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Archiver > ABOUT-WORDS > 2003-04 > 1050067947


From: Lee Quinn <>
Subject: More language complaints
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:32:27 -0400


We live in a village where, on Tuesdays and Fridays, they pick up the
garbage. This morning it was raining and quite windy and I told my wife if
we put the garbage out (Make that if "I" put the garbage out) it might blow
away.
She told me it was OK -- she had put a lot of heavy magazines in the
grabage so iy wouldn't blow away.
What are light magazines?

Here's another mess I got into. I my morning crossword puzzle, we had the
word TOOTSY. When I looked it up in my RHUD, it gave me: tootsy Slang. a
foot. [1850–55; appar. expressive var. of FOOTSY]. When I went to FOOTSY,
it wasn't there!
Then, I googled TOOTSY and found, among the 2,124 hits, a travel agent
called Tootsy Tours, a guy who makes Tootsy racing gears for bicycles, and
a painting called TOOTSY'S bar. At the end, Google asked me if I meant TOOTSIE.
When I dictionaried TOOTSIE, I found: tootsie(1), n. Slang. a sweetheart;
darling; a prostitute. [1900–05; of uncert. orig.] And tootsie(2) n. Slang.
tootsy.
So, back to Google. Here (among 783,000 hits) it started with tootsie.com,
the home of the Tootsie Roll. When I added "a girl's name Tootsie," I found
the answer to all my troubles.
This was an item googled up:

Talking Owl Arrested by Jason Roth

Mr. Owl, well-known for his work in television, was arraigned yesterday
afternoon on charges of lollipop theft.

Mr. Owl allegedly took the lollipop from a little girl after she asked him
"How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?"
But according to police reports, the girl never authorized Mr. Owl to
perform such experimentation on HER lollipop.

The little girl's lawyers allege that Mr. Owl chomped down on the Pop after
only three licks, severely undermining the credibility of the "experiment"
defense. The girl's name has not yet been released due to her age and the
violent nature of the crime.

According to a statement from Mr. Owl's lawyers, the feathers at the scene
of the crime, the lollipop stains on Mr. Owl's wings, and the suicide note
found in Mr. Owl's nest were all fabrications by LA County police to frame
Mr. Owl for a crime he didn't commit.

"This is a blatant act of speciesm," Mr. Owl's lawyers said today.

Some experts are accusing Mr. Owl's lawyers of playing the species card.
Such cards were popular in the 1980s, and contained many interesting facts
about each animal. According to some critics, "You'll receive new cards
each month, and you can cancel at any time."

It's not been a good month for the Owl family. Mr. Owl's cousin Hooty was
arrested earlier this month for toxic waste dumping, and his nephew Hedwig
is currently being held on $2,000,000 bail for mail fraud and for competing
directly with the U.S. Postal Service.

It looks like some birds ARE meant to be caged.

GrampsQ, on a dark, dull, rainy morning -- seeking light in the recesses of
my computer.
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