A Thesaurus Chorus
"Propel, propel, propel your vessel
"Tenderly athwart the watercourse
"Blithely, blithely, blithely, blithely
"Existence be but a reverie."
An elucidation:
In a previous occupational incarnation, I received a letter of
complaint from a woman who had attended a workshop at the convention with which
I was associated. The ostensible focus of the session was Teaching Creative
Writing, or some such.
Her complaint was that the workshop presenter had not taken
sufficient time (in her opinion) to answer her specific questions regarding
problems related to her son She was not
appeased by the presenters explanation that he could not answer such detailed
questions in the context of a workshop.
Her letter revealed that it was she, and not her son, who
was the real object of her angst. It was apparent, from the beginning, that the
true object of her missive was not to communicate a grievance, but to
demonstrate her own compositional prowess.
She subscribed to the doctrine that it is always preferable
to use many obscure words when one will serve. It was obvious that she had
resorted to the thesaurus at nearly every point in her composition with the
result that her complaint was lost in a fog of vocabulary.
In honor of this hapless scribe, I have penned the ditty
above.
