PlazaJen: Passion Knit

Friday, June 23, 2006

When You Start Butchering The English Language, The Gloves Come Off.

I attended a big to-do industry banquet last night, mostly because one of my co-workers was up for an award, and our agency was nominated for "agency of the year". (We didn't win.) They had a couple of local talking heads as the masters of ceremonies, and boy-oh-boy, you just have to be able to read off a card to make it in the world of TV. And these two? Not making it.

There were two grammatical flubs that I seized like an otter on trout. The first was when the smiley-chick pronounced "Czar" - and after two stuttering tries, settled on "Cesar" but more like seeZAHR and I announced to our table if we won the agency award, I was going to proclaim I felt like the seeZAHR-ina of media. (At the last agency, I was dubbed the Czarina of ProBono. And we said it right.)

Then, another woman was painfully trying to simultaneously understand and pronounce "mimeograph", and this, dear friends, is why you REHEARSE if you've been given a script. So she went with MIME-o-graph, as in Marcel Marceaux pantomimes a document for you, 16 times. I, of course, immediately began my own miming at the table. Hey, I was sandwiched between the non-stop laughing of Kristin and my boss who is afflicted with ADD. He kept muttering and snarking, until finally I strongly advised him to "GO INSIDE." (as in, yourself. That's what I do, anyway, when faced with long speeches or painfully forced banter and I can't escape.)

That or I just get uber-snarky. Like when my boss said, "Hey! Check out the tat(too) on (name of person who f'n hates me)!" And I replied, "Yeah. I think she got it in prison." (Thanks to Kristin for remembering that one.)
posted by PlazaJen, 9:05 AM
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