, i.e. an adjective functioning purely as a sort of fig leaf for the nasty noun.
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