My Word's Worth: a weekly column by Marylaine Block

vol. 4, #37, April 19, 1999

PUN PALS

It's been a while since I've written any entertaining fluff for you, so I figure I owe you a little concentrated silliness.

I've said all along that you can't change just one thing, and writing a column for Fox has affected what I write for you. Whenever I come up with any observations about America that I can explore in 700 words, I automatically think of them as "Observing US" columns for Fox News. You get the ideas that require a little more thought and space to work out. Since I feel obligated to keep the Fox columns kind of cute and snarky and upbeat, I've also been saving my more serious thoughts--the stuff my brother calls my "sermons"-- for My Word's Worth.

So, the time has come to share some more e-mail games with you. One I've been playing recently is the "retirement" game. As in, if a minister is defrocked, and a lawyer disbarred, what happens to a retired calendar-maker? My friend Mark says he would be disMayed.

I figure if Bill Bennett ever stopped telling us how depraved we are, he would be de-moralized and, God willing, de-railed. The McLaughlin group might be de-canted. All of them, along with some of the nasty folks in politics, could surely stand to be de-meaned.

Techies might be deprogrammed, disconnected, or disassembled, and would surely have to comport themselves differently. They, along with arithmetic teachers, might find themselves nonplussed. (Doesn't it seem reasonable to you that if somebody is nonplussed, he would be minused?)

Bankers would be discounted, discredited, or perhaps unaccountable, while insurance agents would be declaimed or unadjusted.

Musicians could be any number of things--denoted or disconcerted or unsound. They might be disbanded or even detonated. (When my husband wrote music, he would spend at least as much time erasing as writing, so I would always ask him if he was composing or decomposing.)

Mountain climbers would be disinclined, while artists' models might be deposed or disfigured, or maybe just recovered. It goes without saying that dry cleaners would be depressed, decreased, and, perhaps, depleted. Decorators would be dismantled and unvarnished, and would probably deteriorate rapidly.

We have evidence that when Venus de Milo got out of the goddess business, she was disarmed. And while the Bible never told us what happened to the Magi after they brought frankincense and myrrh, I would guess they became destabilized. When Mussolini hanged himself, he was deduced. Miss Manners, I suspect, would be displeased, but Eddie Murphy might become discussed or discursive. No doubt Hillary retains the faint hope that Bill Clinton might someday be unadulterated (as do we all). And Hamlet would be disdained, don't you think?

A tennis player would be defaulted, and a southerner deponed. Lawyers would be distorted and unappealing, while dictionary makers might become dyslexic. Aging actresses who finally have to start playing mature roles would become disingenuous, or perhaps dismissed. Sheriffs would be totally unwarranted, innkeepers unaccommodating, and park service employees detoured. Rabbis might become debris.

Those who give up recreational drugs might find themselves disjointed or deluded. Flirts would be decoyed or maybe unmanned. Divorced wives might think themselves deloused, but their husbands might consider themselves less shrewd.

Celebrities would be defamed, and mapmakers might very well become disoriented or dislocated. Professors would be declass'e and unstudied. I, of course, as a retiring librarian, am about to be defined, disquieted, and unbound; I will also be reclassified (from Z--librarianship--to P--language and literature).

I hope I don't run out of things to write about, but if I did I would be described, or maybe nondescript. You can bet your boots, though, that I'd be discontented. I enjoy sharing my thoughts with you, be they serious or silly.

This started as an e-mail game, and there's no
reason it can't continue that way. Feel free to retaliate.