[And With A Big Tip Of The Bodwyn Wook Tile To Gerry Ostgarden! — BW]
You have to be old enough to remember Abbott and Costello, and too old to REALLY understand computers, to fully appreciate this. For those of us who sometimes get flustered by our computers, please read on….
If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch “Who’s On First?” might have turned out something like this:
EMMETT SMITH CALLS QUE COMPUTER IN MANKATO TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ADAM R
ADAM: Que Computer. Can I help you?
EMMETT: Thanks. I’m setting up an office in my den and I’m thinking about buying a computer.
ADAM: Mac?
EMMETT: No, the name’s Emmett….
ADAM: Your computer?
EMMETT: I don’t own a computer. I want to buy one.
ADAM: Mac?
EMMETT: I told you, my name’s Emmett.
ADAM: What about Windows?
EMMETT: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ADAM: Do you want a computer with Windows?
EMMETT: I don’t know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ADAM: Wallpaper.
EMMETT: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ADAM: Software for Windows?
EMMETT: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ADAM: Office.
EMMETT: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ADAM: I just did.
EMMETT: You just did what?
ADAM: Recommend something.
EMMETT: You recommended something?
ADAM: Yes.
EMMETT: For my office?
ADAM: Yes.
EMMETT: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ADAM: Office.
EMMETT: Yes, for my office!
ADAM: I recommend Office with Windows.
EMMETT: I already have an office with windows! OK, let’s just say I’m sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ADAM: Word.
EMMETT: What word?
ADAM: Word in Office.
EMMETT: The only word in office is office.
ADAM: The Word in Office for Windows.
EMMETT: Which word in office for windows?
ADAM: The Word you get when you click the blue “W.”
EMMETT: I’m going to click YOUR blue “W” if you by God don’t start making with some straight answers! What about financial bookkeeping? You got anything I can track my money with?
ADAM: Money.
EMMETT: That’s right. What do you have?
ADAM: Money.
EMMETT: I need money to track my money?
ADAM: It comes bundled with your computer.
EMMETT: What’s bundled with my computer?
ADAM: Money.
EMMETT: Money comes with my computer?
ADAM: Yes. No extra charge.
EMMETT: I get a bundle of money with my computer? Christ…how much?
ADAM: One copy.
EMMETT: Isn’t it illegal to copy money?
ADAM: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
EMMETT: The Hell you say…they can give you a license to copy money?
ADAM: Why not? THEY OWN IT!
(A few days later)
ADAM: Que Computer. Can I help you?
EMMETT: How do I turn my computer off?
ADAM: Click on “START….”
[Emmett R Smith all rights reserved 5 June 2008]
Sometimes we use a scratch file to get a newly trimmed hoof ready to shoe. Holt’s cousin was in Minot getting stuff and went into the computer place to buy some blanks for removable storage, where he left his hardware bag on the counter. So when he went back and said he forgot his scratch files, the store guy thought for a minute he had a big hard drive sale all wrapped up and was going to maybe unload 500 gigs or so retail, on the rancher who didn’t know enough to shop Ebay….
Great stuff! I’ll send it along to some of my computer literate, older friends.
Up North in the Garrison Keillor country, a hundred and fifty miles or so, and in the Finnish North Woods, the phrase “logging off” is today susceptible of another meaning, in an example of what is called “migration of meaning” and characterized by /contextual shift/, in this case from the PC to the (primitive) WC:
It happens when the irate spouse waiting their turn has finally had “E-God-damn-NOUGH” and tiptoes up to fetch the wooden side or door of the outdoor family “shithouse” a tremendous bang and bellows, “Pinkeyed Christ, just WHAT in the Hell ARE you doing in there?”
This causes the startled party engaged in defecation to /clench up/, and…”log off!”
This rather obviously came into currency with the advent of the Web, as the older form, usually cast as an imperative was:
/Break it off/!
And it is therefore an early instance of a late-modern transition-form, of a technical term from the argot or cant of IT, into an early-postmodern regional vulgate.
[Sometimes accompanied by an audible /pinching/ sort of sound — BW]
WariatWookie, a true classic. Get it copyrighted.
I was brought up with Shelley Berman and could just see him doing that on TV.
Respect.
MOP, Thank you — I expect though ’tis a weary old wheeze going around the web; and, that I just tarted it up a bit….
There’s another one of these God-damn things here:
Here’s ANOTHER piece of peerless God-damned wit!
Alright you finehaired DUMB sonsofbitches, try AGAIN!