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Humour This file contains short bits on the following:
Executive algebra If you've ever suspected that dumb people have been promoted
ahead of you, even though you do all the work, you now have math on your side. In a letter in the June 20, 1998 issue of The Economist, Paul Wesel provides this cold scientific proof. He starts with two
postulates that every cliché-ridden executive knows to be true: knowledge is power and time is money. From this, he turns to something that every engineer knows to be true: power equals work divided by time. Still
with us? Okay, we know that knowledge is power and money is time, so we can rewrite our engineer's formula to read: knowledge is work divided by money. But you can also say the same thing another way: money equals work
divided by knowledge. Now then, we all know that, if anything, most executives work no harder than we do, and we also know they make more money. Therefore, they must have less knowledge. In fact, we've just proven
that the less knowledge you have, the more money you're going to make! Punning headlines The new White House press secretary, Joe Lockhart, was greeted by this double-entendre headline in the New York Post: "New guy has tough job lying ahead of him." Stress-busting Web site With "March madness" upon us here in Ottawa, the
"Edge Weekly" has become a little less weekly. Nevertheless, when deadlines swarm and stress mounts, there is always the
The best part? The site misspells the word "hamster." If the press covered history ... In these days of aggressive media coverage, one wonders how the press would have covered the events that now comprise our history. Bill Clinton has wondered, too, and used a speech
at the White House Correspondents' Dinner to offer some ideas, such as "Paul Revere's warning: Too little, too late," and "Lincoln at Gettysburg: Fails to articulate exit strategy." This brings to
mind the old joke about how the various Toronto newspapers would cover the sinking of the Titanic: from the Globe & Mail, "Ship sinks, liner stocks plunge"; from the Toronto Star, "Scarborough man
dies in mid-ocean collision"; and from the Toronto Sun, "Wet teen girls survive icy disaster." Updating this a little, we'd add these: from the National Post, "Liberals blamed as ship sinks";
and from the Ottawa Citizen, "School supplies costly." De-puns A gag has been circulating on the newsgroup alt.usage.english: If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, then &ldots; electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, dry cleaners depressed, salesmen can be decommissioned, barristers debriefed, magicians disillusioned, guides detoured, computer scientists deprogrammed, organ donors delivered, ecologists denatured, entomologists debugged, teachers declassified, students degraded and detested, strippers denuded, judges disrobed, secretaries defiled, and gardeners deflowered. Things reporters never say An e-mail that has been making the rounds describes various things a reporter
just never seems to tell a PR person. Here are our five favourites. 1) "That's the best story idea I've ever heard. No wonder you make more money than I do." 2) "No, I don't need to speak to the
company president. Any old marketing flunky would be fine." 3) "Call me whenever you feel like it." 4) "Your client hasn't been making enough news announcements lately and I'd really like to
write about you in every issue." 5) "You have been so very helpful that I'm personally going to phone your client and let them know that this story would never have gotten off the ground without you."
A comic-strip view of "bureaucratese"
In Philip Street's comic strip Fisher, the title character gets a lesson in writing hiring guidelines from a friend. He says, "Your problem is that you keep thinking of language as a tool for
communication," when the goal is actually obfuscation. "The bureaucratic mind -- whether in government, business or academia --uses language like a squid uses ink." In earlier strips, this character
says that "business procedural stuff needs to be written in bureaucratese, or Pinhead, as I like to call it" and recommends the passive voice as a way to misdirect the blame.
A little harsh, but amusing all the same ... Death to Successories!
Offices these days are full of Successories, posters and other paraphernalia urging positive corporate values through mildly patronizing aphorisms. But according to Stephen Glass of The New Republic, in 1995
Successories, Inc. lost $7.7 million. The reason: low employee morale. Employees spent their time goofing off and productivity sank. But despite failing spectacularly at the very company that makes them, posters still
adorn the walls of the Successories HQ. Says one employee, "No one pays any attention to [the posters] anymore." 1996's Oddest Headlines According to the Canadian Association of Journalists' listserv, the best headlines for 1996 included the following.
· Include Your Children when Baking Cookies · Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says · Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should Be Belted · Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case
· Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over · Clinton Wins on Budget, But More Lies Ahead · Miners Refuse to Work after Death · Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant
· Two Sisters Reunited After 18 Years in Checkout Counter · Killer Sentenced to Die for Second Times in 10 Years · War Dims Hope for Peace · Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges
· Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead Elvis sings! In Latin! Imagine Elvis songs, sung in Latin, by a Finnish philosopher. Jukka Ammondt's Rocking in Latin features such tunes as Nunc distrahor (All Shook Up), Taddeus ursus (Teddy Bear) and Glauci calcei (Blue Suede Shoes). The chorus from the latter goes, "Sed, age, mel, nunc parce calceis/Ne calces mi glaucis calceos." tlhIngan maH (We are Klingons!) Back in 1982, linguist Marc Okrand created a few words of Klingon for the second Star Trek movie. He created a few more for the third. And like most things related to Star Trek, things have spiralled out of control ever since. Now, according to the Seattle Times, a thousand people speak a full-fledged Klingon language. Hamlet has been translated and the Bible is on its way. Panhandling for Windows 95 A fake press release making the rounds on the Internet pretends that Microsoft is releasing Panhandler, a program that randomly asks users for "change" that is sent by modem directly to Microsoft headquarters. Companion products supposedly include Microsoft Mugging, which can erase your hard drive, and Microsoft Squeeqee Guy, which cleans your "Windows." Dilbert's definitions The May 25th 1997, Dilbert defines key business phrases. "We must focus on our core business" means "We can't find our butt with hands," while "You are empowered" means "You're the monarch of unimportant decisions." Office pranks: cruel tricks from Dilbert The Dilbert
e-mail newsletter includes these tips for humiliating "Induhviduals," better known as your hapless colleagues. Using the conferencing feature of your office phone, dial one Induhvidual, then while it's
ringing dial another and conference them together. Put your own phone on mute and listen to see how long they'll make small talk before figuring out that neither one placed the call. Get a greeting card that plays an
insidious tune. Wrap the musical chip in cotton and tape it on top of a ceiling tile in the victim's office. Make it quiet enough that the victim only hears it when it's especially silent. Act like he's crazy when he
asks you if you hear music. Put an official-looking sign over the control pad of your office fax or copy machine that says it is now voice activated. The sign should direct the users to say their full name in a loud,
crisp voice (for tracking purposes of course) followed by the desired commands, e.g., "This is Bruce Induhvidual, give me ten copies, no staple." Note: Dilbert
creator Scott Adams allows readers to freely reproduce items from the e-mail newsletter. This is emphatically not true of his comic strip. (Or of the Lyrical confusion by Pierre Angulaire
Ever been confused by song lyrics? Gavin Edwards' 'Scuze Me While I Kiss This Guy
proves that you're not alone. In addition to Jimi Hendrix's "Excuse me while I kiss the sky," here are some frequently misheard lyrics:
Cornerstone is a writing and editing firm that uses marketing and PR principles to create "words you can build your business
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